Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Seventy temporary exhibitions created, 405 thousand followers on social media, 871 works donated to the Museum, 402 masterpieces from the collection that have toured the world for exhibitions

Milan, 4 December 2020 – On 6 December 2010 the Museo del Novecento opened its doors to the public: an enthusiastic crowd paraded through the rooms admiring the 400 masterpieces on display. For months, long queues of visitors have formed outside its doors in via Marconi to discover this new collective heritage. In these ten years the view over Piazza del Duomo, with the luminous Neon design by Lucio Fontana, has become an international icon.  
Over 4 million visitors have visited the museum spaces, visited the temporary exhibitions and participated in concerts, conferences, book presentations and events; 70 exhibitions held in its rooms, 871 works donated to the Museum by artists and collectors, 405 thousand followers on social media, 402 masterpieces from the collection that have toured the world for exhibitions, 243.230 children who participated in workshops and visits of EDU900, over 250 thousand visits a year on the Museum website, countless selfies taken under the Neon of Fontana.

“In ten years, the Museo del Novecento has become not only a point of reference for citizens and tourists visiting our city, but also a courageous and independent research center on the history of art of the last century, as well as an icon of Artistic and cultural Milan is now established throughout the world – declared the Councilor for Culture Filippo Del Corno –. As it should be, because the history of Italian art of the 20th century was an international phenomenon, which was often avant-garde for artists and movements who then established themselves throughout the world, and the knowledge of its collection, which accompanies the visitor on a journey that goes from the historical avant-gardes to the 1980s is a fundamental piece in the formation of conscious critical thinking, in Italy and beyond".

2020, in addition to being the year of the centenary of the acquisition of Pellizza da Volpedo in the civic collections of the Quarto Stato which opens the itinerary of the 900th century collections, marks an important stage in the reorganization of the exhibition itinerary. The “Nuovi Percorsi” project, curated by the Museum directed by Anna Maria Montaldo together with the Scientific Committee, proposes a new reading of the collections, thematic as well as chronological. To the section inaugurated in 2019, dedicated to the second half of the century, with an extension of the story up to the beginning of the Eighties, there are now added the renovated rooms with masterpieces from the Twenties to the Fifties, which can be visited as soon as health emergency will allow the reopening. The project will be completed by the end of 2021 involving the exhibition spaces that host Futurism. On display, in addition to precious works previously kept in storage, new loans and donations. The collection already made up of over four thousand works has been enriched in recent years by more than 800 acquisitions, a testimony to the constant affection of artists and collectors.

On Sunday 6 December the Museo del Novecento therefore turns 10 years old: while waiting to be able to celebrate with the public in the renovated exhibition rooms, the journey into the "short century" moves online with digital projects which, from the first week of December and throughout 2021, offer insights into the world of art, musical incursions and projects open to the city.
The Museum's website, renewed in 2015, records over 250 thousand visits per year, with an increase of 12,8% in 2020, while the social channels have gained 405 thousand followers. On the occasion of the birthday, a series of keynote lectures #Raccontidel900 will be live streamed on the Museum website, which will see art historians and critics present the work of some of the most important artists in the collection.
On 9 December, at 18.30 pm, the first Art Talk, in which Maria Grazia Messina, art historian and co-curator of the exhibition “Carla Accardi. Contexts”, says Carla Accardi. They will follow, again at 18.30 pm, on December 16th “Art Talk 02. Antonello Negri talks about Lucio Fontana”; 13 January “Art Talk 03. Flavio Fergonzi talks about Giorgio Morandi”; 20 January “Art Talk 04. Bruno Corà talks about Alberto Burri”. Furthermore, important testimonials have decided to celebrate the Museum's birthday by describing their favorite work on its social channels: from Linus to Ester Viola, from Fabio Novembre to Italo Rota, from Oriella Dorella to Cristiana Capotondi.

A video created for the anniversary, with interventions by the Mayor Giuseppe Sala, the Councilor for Culture Filippo Del Corno and the Director of the Museum of the Twentieth Century Anna Maria Montaldo, which will be published on Sunday 6th on the Museum's website, commemorates the first 10 years of Museum and its intense activity always supported by our main sponsor. In the program of the celebrations, particular attention is dedicated to the little ones. The KITEDU900 digital kit, created in collaboration with STEMintheCity and Studio Susanna Legrenzi, downloadable for free from our website, allows you to discover our museum and ten of its masterpieces thanks to child-friendly animations and narrations.