The museum is the brainchild of the entrepreneur and contemporary art collector Giulio Bargellini, who in 2000 decided to open a space where he could share his passions with the general public. The museum displays over 2,000 works of contemporary art distributed throughout 9,000 square metres and it is housed in a singular building – a barn silo of the 1930s. Thanks to a project of the architect Giuseppe Davanzo, the silo was converted into a museum, to which two new exhibition spaces and a big garden dedicated to sculpture were added later on.
The Collection
The vast, diverse and high-quality collection takes visitors on a surprising journey through the Italian and international art of the last century. His eclectic taste and the friendships that the founder built with the artists, his passions and intuitions and a constant expositive and proactive activity brought to the constitution of a wide permanent collection, which includes many movements: from the Belle Époque to the most recent tendecies, from the lively futuristic colours to the metaphysical bronze sculptures by Giorgio de Chirico, from the Maestri Storici del Novecento to the avant-garde of the 1960s and 1970s, from hundreds of miniature paintings of the Collezione Minima 8x10, once belonged to Cesare Zavattini, to the production of African and Sudamerican artists. The Museo MAGI ‘900 hosts numerous well-known and historicized artists as well as less-known ones, whose professionality and originality is praised, in an exhibition space separated into thematic sections, which makes it stand out from the common contemporary museum environment. Among the artists whose works appear in the museum are: The visit winds through shapes, materials, colours, themes and poetics which change from section to section, offering an immersion in the visual arts.
The Services
The permanent and the temporary collections can be visited by paying an entrance fee except for the OPEN BOX space, where there are always exhibitions and cultural events available for free. The museum organizes individual, thematic or personalized guided tours and offers laboratories for children as well as workshops for adults, which aim at making the participants understand art by practicing the most innovative techniques in order to offer a well-rounded experience to the public. The education department MAGICOMAGI offers a wide range of activities, from laboratories to animated visits for schools.
