Courtesy of the MAXXI Museum
On May 30th, Italy's first museum of contemporary Art will be open to the public.MAXXI was created by the Ministry of National Heritage and Culture and will be directed by Anna Mattirolo. Whitewall asked Ms. Mattirolo a few questions to find out more about the museums purpose, projects, and artists who will be participating in the opening ceremony.
WHITEWALL: MAXXI is the first national Italian museum devoted to contemporary art. What does this opening mean for Italy’s contemporary art scene? Why has it taken so long?
ANNA MATTIROLO: MAXXI intends both to place contemporary Italian art in an international context and to explore, research and exhibit the artistic production of our time. We hope that the museum will become a tool that enables our audiences to become protagonist in the production of culture.
WW: Could you describe the architecture of the museum, how was it designed in correspondence with the art it will feature?
AM: The building is itself both dynamic and innovative, and certainly requires a program capable to respond to this extraordinary stimulus. In fact the building can be said to represent accurately the conditions of production of today’s world. The challenge is to imagine how the program implicit in the building could be mapped upon the fields of art, performance and new media.
WW: What do you want the public to walk away with after visiting MAXXI?
AM: We want the visitors to have an experience of art that is enriching, specific and particular. The opposite in fact of seeing art in the context of a white cube. We want to produce a relation between the spectator and the work of art that is singular in the sense of localized and unique.
WW: How long did it take to get the Museum to life - how many years were spent on the planning?
AM: The building was started in 2003 and the project was finalized after seven years.
WW: Gino De Dominicis is participating in “The Immortal,” being a key point of reference to the younger generations, how was the process of getting him involved in the inauguration? What can people expect from his installation, which will be basically be an autobiography of his work?
AM: MAXXI is a museum of contemporary art, which means that it is a museum of the living arts. Its point of departure is today. But it is not restricted to the art of the last ten years, it takes contemporary art as its tool to understand the present and thus to explore the past. Indeed the work of Gino De Dominicis is extremely influential for contemporary Italian artists today while still relatively unknown outside the country, and that is the reason why we are presenting at the opening of MAXXI the most comprehensive exhibition of his work yet. It is through the eyes of today that we understand the enormous relevance of his art.
The exhibition is not arranged chronologically but thematically in correspondence to the way with which De Dominicis conceived his work. The viewer will then become immersed in the timeless logic of Gino’s practice.
WW: Most of the artists who will participate in the inauguration are Italian, why was a Turkish artist (Kutlug Ataman) included in the installation?
AM: There will be indeed a large number of Italian artists in the opening exhibitions, but the presentation of the collection entitled SPAZIO will also include many artist of different nationalities and diverse backgrounds. MAXXI understands contemporary art as an ongoing conversation in which many languages and voices participate. Special relevance to us have the practices created outside the frame of canonical art history. A special attention will be given to the work of women artists and to that of practitioners who live outside Europe and the United States. Kutlug Ataman’s Mesopotamian Dramaturgies both questions and explores the ways in which modernity is interpreted and enacted outside the West.