Open for everyone the Maxxi in Rome
National Museum of XXI art,. 4 exhibitions
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Validity: 30th May 2010
The Eternal City is better known for its ancient ruins and ornate frescoes than for contemporary art, but it's spending about $188 million in an attempt to catch up.
The art world will descend on Rome for the opening of its National Museum of 21st Century Arts, better known as the Maxxi, an institution designed by Zaha Hadid to be Italy's first state museum for contemporary art and architecture.
The coiled, concrete building is only half the size of New York's Museum of Modern Art, but it represents arguably the most important project completed by Ms. Hadid since she won the Pritzker Prize six years ago. And since the recession has compelled other museums to pare down, next Friday's opening party for the Maxxi is turning into the major event of the art season.
More than 5,000 people are expected to come by, including Sophia Loren, luxury-goods executive Bernard Arnault, designer Miuccia Prada, artist Giuseppe Penone and members of some of Rome's oldest families, like the Borgheses and the Aldobrandinis.
The museum, which opens to the public May 30, sits like a pile of giant, gray garden hoses curving around an L-shaped plot in the city's northern neighborhood of Flaminio. Inside, black staircases rise from the cavernous white lobby like a drawing by M.C. Escher. Only a few people have been invited to wander through the empty building since construction finished last fall. Now, public scrutiny has shifted from the merits of the Maxxi's building to the question of what to display within it.
Contacts and Useful Info:
to get more information go to the maxxi.it
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