MAXXI 2per100 competition: winners announced

MAXXI 2per100
two works of art for MAXXI – National Musem of the 21st Century Arts, Rome

http://www.parc.beniculturali.it/ita/MAXXIduepercento

The competition, announced in October 2008 by the Ministry of Infrastructures and Transport together with the Ministry for Cultural Ativities and Assets, has aroused worldwide attention, confirming, one year on since its official opening, the front-line role that the new museum will play not only at the national, but also at the international level. Of the 554 applications, 370 were submitted by Italian citizens, whereas 184, almost half of the total number, were sent in by foreign artists from 47 countries representing 5 continents.

The competition applies Law no° 717 of 1949, known as “the 2% Law”, according to which State administrators and public bodies that order the construction of public buildings shall devote to the realization of works of art no less that 2% of the total expenditure foreseen for the project.

For the indoor hall Maurizio Mochetti (b. Rome, 1940) has conceived Linee rette di luce nell’Iperspazio curvilineo, that, according to the Jury, “best interprets the conception of internal space of the museum project, introducing chromatic elements”. A setting-up of lights and sculptures, essential and at the same time surprising, deals with the relation between the visitor and the place, thus becoming, according to the artist, a “space barometer”.

The winner for the outdoor area is Massimo Grimaldi (b.Taranto, 1974) with his Emergency’s Paediatric Centre in Juba Supported by MAXXI, much appreciated by Jury for “the original idea that produces a photographic work of art through the realization of a project with a high social and ethical content”. The photographs follow “in progress” the steps of the whole construction process and the start-up of the new hospital built by Emergency in Juba, Sudan (which will be realised using 92% of the budget), becoming a true reportage to be screened in a double synchronous video-projection on an external wall of the MAXXI. In such a way, the artist claims, “the Paediatric Centre in Juba and the MAXXI will be ideally connected by their architectures, one made possible by means of the other “.

The project foresees the construction of a medical centre to be included in the paediatric and heart surgery Regional Programme, active within an area inhabited by more than 300 million people. The Centre will offer free, highly specialized medical assistance to children up to the age of 14; teams of heart surgeons will periodically carry out screenings of heart patients in view of their transfer to the Salam heart surgery Centre in Khartoum to be operated.

Alessandro Bertani, Emergency vice President, has declared: “Emergency’s collaboration with Massimo Grimaldi stems from our deep sharing of common values and has already given concrete results in the past, as an evidence of the assistance given by Emergency in several African states: Sierra Leone, Sudan and Central African Republic. Emergency is grateful to the artist Massimo Grimaldi and to Maxxi Museum for choosing to share such an important project: to guarantee the right to be cured to those children and adults who would not have other chances to be assisted effectively and for free”.

Pio Baldi, President of MAXXI Foundation is truly satisfied with the contest’s results, declaring that “the realization of the two works shows an ideal continuity with the cultural project related to the museum, that will increase its contemporary art and architecture collections also with site-specific works”.

For further information:

Press Office
Alessandra Santerini, ph. +39.335.6853767, [email protected]
Chiara Costa, ph. +39.331.7001172, [email protected]