National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art — Attraction in Rome

The curator does a grave disservice to us all by depriving us of any explanation of the context of works. She has contempt for us, as if we are beneath educating. As a 39 year old, I came to the museum wanting to better understand Italian modern art after an illuminating experience at the Pitti Palace earlier this month. It is even more infuriating that with me were a group of young people - Portuguese scouts - who were also deprived of what could have been a wonderful educative afternoon.

The thinking that art should be appreciated solely on the basis of what emotion colours and forms provoke in us as an individual treats us all as babies. It is fundamental to our humanity that we share history and culture and artists reflect that in thought-provoking ways. It is not as though Italy's history from the Risorgimento, to the rise of the workers movement, fascism and war is an interesting side note. It was reflected in art even when the subject matter was personal.

I understand from other reviews that the museum has a serious Canova collection and many, many other very significant works. Is it worse to hide them away or to display them without any explanation? I don't know. Many important and moving sculptural sketches by Bugatti and others were thrown together on a table with just nametags attached, like trinkets in a tourist souvenir shop. Which reflects what this museum feels like: a wealthy collector's display of things they've bought, thrown together to serve as meaningless decoration, with no care for any greater social significance. For a public museum to display its collection like this is disturbing.

It is both rank elitism to deprive people who want to learn from being able to do so and an anti-intellectualism to think that emotion is a sufficient engagement with art. Only those who are very in-the-know will be able to appreciate the works, as the museum refuses to help you. If you don't already have a deep knowledge, you will only learn about the whims of the museum directors. If they want to engage in edgy artistic subversion by recombining old works in incoherent ways, they should become a pop artist rather than ruining a museum and depriving us of the ability to see and appreciate an important collection.

The curators may think their approach is forward-thinking and critical, but in fact it totally disempowers both audience and artists, and makes the director the only person you learn about. Meanwhile, huge works of fascist propaganda (like Sironi's "Builder") are displayed totally decontextualised, except for being in a room of paintings on the theme of ... bricks!

I hope to return one day to an open collection with good explanations but those of us that care should expect that it might take a mob storming it to liberate the art to be on display for us all.

Update: returned to Rome 2025. Will always return to gnam bc their collection is excellent and I live in hope that one day I will see it and it is explained what I am looking at. New curator although appointed by the fascist government I didn’t think could do worse than last one.

I was excited to see the exhibition of the futurists. I know their explicit fascist affiliation and saw it as no coincidence it was the chosen exhibition but I still wanted to see and understand the body of work. The breadth of work was excellent. It is unforgivable however that the only reference to their ties to Mussolini was late in the exhibition when it was noted they were buried after WW2 bc of their ties to fascism by that point unpopular. It was presented as though they were persecuted. The exhibition had many quotes from the artists but none of them glorifying fascism or war. These were true culture warriors as we would say today but to scrub that from their legacy is highly distorting, but typical of modern fascists who deny what they are.

So for now, the art, history and context is still held prisoner by the management of this institution, even tho the new management probably disavows...

Let's start what will generally be a favorable review with a petty criticism: The front stairs of this museum are way too sunny!

If one is approaching this museum in the way I firmly believe one should, one will be descending from out of the Borghese Park. It is a long way down a lovely, but mostly decrepit and shadeless, set of weed and garbage fields, crumbling marble staircases, and occasional dead fountains and obscure parking lots. At the bottom of that hill is one of those 20 lane Roman Roads that are ever roaring with muffler free traffic. After one manages to cross that insane breadth of roadway one finally meets up with the white stairs up to The Modern Museum.

These are the stairs I'm complaining about. Nowhere in all of this is any shade. There are 619 stairs up to the museum. I speak as a person who visited in early fall. Imagine it in the Summer!

I am not here to provide a solution. I am just here to tear beautiful things down on the Internet. I will say though that if Rome would just do something about its SUN maybe everyone who goes there in the Summer wouldn't hate it so.

I don't want anyone to hate Rome. It's so wonderful.

However, once one has made it up the stairs I have no real complaints. The Roman Modern is a big place full of interesting art. It is not the sort of museum one should go to to see all one's favorite modern artists, rather it is a place to see a lot of very good and interesting art from all over the 20th Century. Yes, one will occasionally come upon work by people one knows, but mostly one won't. And if one is prepared for this one won't mind too much because there is a good high standard in this collection.

It is housed in a hundred or so year old building, which by Roman standard of course is hilariously modern, but it sure doesn't look it. It's a big place and very comfortable to roam around in. In the general crush of Rome and all its staggering sights, this one is a pleasurable and low key relief of quiet and space. I also love its cafe, though, curiously one has to leave and go around to it from the outside for some strange reason. The museum store isn't great, but it's interesting enough, and yes, I'm afraid it costs some money. I almost gave the Modern five stars, but that just seems perverse against what all else is in Rome, plus there are the stairs.

In conclusion I would like to relate a mostly irrelevant story. Early in our trip to Rome my wife and I went to this museum and though the building and lobby were open, the museum was undergoing, um, some paintings being moved around or something. We asked when it would open again and they gave a date that was more than two weeks hence! So we said "Okay, we'll see you then." Because we were in Rome for a month!

It was wonderful.

Please...

We had walked all over the Villa Borghese gardens because each of the buildings needed tickets which we had not bought in advance. And they were all sold out :-(

So we trudged over to the National Gallery as there were tickets still available on their app. Though when we got there, there really wasn't any crowd at all.

We had a quick lunch at the cafe in the Gallery then went in via the back door from the cafe, straight into the exhibits. The place is actually quite small (given all the other museums in Italy) with one main level with a bunch of halls and two upstairs salons with (I think) special exhibitions.

I enjoyed my time there, but I think there was a bit of over promise on their website. A couple of Jackson Pollock, a few Marcel Duchamp, but missing the other known names that were mentioned on their website. At the same time, I've seen so much of Pollock and Duchamp that I was much more interested in the other artists, especially ones new to me.

Overall, a nice place to spend a couple of hours but not a gallery I would recommend going out of the way to visit, or if you had bought tickets to the more...