VENUS Gallery - MAXXI (National Museum of 21st-century Arts) [EN]

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MAXXI - National Museum of 21st-century Arts

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Cover: Dasha Lapushka by Alex Comaschi Copyright: All contents in this issue belong to their respective owners. Reproduction of these contents, without the explicit consent of the legitimate owners, is prohibited.

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“Beauty will save the world” (Fëdor Dostoevskij) Beauty will save the world because for the most part it comes from creativity and so, from (creative) minds that are the product of a keen interest and involvement in the world of culture and all that it has to offer.

Think about LEGO for a moment. With a mountain of bricks in front of us but strangely all in the same shape, size and colour, we’d have no problem at all in building something on an impressive scale, yet in terms of our capacity of expression we’d find our hands severely tied.

Put a vast range of pieces at our disposal, and we’d see ideas coming together with only one obstacle in their way to becoming a reality: our creativity. This quality is in fact nothing other than the extent to which our minds are capable of acquiring, linking and combining elements (bricks) that differ in nature and shape.

Now imagine replacing Lego with culture, and, instead of bricks, having inspiring events to work with. Here too, we’d find that the quality of the ideas that we come up with is very closely tied in with our own creativity and, therefore, with the very many different aspects of our involvement in a range of experiences that we’re able to draw on.

Vision .

Vision Culture isn’t a form of entertainment restricted to a limited few. It isn’t an area dominated by an élite, nor is it a hat that we put on in order to show the world just how smart we are. It isn’t a diploma or a certificate that gives others an idea of just how many museums we’ve visited, or how many books we’ve read. Above all, it is not a pedestal from which to look down on others with some sort of sense of superiority. Yet all too often we come across examples like these.

When we talk about culture, we refer collectively to manifestations of the excellence of human intellect spanning art, science, design, photography, etc… - that are all ranked on an equal footing. There’s no longer any call for an ‘A’ class and ‘B’ class distinction. The choices that we make should be driven by our own interdisciplinary curiosity alone and not by outdated classifications and contrasts between what we often referred to as highbrow and lowbrow culture.

The good news is that this democratisation process is underway and it’s clearly shown by some visionary views like these: A journalist and broadcaster from London - Pandora Sykes - wrote in an insightful article on the Pirelli calendar phenomenon that “to dismiss it as a collection of ‘pin-ups’ would be to misunderstand its role and its cultural weight … the Pirelli calendar may have begun as a homage to world-famous beautiful women, but it has long segued into a destination for impactful storytelling and progressive thinking”.

An italian architect - Massimiliano Fuksas - once said in an interview that if his source of inspiration had been limited to architecture alone, he may well have simply spent his time creating poor copies and rehashed designs of buildings constructed in the past, albeit with new materials.

When Leonard Bernstein heard someone applauding at the wrong point during a concert (thereby committing the worst of all offences in the world of classical music!) rather than displaying the snob’s approach that sees culture confined within its elitist boundaries, he instead cried out: “at long last, we’ve got someone new in the audience!”.

Well, imagine what the world would be like if the innovative and openminded approach shown by Sykes and the cross-disciplinary and cultural curiosity like that demonstrated by Fuksas were encouraged on a regular basis by receiving the warm welcome offered like Bernstein’s! Culture would no longer be regarded as an end in itself, but as a never-ending source of life-enriching opportunities and experiences that our creativity could combine and re-combine in order to produce quality ideas and useful solutions.

This is the vision behind VENUS Gallery: a platform (not just a magazine) contributing to unveiling that beauty is the tip of a huge (cultural) iceberg which has the potential to become an engine for the economy, society and innovation.

The VENUS Gallery TEAM

MAXXI Texts by Martina D’Alessio (Lab2.0) - Photos by Alex Comaschi - Model: Dasha Lapushka

MAXXI

She was described by The Guardian of London as the ‘Queen of the curve’, who “liberated architectural geometry, giving it a whole new expressive identity.”

Her major works include the aquatic centre for the London 2012 Olympics, Michigan State University’s Broad Art Museum in the US, and the Guangzhou Opera House in China.

Some of her designs have been presented posthumously, including the statuette for the 2017 Brit Awards, and several of her buildings were still under construction at the time of her death, including the Al Wakrah Stadium in Qatar, a venue for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

The MAXXI is a national museum of contemporary art and architecture in the Flaminio neighborhood of Rome.

The museum was designed as a multidisciplinary space by Zaha Hadid and committed to experimentation and innovation in the arts and architecture.

Zaha Hadid was the first woman to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize, in 2004. She received the Stirling Prize, in 2010 and 2011.

In 2012, she was made a Dame by Elizabeth II, and in 2015 she became the first and only woman to be awarded the Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects.

ZAHA HADID

Start from thinking.

An advice for the youth that holds the entire work of one of the most important figure of contemporary architecture.

Start from thinking. Start from sketches.

An advice that holds a warning: don’t be in a hurry to do.

Dream of architecture and then find the way to pull it out from your dreams.

The artistic fervor of the 1980s, the experiments and new materials’ discovery, Russian avant-gardism of the 1920s and European Deconstructivism: in this scenario Zaha Hadid’s visionary genius grows and is formed.

At first she graduated in mathematics at Beirut University, then in architecture in London.

Hadid immediately appears to exasperate the theory of “calculated chaos” and fragmented geometry that will be her feature for all her career, as she is so fascinated by

Deconstructivism and all the currents born within the Russian avant-garde.

Her graduation thesis is a tribute to Malevich’s Suprematism, a manifesto of futurism more appreciated for its iconographic and artistic side than for the architectural idea behind it.

Malevich’s Tektonik is a picture of how Hadid and many other young architects of the period imagine the next millennium. An illustration and, perhaps, nothing more.

For the first ten years of her career, in fact, her architectural production stops with drawings.

These are the years of theory and experimentation, when the impolitic and definite character of the AngloIraqi architect goes out.

These are the years of the first, real break up with Deconstructivism.

Her non-belonging to the Western paradigm moves her on a highly personalized mindset that will be named “arabness” and deal with her mathematical studies and cultural structure.

“Dream of architecture and then find the way to pull it out from your dreams.�

The Anglo-Iraqi architect starts to believe in the idea of ​​a biunivocal connection between things, the idea of a possible twist that Decostruttivism does not really cosider: Zaha Hadid’s continuous line.

Hadid’s sketches are weaving of lines that run in the space without context, wrapped up to one another as the threads of Arabian carpets. They are texture, not a grid. An ordered disorder, a chaos that could only be generated with the imposition of a rule.

It’s dynamism, a schema out of every possible schema.

It’s a look at the future that is already realized with the build of the first work signed by the architect, the Vitra Fire Station of Weil am Rheim that is a structure without a stand appearing to emerge directly from the ground in a perfectly disembodied joint of different planes and directions.

In Hadid’s architecture there is no compromise, fact that immediately nourishes the

debate never really ended on the architect’s thought.

They drag in the idea of functionality, wondering if Zaha Hadid embodies the worst impulses of the recent architectural exuberance and of that sculptural virtuosity that gives birth to an imaginary, surreal world.

Hadid is able to break critics as she does with her works.

She confuses and amazes people, she offends in some cases and charms. She appears indefinable like her architecture. And she builds despite criticisms.

This is what happens with the MAXXI in Rome, for which she won the contest banned by the Ministry for Cultural Assets and Activities in 1998.

The continous threats of works’ interruption, the charges of an unrealistic and out of the urban context design, the debates over costs and the issues related to the funds seem to disappear at every new administrative shift.

They are just some of the events related to the complex construction site of the Capital’s Center for Contemporary Arts.

In spite of everything the “space” of MAXXI is presented to Roman citizens in 2010. It is a non-urban environment that blends in with the city, ending up to appear like a part of city streets’ tangle.

The volumes that compose the whole are lines that flow to each other as rails, twisting different directions and defining a space that seems to slosh about. They are dynamic as in all the other Anglo-Iraqi architect’s works.

There is no main access, nor are specified routes to follow: MAXXI is a dimension where visitors get lost and they can choose how to live the architecture.

Hadid releases the museum from the idea of paintings hanging on the walls and, in this way, the vertical elements are free to confuse or intersect with each other or open outwardly.

The volumes that are generated by these sinuous walls show their own

character and request strong set up’s answers. It is as if the whole structure wants the curators not to repeat what has been done before, but to experiment and renew.

The building’s futuristic style is not limited to spatial organization, but influences also materials’ choice and the use of light.

The load-bearing walls are made in béton brut, covered with a layer of polishing resin and only characterized by the formworks’ traces.

The solution gives continuity to the elements, supporting the idea of ​​flow that the architect intends to instill.

In the roof, reinforced concrete skylights run parallel to the walls and artificial lighting systems without breaking space’s gait.

Vertical paths turn in favor of space dynamism like materials.

The stairs are expanded to become self-supporting paths made of black metal. An intricate tangle of bridges and runway connects the three levels of the building, iterating the plant’s plan in height.

“The building’s futuristic style is not limited to spatial organization, but influences also materials’ choice and the use of light.”

The whole project starts with lines that are warped through prospective tricks and a skillful use of materials, the spaces’ fluency is created by repealing boundaries and divisions between adjacent rooms.

It is a process architecture, which has no limitation of space or form.

The MAXXI is a surreal image blended with the city, a paradoxical graft on existing historical buildings, an urban park that becomes an exhibition centre. It is a container that, in a sense, takes away the importance of content and becomes art itself.

Without getting deeply on architectural criticism, this is perhaps the greatest heritage Hadid leaves us: to prove that a sketched building is an idea and as such it already exists somehow.

In this last sentence perhaps all the critics and support that Zaha Hadid’s architecture has attracted are summarized.

Hadid designs and dreams, she imagines spaces that she is now able to realize, thanks to the advent of parametric design and to the well-established technical studies.

This is the architect’s skill to go beyond the graphic view, as Norman Foster will say.

In this lies the sublime and irrational genius of Zaha Hadid: to allow us to walk within those that for many were just her visions.

Start from thinking, as Zaha did.

Martina D’Alessio (Lab2.0) www.lab2dot0.com

Born in Belarus in 1993, Dasha Lapushka has always shown strong aptitude for fine arts.

Alex Comaschi

She moved to Italy at the age of 12 and after attending the scientific secondary school, she decided to work in the world of fashion.

After winning several beauty competitions, she created an Instagram profile (dasha.lapushka) through which she is followed by a large community of fans.

Young mother, she regularly divides herself between family and work.

Dasha is also a painter: she recently exhibited her works at Palazzo Ferraioli, in Rome.

After a long career as an “amateur professional” - That’s how he defines himself - dedicated to capturing the fascination of women with his camera, Alex Comaschi decided to become the Art Director of VENUS Gallery, an innovative project designed to exalt beauty and elegance.

He has been working on his art for 13 years in his studio in Rome, in which, to date, he has hosted more than 700 models coming from all over the world.

His motto is : “My best photo is yet to be taken”.

Dasha Lapushka

VENUS Gallery www.venus.gallery