From February 10, 2024, the GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo will present Una Galleria, Tante Collezioni: an unprecedented display of its collections which aims to render all the richness and eclecticism of the city through Bergamo’s modern and contemporary artistic heritage.

An exhibition conceived to remain on view in the rooms of the Via San Tomaso venue for an extended time, in parallel with the Pensare come una montagna (“Think Like a Mountain”) program, which over the next two years will involve Bergamo and its territory in a range of widespread projects, to be staged in collaboration with artists and local communities.

The new exhibition itinerary aims to accompany the public toward the opening of the Gallery’s future venue, and presents the museum collections from a perspective unlike that investigated in the cycle La Collezione Impermanente (“The Impermanent Collection”): the research, exhibition and workshop platform with which from 2018 to 2023 GAMeC presented a series of temporary exhibitions to stimulate reflection on the dynamic nature of its collections.

In fact, Una Galleria, Tante Collezioni intends to bring out the differences between the multiple fonds that make up the museum collections, establishing a non-chronological dialogue between more than 150 works by Italian and international masters of the twentieth century, also including works by contemporary artists, along an exhibition path that winds its way through the Gallery’s nine exhibition rooms.

These fonds intrinsically display a variety of languages, styles, currents and perspectives that are often distant from one another, while revealing traits of their origin: the tastes of collectors, their visions on the past or the contemporary scene, the works of artists that have been explored in temporary exhibitions, or even the initiatives promoting the work of artists and curators carried out by the institution itself.

The identity and history of the GAMeC’s heritage—be it donated to the city by private individuals and artists, or acquired by the Gallery over the decades—provide the focus of the exhibition, highlighting works belonging to the largest number of fonds from the collections to be exhibited to date, some of which are presented to the public here for the first time.

The exhibition path, curated by Maurizio Bosa, translates the dynamic idea of “putting on show” what is to be found in the Gallery’s storerooms into a both spatial and morphological metaphor. The structures, made of deliberately untreated light-colored wood, consist of shelves on which the works are placed, and of structures akin to open crates that provide novel perspectives from which to observe the works on display.

The rooms house paintings by twentieth-century artists, part of the Gianfranco and Luigia Spajani Collection; a selection of works by Giacomo Manzù and the Stucchi Collection, revolving around the 1950s and 1960s; and a major fond dating back to the second half of the twentieth century, confiscated in Lombardy and managed by the National Agency for the Administration of Sequestered Property.

What’s more, a selection of donations from artists and collectors of the new millennium, also including works that have become part of the museum’s heritage thanks to major fonds and awards: the Premio Lorenzo Bonaldi per l’Arte – EnterPrize, an international award that GAMeC has dedicated to curators under thirty since 2003; the Meru Art*Science Award, which for more than ten years has supported the research of artists investigating the link between art and science; the Club GAMeC Prize, conceived in 2016 by the association of Friends of the Gallery, acknowledging the work of young Italian artists; and the fond named after collector Arturo Toffetti, which has allowed for the creation of major solo shows dedicated to various contemporary artists.

Also on display are works that have entered the collections as part of the projects that the GAMeC has developed over recent years thanks to the support of the Ministry of Culture’s General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity, such as the Italian Council: the program for the international promotion of Italian art, and the PAC – Plan for Contemporary Art, which allocates funding aimed at enhancing Italian public collections.

Completing the exhibition are a series of photographs from the Lanfranco Colombo Collection, a number of medals and related models donated by Vittorio Lorioli, and a selection of films from the Nino Zucchelli Archive.

Una Galleria, Tante Collezioni constitutes a valuable opportunity to rethink the institution and further strengthen the roots that bind GAMeC to its territory, while maintaining an active dialogue between the museum and the community and continuing to work on the enhancement of the city’s heritage, especially in view of its upcoming move to a new location.

Artists on show

Getulio Alviani, Arman, Giacomo Balla, Enrico Baj, Gabriele Basilico, Letizia Battaglia, Chiara Bersani, Alessandro Biggio, Bruno Boari, Stefano Boccalini, Umberto Boccioni, Giorgio Boschetti, Piero Brolis, Alberto Burri, Massimo Campigli, Vincenzo Carresi, Felice Casorati, Bruno Cassinari, Regina Cassolo Bracchi, Enrico Castellani, Charles Chinet, Christo, Mario Cresci, Roberto Crippa, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Danilo De Marco, Mario Dondero, Gianni Dova, Giorgio de Chirico, Filippo De Pisis, Jeremy Deller, Pietro Donzelli, Piero Dorazio, Latifa Echakhch, Luciano Fabro, Roberto Fassone, Jean Fautrier, Luis Feito, Anna Franceschini, Émile-Othon Friesz, Christian Frosi, Lucio Fontana, Piero Fornasetti, Giuseppe Gabellone, Francesco Gennari, Mario Giacomelli, Oscar Giaconia, Rochelle Goldberg, Daiga Grantina, Calisto Gritti, Hans Hartung, Wassily Kandinsky, Giuseppe Leone, Iva Lulashi, Armin Linke, Stefano Locatelli, Nino Lo Duca, Lorenza Longhi, Alberto Magnelli, Marcello Maloberti, Giacomo Manzù, Diego Marcon, Louis Marcoussis, Elio Mariani, Albert Marquet, Roberto Sebastian Matta, Umberto Milani, Vatroslav Mimica, Giorgio Morandi, Berthe Morisot, Ennio Morlotti, Luciana Mulas, Ugo Mulas, Anton Zoran Mušič, Attilio Nani, Ornaghi&Prestinari, Tancredi Parmeggiani, Victor Pasmore, Lucia Pescador, Giuseppe Pessina, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Giò Pomodoro, Alfredo Pirri, Břetislav Pojar, Mario Radice, Hans Richter, Auguste Rodin, Tim Rollins & K.O.S., Luigi Rossi, Antonio Rovaldi, Giovanni Rubino, Auguste Sandoz, Alberto Savinio, Emilio Scanavino, Ferdinando Scianna, Tomás Saraceno, Aligi Sassu, Mario Sironi, Sarah Sparkes, Attilio Steffanoni, Claudio Sugliani, Graham Sutherland, Jan Švankmajer, Dorothea Tanning, Aldo Tagliaferro, Josh Tonsfeldt, Jiří Trnka, Stanley Vanderbeek, Victor Vasarely, Alberto Vitali, Emilio Vedova, Andy Warhol.