Museion is a museum of contemporary and modern art found in the northern Italian city of Bolzano. Having started in the early nineties, today Museion boasts an extensive collection of approximately 4,500 artworks, with both modern and contemporary pieces.

The museum hosts several temporary exhibitions throughout the year, with long-term installations found on the ground floor.

An active participant in the promotion of contemporary art practices in the region’s capital, the ample collection shown as a curated exhibition and the building itself are both worth a visit.

THE BIRTH OF MUSEION 

The original Museum of Modern Art, as Museion used to be known, was founded in 1985 by the cultural Association Museion and first opened its doors to the public in 1987.

Its name comes from the Greek meaning the temple of the muses.

The shift towards collecting, researching and exhibiting contemporary art only began in 2000, with a particular interest in the role of language in art, adapting the museum’s mission and vision.

In 2006, Museion became a private foundation with the Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano and the Museion Private Founders (ex Associazione Museion) as founders.

The following year, the museum moved from its original address in Via Sernesi to its current home in Piazza Piero Siena, on the banks of the Talfer river in the striking glass structure.

Since June 2020, Bart Van Der Heide has been the director.

According to the Museion Foundation, its purpose is “the promotion and appreciation of contemporary art, after 1950”.

“It sees itself as a meeting place for international art, and also as an institution in support of the art of South Tyrol,” reads the description.

MUSEION’S NEW HOME

In 2006 Museion moved into a new space, an architectural project executed by the Berlin-based studio Kruger Schuberth Vandreike (KSV).

The same architects behind the Bauhaus Museum in Dessen redesigned in 2015, and Humboldt-Box, a temporary exhibition space in Berlin in 2011.

Museion’s cubic form with transparent glass, almost futuristic, facade, symbolises both the relationship that the museum aims to maintain with its surroundings – promoting a modern outlook yet built on historical foundations and its dedication to building a strong reputation in the presentation of contemporary art.

The jagged narrow edges pull the outside inwards, yet the building remains unintimidating as the use of light, both natural and artificial, creates a comforting glow and warmth, as the visitors are invited to step in.

As the sky turns dark and light shines through the museum’s transparent facade, works are projected on the exterior of the building.

Made up of five floors, a fluid space interconnecting exhibition spaces, educational workshops and a library, there is also an atelier house adjoining the museum which hosts artists in residence.

Another feature of Museion is its curved bridge made of glass, that crosses over the neighbouring Talfer river.

Metaphorically and physically, the bridge connects past and present, between the historical and modern, inviting citizens and passers-by to enter the Museion spaces.

Built in the vicinity of the fascist-era Victory Monument erected in 1928, a divisive landmark in the city, Museion is instead, a reminder of moving forward, new technologies and interlinking cultures.

The new building opened its doors to the public in 2008, the same year that Bolzano hosted Manifesta 7, the European Biennial for Contemporary Art.

COLLABORATIVE EVENTS AND COLLECTIONS AT MUSEION

Museion works hand in hand with the city and its citizens in the promotion and presentation of contemporary arts in its various forms.

Collaborative events include Bolzano Art Weeks, a collective art initiative, conceived and curated by Nina Stricker, organised by Cooperativa 19 and Sudtiroler Kunstlerbund, as well as Transart, a festival of contemporary culture, with a focus on performance arts, dance and the figurative.

Museion’s collection has noteworthy works of light art by various historic groups such as Gruppo N and Gruppo Zero, and artists such as Mario Airo, Alberto Biasi, Otto Piene, Rosemarie Trockel and Cerith Wyn Evans.

Moreover, the collection contains works which divulge into the dialogue between image and text, due in part to the long-term loan of Archivio Di Nuova Scrittura (ANS) by the collector Paolo Della Grazia.

Museion also presents works that highlight a new perspective on past events by re-interpreting the present.

These range from photographers such as Nan Goldin, and Wolfgang Tillmans, to sculptors, Carl Andre, to conceptual artists, Alighiero Boetti, and many others.

As well as displaying works by international and known artists, Museion reserves the project room to present art by young local artists, which in recent years have included Vera Comploj, Nicolo DeGiorgis, Gabriela Oberkofler and Sven Sachsalber, among others.

Museion ensures a level of accessibility to the vast collection not only through the organisation of temporary exhibits in the Museion spaces but also via the digital.

The collection is available to browse online, where 4,435 pieces have been inventoried with accompanying in-depth details and information regarding materials, history, and so forth.

Furthermore, the collection can also be viewed through Google’s Arts and Culture platform.

PAY A VISIT TO MUSEION

Museion is open Tuesday to Sunday, from 10am to 6pm, with late closure at 10pm on Thursdays, when all visitors are welcome to explore the exhibitions for free.

Throughout the museum’s spaces, there are cultural mediators ready to answer the visitors’ questions and expand on the artworks on show. It is possible to book a guided tour and participate in workshops, talks, and screenings.

MUSEION’S EXHIBITIONS

David Medalla: Parables Of Friendship (April 9 - Sept 24, 2022)

The first in-depth survey in Europe dedicated to the work of Filipino interdisciplinary artist and political activist, David Medalla (1942-2020). This solo exhibition features the diversity of Medalla’s works from his seven-decade-long career, including participatory art, performance, drawing, sculpture, and kinetic art.

Several pieces from the David Medalla Archive were also presented.

Cloud Canyons (1963-2015) is an example of Medalla’s kinetic sculptures, where bubbles are continuously made and expelled from large transparent perspex tubes. Eventually, the cloud-like clusters spill over, taking over the space, encouraging the viewer to blow or touch the bubbles.

In 1968, Medalla presented his participatory work A Stitch In Time, which is again presented at Museion without the late artist’s involvement. In a project which shares embroidery as a creative and interactive act, participants-turned-performers are encouraged to sew a form, a letter, a word, or add to the piece of fabric, business cards and letters, and the list becomes endless.

Similar to the Cloud Canyons, this piece of work results in unpredictability and variability due to the organic and collaborative nature of both.

Kingdom Of The III: Second Chapter Of Techno Humanities (Oct 1, 2022 – March 5, 2023)

A reflection on the debate on health and illness, the exhibition’s title refers to the book Illness As Metaphor (1978) by American critic Susan Sontag.

The collaborative exhibition, including works by various artists and international activists, investigates the relationship between the individual and contemporary society, and how corporate and institutional systems influence man’s experience of well-being and health.

The artists included are the following: Enrico Boccioletti, Brothers Sick (Ezra and Noah Benus), Shu Lea Cheang, Heather Dewey-Hagborg & Phillip Andrew Lewis, Julia Frank, Sharona Franklin, Barbara Gamper, Nan Goldin and Prescription Addiction Intervention Now (P.A.I.N.), Johanna Hedva, Ingrid Hora, Adelita Husni-Bey, Ian Law, Carolyn Lazard, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Juliana Cerqueira Leite / Zoë Claire Miller, Mary Maggic, Mattia Marzorati, Erin M. Riley, P. Staff, and Lauryn Youden.

Cover Credit: Kingdom of the Ill, 2022, exhibition view, MUSEION Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Bolzano Bozen. Credit: Lineematiche / Luca Guadagnini

Writer | Glesni Trefor Williams

Glesni Trefor Williams is a Bologna-based art journalist/translator from North Wales, who focuses her writing on contemporary art and interlinked exhibition spaces. She has written for Lampoon, Spinosa Magazine, and is an arts contributor on BBC Wales radio. @glesniw

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