Museums in Rome are among the oldest and most famous in the world, prized for their outstanding collections, collecting histories, and architecture. Together, they present a full range of western European museum history in one of the most consequential of historic cities. Roman museums begin with 15th century papal gifts of ancient bronze statues to the Capitoline Hill and progress to world-class Baroque-era private collections, the labyrinthine Vatican museums, national museums of world civilizations, modernism, and antiquities and an “archistar” institution for contemporary art, bringing the Eternal City’s cultural life up to the present moment.
The 21st century is a particularly engaging moment to study the history of museums. Due to pressing concerns of new ways to make old art accessible, global art, decolonization and the social and political responsibilities of culture, museums are undergoing great periods of self-reflection. This KNIR dialogue series proposes a set of public lectures and conversations with current museum directors in Rome that are particularly engaged in institutional introspection. In this way, audiences can learn more about the legacies that Roman museums choose to reflect on today and the challenges and solutions for reinterpreting the past in the present and for the future.
This second Dialogue will be moderated by our Museum Fellow, Dr. Laurie Kalb Cosmo.
About Francesco Stocchi, Artistic Director of MAXXI
Francesco Stocchi (Rome, 1975) is the Artistic Director of the Maxxi. He was curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum from 2012 to 2022. He is director of Foglio Arte, the supplement of the newspaper Il Foglio. In 2021 he co-curated the 34th edition of the São Paulo Biennale and in 2022 he was curator in charge of the Swiss Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale. He has published numerous exhibition catalogues and artist monographs, teaches, writes and lectures regularly on art and visual culture.
The third Dialogue of this series, with dott.ssa Francesca Cappelletti, director of the Galleria Borghese, will be on 22 November 2024.
The Museum Directors Dialogues are events in person and live streamed.
