Gallarate Art Museum

The Museo Arte Gallarate, commonly known as MAGA, is a museum of modern and contemporary art located in Gallarate, a city in the province of Varese in Lombardy, northern Italy. Founded in 1966 as the Civica Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Gallarate, the institution was established to preserve and exhibit works acquired through the Premio Gallarate, a national art competition that had begun in 1950. Renamed and relocated to a new purpose-built facility in 2010, MAGA has grown to hold over 5,500 works spanning paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs, graphic design, and artist books. The museum is managed by the Fondazione Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Silvio Zanella, with founding partners including Italy's Ministry of Cultural Heritage and the Municipality of Gallarate, alongside institutional partners Regione Lombardia and the Province of Varese.

The museum originated as the Civica Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Gallarate in 1966, created specifically to house works purchased from or donated by artists who had participated in the first eight editions of the Premio Nazionale Arti Visive Città di Gallarate. This national visual arts prize, established in 1950 (or 1949 according to some accounts), provided the foundational acquisitions that would define the collection's character. The institution gained national recognition as a museum in the early 1980s. A transformative moment came on 19 March 2010, when the museum opened in its new architectural complex under the name Museo MAGA, with an inaugural exhibition dedicated to Amedeo Modigliani. This relocation represented a deliberate effort to engage younger audiences and adopt more contemporary approaches to art appreciation. The new building encompassed approximately 5,000 square metres. Between 2015 and 2017, MAGA briefly expanded its operations to a second venue at Palazzo Leone da Perego in Legnano, approximately 15 kilometres southeast of Gallarate, where it also hosted the European Photograph Festival in 2016 and presented works from the Concrete Art Movement archive. The museum faced a significant challenge on 14 February 2013, when a fire seriously damaged the building structure, though no artworks were harmed; spaces reopened within two years. In 2023, the museum inaugurated the Centro di Ricerca Italia 2050, consolidating research activities, historical archives, and a specialist library.

MAGA's collection numbers more than 5,500 works, offering visitors a broad and articulated panorama of principal artistic orientations from the mid-twentieth century to the present, with openings onto contemporary international research. The holdings encompass paintings, drawings, sculptures, graphic design works, photographs, installations, and artist books. The exhibition programme follows a thematic structure organised around three fundamental nuclei: art in Italy between the 1920s and 1950s, the declensions of informal painting and spatialist research, and developments in art from the 1970s to the present day. The collection is frequently renewed through rotating displays that deepen the themes of temporary exhibitions. The museum has historically pursued two parallel directions: the historical-critical re-reading of the twentieth century through projects highlighting significant authors and paths, and support for the most current research, with increasing attention to international art and strict contemporaneity. The museum also preserves important archives including those of the MAC, the Madì movement, Mail art, and the Premio Nazionale Arti Visive Città di Gallarate, alongside dedicated funds for Silvio Zanella, the museum's founder, as well as Marinella Pirelli and Vittorio Tavernari.

The collection features significant works by major Italian and international artists. Notable paintings include Carlo Carrà's Firenze (1953), Lucio Fontana's Concetto spaziale (1960), and Mario Sironi's Alpino e Nave (1939). The museum holds Emilio Vedova's L'urto (1949) and Afro Basaldella's A De Falla (1952), representing important postwar Italian painting. Spatialist and concrete art research is represented through works such as Gianni Monnet's Costruzione (1946), Dadamaino's Volume a moduli sfasati (1960), Davide Boriani's Superficie magnetica (1961), and Nino Di Salvatore's Struttura spaziale in tensione (1952). The collection also includes Bruno Munari's Progetto per negativo-positivo (1950), reflecting his interdisciplinary practice, and Gillo Dorfles's Immagini ambigue (1951). Other significant holdings encompass Ennio Morlotti's La pace (1949) and Paesaggio (1955), Carlo Ramous, Fausto Melotti, Piero Gilardi, and Studio Azzurro. Contemporary acquisitions include Chiara Dynys's Tutto/Niente (2004) and works by Massimo Bartolini, Rossella Biscotti, and Marzia Migliora, demonstrating the collection's continued growth. The museum also holds more than 75 artworks by Angelo Bozzola and the historic archive of the Concrete Art Movement (CAM, 1948-1958), originally from the Fondazione Angelo Bozzola of Galliate.

In March 2010, after forty years in its original premises, MAGA opened in a newly constructed architectural complex measuring 5,000 square metres. This purpose-built facility was designed to foster a more contemporary approach to art appreciation and to establish stronger connections with younger visitors. The modern structure was conceived as a functional space for exhibition, conservation, and public engagement with modern and contemporary art. Between 2015 and 2017, the museum maintained a secondary venue at Palazzo Leone da Perego in Legnano, a building constructed in the second half of the thirteenth century by an Archiepiscopal Court on the ruins of the castle of Cotta. This historic structure, one of two important buildings erected by the Archbishops of Milan alongside the Palace of Ottone Visconti, had undergone radical restorations since 1898, leaving little of the original fabric by 2016. The Legnano venue served as an extension of MAGA's programming before the museum consolidated its operations back in Gallarate. The main Gallarate building suffered serious structural damage from a fire on 14 February 2013, but reopened after two years of restoration.

The Museo MAGA is located in Gallarate, in the province of Varese, within the Lombardy region of northern Italy. The museum's official website is http://www.museomaga.it. As a public institution, it is managed by the Fondazione Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Silvio Zanella, with governance shared between the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and the Municipality of Gallarate as founding partners, and Regione Lombardia and the Province of Varese as institutional partners. The museum maintains an active cultural programme beyond its permanent collection, organising temporary exhibitions, events integrating visual arts with music, theatre, and dance, and educational initiatives. Its exhibition history has included monographic shows dedicated to Amedeo Modigliani and Alberto Giacometti, as well as presentations of international contemporary artists such as Marcelì Antunez Roca and Carsten Nicolai. The Premio Nazionale Arti Visive di Gallarate, which continues on a multi-year basis from its origins in the 1950s, remains connected to the museum's exhibition activity and collection development.