Rome’s Maxxi is open at last

Zaha Hadid’s Maxxi in Rome: a ‘sculpture in its own right’?

There were times when we thought we’d never get here,” admits Anna Mattirolo, the director of the art programme at Maxxi, Italy’s first national museum of contemporary art and architecture, which opens in Rome this weekend.

The inauguration is the centrepiece of a festival of contemporary events in the city, which includes the unveiling of the new wing of the municipal contemporary art museum, Macro, by the French architect Odile Decq, and the Road to Contemporary Art, a selling fair now in its third year taking place at Macro’s other exhibition space, Macro Future.

For residents of the city of Bernini and Michelangelo, this flurry of contemporary activity is being greeted enthusiastically, and Maxxi’s opening represents a triumph of hope over adversity. Commissioned from Zaha Hadid in 1999, the museum was slated to open in 2006 but its €150m construction was continually interrupted by lack of funds. Finally completed in autumn 2009, the building, a flowing cascade of cement, glass and steel, was hailed as an architectural masterpiece. Yet controversy is still swirling. There has been criticism that the collection lacks depth while the decision to open with a retrospective of Gino De Dominicis, an Italian artist who died in 1998, has led to accusations that the museum is shy of embracing its contemporary mandate.

There are also financial issues to be resolved. Since Hadid’s commission, Italy’s cultural budget has dropped from €2.1bn to €1.72bn and is forecast to drop by a further €600m over the next two years. Consequently, Maxxi’s annual budget is pared down to €10m-12m a year, of which the ministry of culture has promised to furnish €4m-5m. Maxxi’s president, Pio Baldi, estimates that a further €2.5m-€3m will come in from the restaurant, which won’t open until the autumn, the bookshop, events rental and ticket sales.

To facilitate the private contributions that will be also be essential, Maxxi is now controlled by an eponymous foundation. Nevertheless, sponsorship is hard to come by. According to Baldi, the fashion house Fendi is keen to make “a significant contribution” although he won’t be drawn on a figure. Other possible sources are the electricity distributor Terna, Italian Telecom and BMW.

Such straitened circumstances demand that the museum manage with just 25 full-time staff. The lack of funds has also restrained acquisitions. Although there are works by artists such as Anish Kapoor and William Kentridge, there is a prevalence of younger, less famous names such as Lara Favaretto, Grazia Toderi and the Albanian-born, Milan-based Adrian Paci. Yet in a country where young contemporary artists struggle for recognition, the presence of so much young talent can only be positive.

“What people must accept is that our collection began just five years ago in a desperate economic climate,” claims Mattirolo, pointing out that she has access to the collection of the nearby National Gallery of Modern Art as well as loans from other Italian museums. “Obviously, we hope that it will grow.”

It is unfair to compare Maxxi too closely with its peers in London and Paris. So mighty is the city’s historic patrimony, the contemporary scene has been neglected for decades. “Maxxi has arrived very late, so it must cover many years when the state took no responsibility for the contemporary,” explains Mattirolo.

Maxxi’s annual visitor forecasts appear comparatively low (between 250,000 and 500,000; Tate Modern welcomed 5m in its first year), but that is a measure of the wealth of other cultural attractions in Rome. Maxxi must also overcome Italy’s ingrained regionalism. “I think Romans are proud of Maxxi,” observes Lorcan O’Neill, one of Rome’s leading commercial gallerists`. “But I’m not sure that Venetians, Torinese and Palermitani are even aware of it.”

The directors are determined that the museum’s reputation will not depend solely on its exhibition programme. Maxxi architecture, for example, houses archives of Italy’s leading modernists, such as Carlo Scarpa and Pier Luigi Nervi. Research, education and publishing projects are under way and the education department has an active outreach programme.

This weekend, however, the spotlight will be on the shows themselves. Highlights of a preview glimpse include a monograph of the architect Luigi Moretti, who designed Washington’s Watergate complex, beautifully elucidated in a serpentine of vast photographs that mimicked the gallery’s curves. Although in future the disciplines will have separate shows, the main inaugural exhibition, Spazio, mixes works from the permanent art collection and installations by 10 architectural studios. “We thought it would be interesting to have that confrontation because we want our museum to be emotive rather than purely didactic,” says Margherita Guccione, director of Maxxi architecture.

Beautifully showcased by the sloping top-floor gallery whose glass wall is dramatically cantilevered over the piazza, the hieratic faces in the late De Dominicis’ retrospective cast such a lyrical spell it is hard to criticise their presence. Nevertheless, it seems a missed opportunity for one of Italy’s many talented living artists.

When the empty museum threw open its doors last November, the biggest doubt was whether a building which was a sculpture in its own right would eclipse the art it was designed to display. The real danger, however, may be that Maxxi’s artworks will be treated with undue reverence. Temporary structures – niches, rotundas, screens – instil a rhythm crucial to galleries otherwise defined by their extreme fluidity, but at times such shrine-like presentation runs counter to the witty, anti-monumental sensibility of a film such as “Preparing the Flute” by William Kentridge or “Democrazy” by Francesco Vezzoli.

Maxxi’s directors should remember that behind the success of museums such as Tate Modern and the Guggenheim Bilbao lies an awareness that the power of much contemporary art resides in its playful transience. These 21st-century museums are playgrounds as much as temples, places to chill as well as worship; Maxxi may need to take risks that run counter to the conservativism that so often strangles the potential of Italy’s rich culture.

A case in point is the recent appointment by the minister of culture, Sandro Bondi, of Vittorio Sgarbi as both the commissioner of the Italian Pavilion at the Venice 2011 Biennale and as a consultant on all Italian state museum acquisitions. Sgarbi, who has described Maxxi’s acquisition policy as “deprived of originality”, is primarily an expert on the Renaissance; his position of influence on the contemporary scene undermines the museum’s nascent authority. In particular, it compromises what should be a fruitful rapport between Maxxi and Italy’s Biennale pavilion.

Knowing Italy, it’s unlikely these Machiavellian power games will resolve themselves quickly. Meanwhile, Maxxi should open its restaurant as soon as possible – and consider buying a Jeff Koons puppy.

www.maxxi.beniculturali.it