Centro per l'arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci (Centre for Contemporary Art Luigi Pecci) is a

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...

centre sited in Viale della Repubblica in

Prato Prato ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, Italy, the capital of the Province of Prato. The city lies in the north east of Tuscany, at the foot of Monte Retaia, elevation , the last peak in the Calvana chain. With more than 200,000 i ...

Tuscany Tuscany ( ; it, Toscana ) is a Regions of Italy, region in central Italy with an area of about and a population of about 3.8 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence (''Firenze''). Tuscany is known for its landscapes, history, art ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. The centre is devoted to exhibiting art produced during the past few decades. It houses a

Museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

of Contemporary Art, a Centre of Information and Documentation of

visual arts The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts al ...

and an education department.Centro per l'arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci
Since its firs opening, in 1988, the center produced and hosted over 250 exhibitions, special events, and educational initiatives for students and adults. The museum assembled a collection of over 1000 works spaning from the 1960s to the present and hosts over 60,000 items in its CID/Arti Visive specialized archive.

Building

Originally designed by architect Italo Gamberini, in 2016 it was expanded by Maurice Nio, who designed a U-shaped building with an outdoor

amphitheater An amphitheatre (British English) or amphitheater (American English; both ) is an open-air venue used for entertainment, performances, and sports. The term derives from the ancient Greek ('), from ('), meaning "on both sides" or "around" and ...

with a seat capacity of 800 people at the centre. The new building includes 3000 square meters of exhibition space, an archive, a library, an auditorium-cinema, a bookshop, and a restaurant. In addition to the permanent contemporary art collection, the centre includes a

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

garden and a space designated to the installation of temporary exhibitions. File:Il Pecci e la sua antenna.jpg, The new building File:PratoPecci11.jpg, The new building File:Centro per l'arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci - veduta aerea.jpg, alt=The new building - project, The new building under construction File:PratoPecci22.jpg, The new building File:Sala espositiva Pecci.jpg, Exhibition space File:Progetto per il nuovo museo pecci 01.JPG, The new building - project File:PratoPecci17.jpg, Anfiteatro File:Museo pecci.jpg, The old building

Collection

The collection includes over 1000 works by more than 300 artists, among which sculptures, installations, environments, paintings and videos made from the 1950s to the present, mostly acquired as the result of the exhibitions organized byt the center. The sections on Arte Povera and the Italian and international Transavanguardia are particularly thorough, as are those on the artists of the former Soviet block and on art photography. Several recent European pieces of art have been acquired thanks to the Friends of the Museum and the Cassa di Risparmio Bank Foundation of Prato. The collection also includes works and projects of Concrete Poetry and Visual Poetry. The collection includes works by Vito Acconci, Nobuyoshi Araki, Stefano Arienti, Marco Bagnoli, Rossella Biscotti, Botto & Bruno, Paolo Canevari, Loris Cecchini, Enzo Cucchi, Jan Fabre,

Lucio Fontana Lucio Fontana (; 19 February 1899 – 7 September 1968) was an Argentine-Italian painter, sculptor and theorist. He is mostly known as the founder of Spatialism. Early life Born in Rosario, to Italian immigrant parents, he was t ...

, Marco Gastini, Piero Gilardi, Dmitry Gutov, Emilio Isgrò, Ilya Kabakov,

Anish Kapoor Sir Anish Mikhail Kapoor (born 12 March 1954) is a British-Indian sculptor specializing in installation art and conceptual art. Born in Mumbai, Kapoor attended the elite all-boys Indian boarding school The Doon School, before moving to the UK ...

Jannis Kounellis Jannis Kounellis ( el, Γιάννης Κουνέλλης; 23 March 1936 – 16 February 2017) was a Greek Italian artist based in Rome. A key figure associated with Arte Povera, he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome. Life and work K ...

, Barbara Kruger, Francesco Lo Savio, Sol LeWitt, Philip-Lorca di Corcia, Eliseo Mattiacci, Fausto Melotti, Mario Merz, Liliana Moro, Robert Morris, Ugo Mulas, Bruno Munari, Vik Muniz, Maurizio Nannucci, Hermann Nitsch, Julian Opie, Anatolij Osmolovskij,

Mimmo Paladino Mimmo Paladino (born Paduli, 18 December 1948) is an Italian sculptor, painter and printmaker. He is a leading name in the Transvanguardia artistic movement and one of the many European artists to revive Expressionism in the 1980s. Biography ...

, Giulio Paolini, Gianni Pettena,

Michelangelo Pistoletto Michelangelo Pistoletto (born 23 June 1933) is an Italian painter, action and object artist, and art theorist. Pistoletto is acknowledged as one of the main representatives of the Italian Arte Povera. His work mainly deals with the subject mat ...

, Anne e Patrick Poirier, Remo Salvadori, Julian Schnabel,

Daniel Spoerri Daniel Spoerri (born 27 March 1930) is a Swiss artist and writer born in Romania. Spoerri is best known for his "snare-pictures," a type of assemblage or object art, in which he captures a group of objects, such as the remains of meals eaten by in ...

, Mauro Staccioli, Superstudio, David Tremlett, UFO, VALIE EXPORT, Massimo Vitali, Yelena & Viktor Vorobyev, Erwin Wurm, Gilberto Zorio.

History

The centre was founded in 1988 by curator Amnon Barzel and industrialist Enrico Pecci in memory of his son Luigi Pecci. Contributions to the foundation of the centre were made by the Prato town council, private companies and members of the public. Stefano Collicelli Cagol has been the director of the centre since 2021.

Directors

* Amnon Barzel (1986-1992) * Ida Panicelli (1993-1994) * Antonella Soldaini (1994-1995) * Bruno Corà (1995-2002) * Daniel Soutif (2003-2005) * Stefano Pezzato (2006-2007) * Marco Bazzini (2007-2013) * Fabio Cavallucci (2014-2018) * Cristina Perrella (2018-2021) * Stefano Collicelli Cagol (2021)

References

External links

Centre website
{{authority control Buildings and structures in Prato Art museums and galleries in Tuscany Modern art museums Biographical museums in Italy Art museums established in 1988 1988 establishments in Italy Museums in Prato Contemporary art galleries in Italy Modern art museums in Italy