For the tourist who wants to visit Trentino, not to be missed is the wonderful Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto MART.
It was founded in 1987 as an independent body administered by the Autonomous Province of Trento and includes three galleries:
1. Palazzo delle Albere in Trento;
2. the Fortunato Depero House-Museum in Rovereto
3. The large complex designed by Mario Botta together with Giulio Andreolli and inaugurated in Rovereto in 2002.
The museum building consists of four floors. Visitors can proceed from the ground floor to the basement which houses the Archive of the 1900s, with its collections of historical books and the Library, or to the first floor consisting of areas intended for temporary exhibitions, the educational section of the museum and its offices. .
The exhibition area covers approximately 5,600 square meters and occupies the second and third floors of the building.
The MART had its specific character from the beginning, due to the particular variety of its collections and today the historical archives and works are the rich cultural heritage of the museum.
From this point of view, the MART is not only a conservation museum but also and above all, a cultural laboratory.
Its exhibition activity is closely linked to the study, development and research through the promotion of conventions, seminars, conferences and the planning of editorial initiatives.
The precious permanent collection of the MART consists of more than 15,000 paintings, drawings and sculptures, and has been built over the years through acquisitions, donations and bequests from important private collections.
Much of the collection is dedicated to Futurism.
The MART has more than 3,000 works including drawings, paintings, sculptures and tapestries bequeathed to the museum of the artist Fortunato Depero. The Italian exhibition of the twentieth century is represented by works from the Giovanardi collection including masterpieces by Osvaldo Licini, Mario Sironi, Massimo Campigli and Carlo Carrà, and an important group of paintings by Giorgio Morandi.
The museum’s valuable collection also includes works by Giorgio de Chirico and Felice Casorati. Abstract and informal art is represented instead by works by Melotti, Fontana, Burri, Afro, Toti Scialoja, Novelli, Vedova, Sanfilippo, Accardi and in addition to paintings and sculptures by numerous other great Italian artists.
In the section of the museum dedicated to contemporary art, the Panza collection includes works by the most important American artists of the 1980s and 1990s. In recent years, the MART collection has been enriched with works by artists engaged in the most advanced research of the 1970s and 1980s, including Boetti, Merz, Paolini, Scarpitta and Kounnelis, while international contemporary art is extraordinarily represented by Naumann, Rainer , Nitsch, Long, Gursky and Höfer.
Alongside these exhibitions, the MART also organizes numerous opportunities for tourists, scholars and residents such as film screenings, concerts, series of conferences, meetings with artists and critics, debates and study conferences.
The Department of Didactics of the MART was created in 1984 in order to promote the artistic heritage of the Museum and foster the understanding of modern and contemporary art.
Since its inception, the Museum has continued to receive around 70,000 visitors a year between school groups and the general public in its laboratories, for guided tours, art studies related to exhibitions and art history courses, as well as refresher courses for teachers.
Also worth visiting is the museum archive left by Fortunato Depero to the city of Rovereto in 1957.
The museum has strengthened the reserve through donations and acquisitions that have given the archive section a fundamental role as regards the scientific programming and cultural objectives of the whole Institute, and over the years the Archive of the ‘900 has undertaken various actions to preserve and promote its material: the restoration, repair, reorganization and cataloging of documents, the classification and digitization of registers and the polishing of research tools.
This sector promotes the study and evaluation of its archives with publications and exhibitions, links with other organizations for events, conferences and meetings.
Finally we find the library which from the beginning has been characterized by a mix of specialized publications of contemporary art, assembled as an aid tool to work within the museum, and a collection that is a real archive of books dealing with the historical and biographical events of twentieth century art. The Depero library, when donated to the museum was soon completed by the personal libraries of other artists, architects and critics who came to MART.
WHERE IS MART
A Rovereto, in Corso Bettini 43, 38068 – Rovereto (TN)
The Museum is located in the city center.
CONTACTS
Tel: 0464 43.88.87
Num. verde: 800 39.77.60
Mail: info@mart.trento.it
OPENING TIME:
From Tuesday to Sunday, MART is open from 10.00 to 18.00
Friday is open from 10.00 to 21.00
Closing day: Monday
HOW TO GET TO ROVERETO
By car: from the Rovereto exit (North or South) of the A22 Brenner motorway.
By bus: there are daily direct connections with Trento, Ora and Bolzano.
By train: Rovereto railway station.
PRICES:
The full ticket costs 11 euros, but there are many discounts available for families and groups, also children up to 14 years of age do not pay.