M9 - MUSEUM OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Information
M9 - MUSEUM OF THE 20TH CENTURY 
Via Giovanni Pascoli 11
30171-Venezia Mestre, Italia
T. +39 041 0995941
info@m9museum.it

M9 - MUSEUM OF THE 20TH CENTURY, founded from a project of the Venice Foundation and inaugurated in December 2018, it is a cultural institution with an international scope and vocation. Not a traditional museum, but a permanent laboratory of the contemporary.
An innovative experiment whose ambition is to reveal the material history of the twentieth century in Italy. In fact, it proposes a kaleidoscopic tale of the twentieth century: it shows the demographic, social, political and cultural, environmental and landscape changes; presents the outcomes and ambitions, challenges and achievements, threats and opportunities that have marked Italian history throughout the last century.

The permanent collection of the Museum occupies the first and second floors of the building; It is divided into eight thematic sections and presents the Italian twentieth century through the cultural heritage that the same century produced - with a wide use of images and audio and video materials - exploiting new technologies for the narration of contents. The visit experience is interactive and characterized by immersive installations.
Thanks to the program of temporary exhibitions hosted on the third floor and spread, starting from 2021, in new spaces of the Museum, to the schedule of events for the general public and to the educational and training activities aimed at schools and all citizens and people with frailty, M9 intends to be a house open to the territory and the country, capable of promoting reflections and actions on the present and the future.

The architectural project of the Museum is signed by the Berlin studio Sauerbruch Hutton; the preparation of the permanent by the Grisdainese studio; graphic design by the CamuffoLab studio; installations from five multimedia and interaction design studios: Carraro Lab, Clonwerk with Limiteazero, Dotdotdot, Karmachina with Engineering Associates, Nema FX.

WHERE WE ARE

M9 - MUSEUM OF THE 20TH CENTURY
Via Giovanni Pascoli 11
30171 Venezia Mestre
T +39 041 0995941

TEMPORARY EXHIBITION

M9 - Museum of the 20th Century  
5th May 2023 ⇒ 7th January 2024
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The initiative aims to launch a cycle of biennial exhibitions, dedicated to some of the protagonists of the history of art, with relevant civil commitment, who have played the role of game changers for the world of art, thanks to their innovative contributions. 
Emilio Vedova is definitely one of them. His work is indeed interpreter and witness of our society.

BIOGRAPHY
Born in Venice in 1919 into a family of workers and artisans, from the 1930s onwards Emilio Vedova began an intense activity as a self-taught artist. In 1942 he joined the anti-Novecento movement known as Corrente.

An anti-Fascist, he participated to the Resistance from 1944 to 1945 and in 1946, he was one of the co-signers of the “Oltre Guernica” manifesto in Milan. In the same year he was one of the founders of the Nuova Secessione Italiana followed by the Fronte Nuovo delle Arti. In 1948 he made his debut in the Venice Biennale, the first of many appearances in this event: in 1952 an entire room was devoted to his work, in 1960 he was awarded the Grand Prize for Painting and in 1997 the Golden Lion award for Lifetime Achievement.

In the early 1950s he created his celebrated cycles of works: Scontro di situazioni, ciclo della Protesta, ciclo della Natura. In 1954, at the São Paolo Art Biennial he won a prize that would allow him to spend three months in Brazil, where he encountered a hard reality that would leave its mark on him. In 1961 he designed the sets and costumes for Luigi Nono’s Intolleranza ’60; in 1984 he would work with the composer again on Prometeo.

From 1961 onwards he worked on his Plurimi, creating the Venetian series followed by works made from 1963 to 1964 in Berlin including the seven pieces forming the Absurdes Berliner Tagebuch ’64 presented at the 1964 Kassel documenta, where he showed in many occasions. From 1965 to 1967 he worked on Percorso/Plurimo/Luce for the Montreal Expo. He carried out intense teaching activities in various American universities followed by the Sommerakademie in Salzburg and the Academy of Venice. His artistic career was characterized by a constant desire to explore and innovate. In the 1970s he created the Plurimi/Binari in the Lacerazione and Carnevali cycles followed by the vast cycles of “teleri” (big canvases) and his Dischi, Tondi, Oltre and ...in continuum works.

His last solo exhibitions included the major retrospective held at Castello di Rivoli (1998) and, after his death in 2006, the shows at Rome’s Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna travelled to the Berlinische Galerie and at Milan’s Palazzo Reale, inaugureted in December 2019.