Il Museo delle correnti
Curated by Emma Zanella and Alessandro Castiglioni

15 November 2026 – 4 April 2027

Il Museo delle correnti is a project to reconfigure the Museo MA*GA collections, driven by the desire to explore and develop new lines of research through the study of the historical archives of the Civica Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Gallarate, as well as the museographic principles and guidelines established by Silvio Zanella, the museum’s founder, between 1972 and 2000.

At the heart of the project lies the intention to recover and renew Zanella’s original vision of a “museum of currents”, conceived to document not only the evolution of artistic languages but also, through them, “humanity, society and the civilisation of each specific era”. From this perspective, the museum becomes a space for critically interpreting the present and the past, where art serves as a tool for understanding the cultural, social and anthropological processes that have shaped the twentieth century and the new millennium.

In the introduction to the 1983 collection catalogue, Zanella clearly reaffirmed this theoretical approach, stating: “This museum, faithful to its premises and tradition, continues, as far as possible, its work of documenting the course of art, which bears witness to the journey of humanity and society, with its growing pains and its sinusoidal or, if one prefers, pendular or upward-spiralling movement, in order to serve, as it rightly should, humanity and society in their desire to progress.”

This vision conveys a complex, non-linear understanding of art history, conceived as a constantly evolving process shaped by ruptures, returns, accelerations and reassessments.

Building on these theoretical and methodological foundations, Italia 2050 Research Centre — established in 2023 by Museo MA*GA and Regione Lombardia — aims to study and update this museological approach, using it as the starting point for an unprecedented and innovative reinstallation of the permanent collection.

The objective is to highlight the succession of movements, currents, trends and research methodologies that have shaped artistic practice throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, bringing their connections, continuities and discontinuities to light.

The exhibition will explore twentieth-century figurative art, abstraction, Spatialism, Arte Povera, postmodernism and the most contemporary practices, including artistic experiences centred on the relationship with nature and ecology. The installation thus aims to offer a plural and layered narrative that celebrates the richness of the collection while providing audiences with accessible, up-to-date tools for interpreting art.

The project also carries particular symbolic and institutional significance, as it forms part of the celebrations marking sixty years since the founding of Gallarate’s museum in 1966 as the Civica Galleria, now known as Museo MA*GA.

On this anniversary, Il Museo delle correnti represents not merely a reinstallation of the collection, but a strategic initiative to renew the museum’s cultural mission and reaffirm its role as a centre for research, production and the dissemination of contemporary culture in Lombardy and throughout Italy.