The Stolen Paradise trilogy exhibits at MAXXI Museum
On 5 May 2017, Italian president Sergio Mattarella visited Rome’s MAXXI National Museum of Contemporay Art for the opening of the new exhibition ‘The Place To Be‘, a display of the museum’s existing and newly acquired permanent collection with an extended exhibition space. West 8’s ‘The Stolen Paradise‘ is proud to reappear after its first time display in 2010, together with a complementary new piece: ‘Eve‘, they form a trilogy of our lost paradise concept in this new exhibition. Representing West 8, our Italian Project Leader of this artwork, Giulia Frittoli presented at the opening to explain the poetic notion to the president and the public.
The national museum of the 21st-century arts MAXXI has undergone a “Re-Evolution” with a motto “more open, more digital and more welcoming”, acclaims by MAXXI Museum Director Giovanna Melandri who welcomed president Mattarella together with Italian Minister of Culture Dario Franceschini and Lazio Governor Nicola Zingaretti. From this date on, MAXXI Museum with its whole ground floor and new services will be free of charge for the public. This project has been strongly supported by the Museum Director Giovanna Melandri, the Board of Directors, the Artistic Director Hou Hanru and the directors of MAXXI Architettura and MAXXI Arte, Margherita Guccione and Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, curators of The Place to Be.
The extended exhibition space forms a path that starts from the square and extends indoors, seamlessly throughout the ground floor and partly on the first floor with large installations, works exhibited for the first time, masterpieces of masters of our time, temporary focus and In-depth tutorials dedicated to collecting artists.
West 8’s interactive installation The Stolen Paradise situated among the 60 works of art, architecture and photography displayed at the ground floor, with works from the 60’s through to the most recent period, dialogue amongst themselves and with the sinuous spaces of Zaha Hadid’s museum architecture. West 8’s new piece Eve and the suspended textile forest welcome visitors at the entrance of Gallery 1 and guide them towards the monumental wall painting by Sol Lewitt. Other works in display are by Carl Andre, Vincenzo Agnetti, Tomas Saraceno, Mario Merz, Kara Walker, Gilbert & George, Gianfranco Baruchello, Letizia Battaglia, Elisabetta Catalano and William Kentridge. Architectural artworks collection featuring works, among others, by Dominique Perrault, Álvaro Siza, Sergio Musmeci, Pier Luigi Nervi and Giuseppe Perugini are located at Gallery 2.
“With this project we are crossing the finishing line of the marathon we started years ago“, says Giovanna Melandri. “We want to continuously enrich the museum’s free cultural offer and we are doing so by focusing on the permanent collection, the identifying heart of the museum and public resource are now open free of charge from Tuesday to Friday… This is the ‘Re-Evolution’ of a great cultural institution, a laboratory for the future and memory of the contemporary.”
The opening of The Place To Be has been very successful. More than 7000 guests attended to discover the new set up of the exhibition space throughout the opening evening.
