One hour outside of Italy’s capital city, sits a modern art museum. The white plaster building hides behind a frame of greenery as if trying to hide the too new building. The architecturally intricate building mimics the modern art inside. Clean and Confusing. The building serpents around the emerald frame too afraid to challenge the boundaries.
The gallery swerves through the serpentine structure, with something unique on each floor. The first floor had two galleries. The first gallery we walked in was called “Highlighted Visions.” Here, the calm green life of nature met the colorful cultures of the world through sound and sight. There were plain mahogany boxes that were flush against the pasty wall in the shape of an “L.” Every box clones the prior with the exception of the five by seven sentiment we country cut out of the superior panel. Guessing the country proves hard enough until your ear approaches the cut-out continent, and hears native folk music. This clue makes the guessing clearer, but will not halt the regular glances toward the artist’s statement, as if looking for the cheat sheet.
Directly across this exhibit was my favorite part of the museum. “Chronicles of an Assassin Foretold” created by Amos Gitai is a political statement on the Israel and Palestine conflict. Gitai, a native to Israel, comments on the violence he witnesses in his home land through film, photography, and interactive art.
The first impression I received was when I was directly outside of the exhibit entrance. I heard men grumbling and gun shots masked by the scream of a young woman. I hesitantly walked through the forbidden portal, only to be confronted with a blood stained floors.
The blood stains were created by red plastic gift wrap secured with duct tape, outlining bodies or puddles. I walked through the exhibit making sure to not step on the stains, as if avoiding the stains would protect the shapes from anything else that would happen to them. Tiptoeing around these pieces lead me to the northern wall which was covered by footage of a riot in Jerusalem. The speaker prophesied “restoring peace to Israel.” The message was great until you heard the crowd respond with how they were to accomplish that–with more violence. The east and south wall were covered with similar stories, but what was the most powerful stood in the center of the hyper clean white box. On the southern side of the trifold, a photo of the Israeli rioters were in black and white and still. Their hateful words could not be heard behind the displaying glass that concealed them. On top of this piece, a black and white projector played a video showing what it was like to be driving through a concentration camp. The barbed wire and empty barracks flew by the camera lens. Instead of being empty, the rioters bled through to fill the movie.
Rome’s history is associated with classic art. Therefore, it is peculiar to see something so modern and out of place in the ancient city. Maxxi was out of place, and so was the work inside it; however, the message encourages a new reaction when someone mentions Italian art. This call for action encourages those who have experienced the emotions to take political action and stop looking at exhibits, but to make a difference and to demolish violence in the world.