Giornata del Contemporaneo | Italian Contemporary Art

TWENTY-SECOND CONTEMPORARY ART DAY
Saturday, 10 October 2026

On the occasion of the 22nd Contemporary Art Day promoted by AMACI, Museo MA*GA presents a series of events dedicated to research, publishing and performance practices, coinciding with the finissage of the exhibitions currently on view: Here and Elsewhere. Paolo Scheggi’s Environments 1964–1971, The Roads End Before They Begin. Vincenzo Agnetti and Photographic Traces and LIVING ART. Performative and Participatory Processes as Practice – 28th Gallarate Prize.

Free admission

PROGRAMME

Ottavio Missoni Tapestry Room

16:00 | Video screening Vincenzo Agnetti, Elizabeth of England. Lecture-performance, 37th Venice Biennale, 1976

16:20 | Institutional greetings

16:30 | Presentation of i Quaderni - Italia 2050 Research Centre of Museo MA*GA series (Nomos Edizioni)

Vol. 1 Le strade terminano prima di cominciare. Vincenzo Agnetti e le tracce fotografiche
with Alessandro Castiglioni and Germana Agnetti

Vol. II Qui e altrove. Gli ambienti di Paolo Scheggi 1964 – 1971
with Emma Zanella, Ilaria Bignotti, Cosima Scheggi

The series is one of the central tools through which Italia 2050. Research Centre for Italian Art 1950–2050 develops its programme of study and research. The volumes stem from the initiatives of Museo MA*GA and reflect a conception of the contemporary art museum as a place of research, capable of questioning art history while at the same time opening up to new interpretations and possible narratives. Through I Quaderni, the Research Centre also aims to engage with the present in order to identify transformations in contemporary artistic languages and contribute to shaping a possible vision of the future. The series is edited by Emma Zanella and Alessandro Castiglioni.

17:15 |  Performance Neg
with Michele Lombardelli, in collaboration with Archivio Vincenzo Agnetti

Conceived by Vincenzo Agnetti in 1970, Neg is an instrument designed to produce what the artist called “music in the negative”: in the absence of a sound passing through it, the sculpture generates a frequency, thus bringing the pauses of music and speech to the fore. Neg is one of the conceptual operations through which Agnetti critically reflects on consumer society, alienation, and the relationship between the individual, the machine and technology.
The performance restores the work’s sonic and temporal dimension, transforming the audience into an active part of the experience.

17:45 | Presentation of the catalogue ARTE VIVA.
Processi performativi e partecipativi come pratica. XXVIII Premio Gallarate (Nomos Edizioni)
with Alessandro Castiglioni, Emma Zanella

The volume presents the research of the protagonists of the 28th edition of the Gallarate Prize: Allison Grimaldi Donahue, Francesco Fonassi, Francesca Grilli, Beatrice Marchi and Martina Rota, five artists whose practices employ performative languages involving speech, the body, sound and relationships. Process-based and relational practices that challenge the boundaries of the artwork and the role of the audience and that, by entering the museum space, question the conventions of the institution and its ability to accommodate dynamic and constantly evolving artistic forms within the permanent collection.

18:00 | Until there’s no air by Martina Rota, as part of MILANoLTRE festival

Until there’s no air is a research project that takes cheerleading as a device for reflecting on the power dynamics of bodies. A practice of support and, at the same time, a mechanism of consensus, cheerleading is explored through its political ambivalence.
Body geometries and chants form a grammar of mobilisation inscribed within an aesthetic of the female body suspended between exposure and discipline. Until there’s no air imagines breath as the only choreography that precedes every form of power.
The event is part of the second edition of Dans(e) l’Atelier, the choreographic micro-residency project conceived by MILANoLTRE on the occasion of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.
An artist working across visual arts and performance practices, as well as one of the protagonists of the 28th edition of the Gallarate Prize, Martina Rota brings to her performance a research practice rooted in the encounter between dance, visual arts and space.