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The Arengario in Mllan turned into a positive initiative. Overlooking the "Piazza", the Duomo, Palazzo Reale and much more. To those who are wondering about the question mark, read on.

As someone who has lived in Milan since the beginning of the 80s, the first reaction to the sudden appearance of the Novecento Museum was: "I've always wondered what that building was for". Set right in Piazza Duomo, the Palazzo dell'Arengario (where the Museum now resides), has for long been a mystery, one couldn't help but wonder why the tourist information office was there, or why no one had ever thought of polishing its outside walls. The second reaction for a Milanese habitué: "I had completely forgotten about it". Of course in a city in which beauty, fashion, and life go hand in hand, it is easier to try to forget ugly things. The dismay and the half-hope in reading about the Museum's opening, (free entrance until the end of February 2011), could only create even more mixed feelings. Fighting between the hopes of having something to show to our foreign friends, and the hidden knowledge of Milan's disappointing moments, one at least confided in the art work. 

It came as a surprise, the first moment of critical awareness followed by negative expectations, ready to compare Milan's Novecento Museum with the rest of the world. The smart thing was not to compete. The collection is about the Italian Novecento, 20th Century, its artists, its movements, so much that if one could raise a comment it would be: "Please, there is no need for a Picasso, unless it's at least one of his major works".  The painting that is there to welcome you and introduce the logic of the collection is Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo's "Il Quarto Stato" (The Fourth Estate), controversial for its time, putting the emphasis on the masses and therefore not understood by the critics. (Visible also as the leitmotiv of the Museum's website)

Perhaps the tone of the Museum is just that: to tell the story of Italian Art in the 20th Century. Artists that are less well-known compared to a Picasso or a Kandinsky, but influential nonetheless and important in answering a few questions about the evolution of Italian Art. Giorgio Morandi, Lucio Fontana, Marino Marini, Giorgio de Chirico, are some of the names you probably remember from your art history books, Milan is now calling you to see their work in context at Novecento with 350 works that will comprise the permanent collection selected by a scientific committee. A project that has transformed the old Palace with the Gruppo Rota and their industrious planning in re-building the Palace's identity as a walk yard that climbs up and gives at times more space to the exterior, the city of Milan, capturing your attention to the outside through the architectural planning, the long twirling corridors, and the big, at times unexpected glass windows. If the 20th Century was a ground-breaking one in terms of explaining what "future" means, the Museum's structure is an explanation of what Milan wants to be in the future: seen. 

 

Text by Acelya Yonac 

Sources: Museo del Novecento 

TAGS: dolce&gabbana dolce & gabbana milan milano museum museums milan guide milan museum museo del novecento palazzo dell arengario 20th century art art art work painting paintings picasso giuseppe pellizza de chirico morandi marini lucio fontana art book art history city of milan permanent collection kandinsky