ROME.- Libera e permanente (Free and Permanent). Starting on Saturday, October 10, on the occasion of the XI Giornata del Contemporaneo organized by AMACI (Associazione Musei d’Arte Contemporanea Italiani), MAXXI’s permanent collection will always be on view, in Gallery 4 on the upper floor, with free admission for all from Tuesday to Friday , thanks in part to Enel’s contribution (free admission also on Saturday, October 10).

“In recent years we have committed ourselves to enriching the museum’s free cultural offering, convinced that access to culture is a right shared by everyone”, says Giovanna Melandri, President of the Fondazione MAXXI.“Free opening of the collection is an important goal for us, one that brings us ever closer to the policies of the great international institutions. Moreover, dedicating space in the museum to the permanent exhibition of the collection has been a strategic objective of the Board of Directors from the outset.At the heart of every great museum is its collection and over the last few years we have made great efforts to enrich our own.Through acquisitions and direct commissions and, above all, thanks to the generosity of artists and architects, collectors, gallerists and the Friends of MAXXI, over the last two years over 30 new works and a number of projects and archives have been added to the art and architecture collections.Now we want to offer it free to everyone from Tuesday to Friday.”

“In such complicated times, the value of the donations received from artists, architects, and collectors, reveals the artistic community’s great faith in MAXXI – says Hou Hanru Artistic Director of MAXXI. – Their generosity is immense, and we hope that it will further encourage public and private supporters to continue to join forces and support this young but significant institution”.

The works in the collection will be exhibited on a rotating basis, starting from this new installation - curated by Margherita Guccione, Director of MAXXI Architettura and Anna Mattirolo Director of MAXXI Arte - with over 30 artworks (paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs) and 21 architecture projects (drawings, models, photographs, documents that tell the story behind each of the projects). The collection is exhibited so that it includes the works of some of the greatest masters of the twentieth century alongside those of younger artists and architects, some of whom are being shown for the first time ever (for art Flavio Favelli, Margherita Moscardini, Pietro Ruffo, Giorgio Andreotta Calò,Tony Cragg; for architecture Renzo Piano and MoDus architects).

“MAXXI’s permanent art and architecture collection, which was begun in the 2000s, had grown in parallel with the museum’s exhibition activity, thanks to commissions, donations, long-term loans, and acquisitions – say Margherita Guccione and Anna Mattirolo – and precisely owing to the intrinsic relationship between the collection, research, and the exhibitions, they represent one of MAXXI’s strongest and most relevant points in terms of identity. The museum collection is a common good to be shared with as vast a public as possible”.

The exhibition is organized according to five theme-based sections: Geometry Abstraction; Volume Synthesis; Layers Fragments; Body Proportion; Interior Exterior.

It includes works such as the impressive Senza Titolo (Triplo Igloo) by Mario Merz which converses with the geometries of Studi per una città compatta by Franco Purini, the abstract watercolors of Lauretta Vinciarelli donated by the artist’s family, and the gold of Senza Titolo by Gino De Dominicis (Geometry Abstraction section); the project by Renzo Piano for the Auditorium Parco della Musica (donated to MAXXI by the architect himself), the recently acquired Istanbul City Hills by the young artist Margherita Moscardini, the sculptural geometries Blood Sugar by Tony Cragg, and the refined composition Aula per le udienze pontificie by Pier Luigi Nervi (Volume Synthesis section); the immersive and stratified painting of Dive into Criticism by Mark Bradford (a large canvas donated to the museum by Pilar Crespi and Stephen Robert), and La terza camera, an intimate and surprising installation by Flavio Favelli, the project by Rem Koolhaas for the MAXXI tender, Sternenfall by Anselm Kiefer, and Negozio Olivetti by Carlo Scarpa (Layers Fragments section).

Also: the project for Foro Italico by Enrico Del Debbio and the monumental images of Prima che sia notte by Giorgio Andreotta Calò, the winner of Premio MAXXI 2012, the project for the Stazione Tiburtina by ABDR, the industrial panoramas of Thomas Ruff, a work for the city by Gerard Richter, and Icosaedro by Pietro Ruffo donated to MAXXI by the Associazione NBG Onlus (Interior Exterior section); the sculptures Tre per Tre by Giulio Paolini and Luzzara Casa Argine Po by Luigi Ghirri, part of a group of six photographs donated to the museum by Amici del MAXXI, the two large canvases by Alighiero Boetti Orme I and Orme II (Body Proportion section).

This dynamic and immersive installation creates a conversation between the works themselves, between the works and the flowing spaces designed by Zaha Hadid, and between the works and the public. Thanks to shelves and panels suspended from the ceiling and the creation of a grid of new spaces and volumes, the public will be able to emotionally and actively participate in and experience the work of art from every angle. New routes of meaning will offer viewers a further key to interpretation, beyond the specific meaning of the work, in favor of a different understanding of what it means to make art and architecture.

The exhibition will also be the occasion to present the volume MAXXI Architettura. Catalogo delle Collezioni published by Quodlibet. Divided into two lengthy sections (the 20th century collection, which bears witness to the culture of Italian architects and engineers in that period, and the 21st century collection, which document the more recent output and research, internationally speaking as well), for the first time ever the book presents a complete and chronological view of the archives and works collected from 2002 to the present time.

The themes dealt with in the exhibition sections are also closely related to the ones that will be debated on December 11-12 at an international study meeting entitled Il silenzio delle immagini. Teorie e processi dell’invenzione artistica, to be hosted by MAXXI. The meeting, curated by Claudia Cieri Via, planned by Sapienza Università di Roma, realized jointly by MAXXI and the Vatican Museums, in collaboration with the Kunsthistorisches Institute in Florence, and sponsored by the Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art (CIHA), offers a reflection on art and the image in its essential, primary elements, a subject that has fueled the theoretical and critical debate on art history; from the theories of Leon Battista Alberti, to the transformations and upheavals in artistic genres and languages in the following centuries, up until the most recent research carried out by contemporary artists.