We like modern art. We’ve been known to swoon at the sight of a Pollock or a Kadinsky. Really.
So on the way back up north we decided to visit the MART Gallery in Rovereto. Mart is very much their “branding”. The full name is the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto. Their elegant and modern web site said that they had an exhibition of some of Warhol’s work. Plus Lichtenstein.
After our usual discussion about parking we wended our way to the Gallery. It’s housed in a magnificent building, spacious, modern and light.
The Architect’s Journal says this about it
Since 2002, Mart Rovereto has been housed in the building designed by the Ticino-born architect, Mario Botta, in collaboration with Giulio Andreolli, an engineer from Rovereto. The building’s centre of gravity is the large glass and steel dome above the central access piazza to the Museum. The roof maintains a constant dialogue with light and covers an area of 1,300 square metres, is 25 metres high and has a diameter of 40 metres, exactly the same as the Pantheon in Rome. For the facades, Mario Botta chose a yellow stone of Vicenza to blend in with the 18th-century setting of corso Bettini.
Worth a visit just to see the building. The entry fee was modest, and I managed to get a concession for being very old.
We walked through the galleries and enjoyed their collection of notable Italian artists, many of them with very local connections. Eventually we reached the modernist gallery and there was some very entertaining art and near art on display. But there was no sign of anything by Mr A Worhol or Mr R Lichtenstein.
As you might imagine, we had a word with the staff on reception. They were apologetic, but said that the Hockney exhibition had finished. The web site was wrong. So sorry. “Molto molto dispiaciuto”.
Rovereto is in a truly beautiful mountain setting, and is very proud of it’s Alpine heritage. There is a common purpose amongst Alpine areas all over Italy. When we were there it was staging an Alpine Festival. There were representatives and visitors from far and wide being entertained with guided tours and the like. And so the town and the restaurants were packed with men in pointy alpine hats with long feathers in the band.
Just as puzzling to us as a Warhol.