Contemporary Art Institutions in Rome

A useful way to read Rome now is through exhibitions that make the city itself a curatorial problem rather than a neutral backdrop. At MAXXI, Alex Da Corte's re-reading of the collection in The Large Glass places works by figures such as Alighiero Boetti, Marisa Merz, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto, and Kara Walker into a cross-media constellation of art, architecture, photography, installation, and video, confirming the museum's role as Rome's most visible site for large-scale contemporary framing. MACRO has moved in a more porous direction: UNAROMA, curated by Luca Lo Pinto and Cristiana Perrella, mapped more than seventy artists, collectives, performers, and independent spaces into a portrait of the city's current hybrid scene, while recent programming includes Hito Steyerl's Mechanical Kurds, curated by Alice Labor, and Abitare le rovine del presente by Giulia Fiocca and Lorenzo Romito. Palazzo Esposizioni extends this civic reading through projects such as EXPODEMIC, curated by Lorenzo Benedetti with Francesca Campana, connecting Rome's foreign academies with artists including Fatma Bucak, Kapwani Kiwanga, and Hamedine Kane. Together with Mattatoio's installation-oriented use of former industrial space, these programs suggest a city where contemporary institutions continually test exhibition-making against memory, public infrastructure, and transnational artistic presence.