Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli was established in February 2015 by Sonia and Massimo Cirulli. It is built upon three decades of work and experience accumulated by the Massimo and Sonia Cirulli Archive. The Fondazione’s goal is to promote, at a national and international level, the knowledge of twentieth-century Italian art and visual culture.
MISSION
Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli aims to narrate and enhance Italian visual culture of the 20th century, from the early years of the Country’s engagement with modernity to the postwar economic boom (1900 - 1970), through unusual perspectives offered by the multiple disciplinary fields of interest of the foundation.
With this goal Fondazione Cirulli launches cultural projects complimenting the multifaceted character of its holdings, which survey several disparate fields—such as figurative arts, decorative arts, architectural design, industrial design, graphics design, and photography. The Fondazione organizes exhibitions, events and publications and pays particular attention to the rich programming dedicated to a large audience: from the business world, through the organization of conferences, workshops and team building events aimed at rediscovering the roots of Italian creativity and Italian style, to school groups of all levels to whom Fondazione Cirulli offers animated guided tours combined with creative educational workshops.
ANIMATED ARCHIVE
The Animated Archive is the concept that inspires the entire museum program and it is a formula created by Jeffery T. Schnapp, reference figure in the field of digital humanities.
The Fondazione is transforming itself into a laboratory that serves at once as an exhibition space and as a living archive. The aim is to privilege multiplicity, simultaneity, and nimbleness through recourse to exhibition formats that are hybrid, fresh, and novel in keeping with contemporary as well as Futurist values.
The Fondazione's holdings include everything from artistic masterpieces to commercial graphics, works of industrial design, and objects documenting Italy's material culture.
They encompass just about every known form of cultural expression: photographs, drawings, paintings, sculptures, manifestos, textiles, magazines, and books. It provides access to little known resources that document the history of the Italian twentieth century in all of its complexity and completeness.
Fragments of larger tales concerned with some of the century's leading creative figures, like Bruno Munari, thus find themselves in the company of a suite of micro-exhibitions on such topics as advertising, and photojournalism in the Emilia-Romagna region during the 1970s.
ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Pierpaolo Antonello
Senior Lecturer in the Department of Italian Studies, Yale University;
Nicola Lucchi
Director, Education & Research, Germano Celant Research Center, Magazzino Italian Art, New York;
Ara H. Merjian
Associate Professor of Italian and Art History at New York University (USA);
Marco Sammicheli
curator of the Design, Fashion and Crafts for the Triennale, as well as Director of the Museo del Design Italiano;
Jeffrey T. Schnapp
professor and faculty director of metaLAB(at)Harvard. Romance L&L / Comparative Literature / GSD Harvard University. Faculty co-director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society.
The international outlook of this unmistakably Italian institution rests upon the dynamic and contemporary approach to its mission, which underscores the relevance and currency of such an articulated cultural project.
