“An open-air museum, a museum open to all”. This was Giulio Bargellini’s idea of the true vocation of the Sculpture Garden that surrounds the MAGI museum and culminates in a plaza appearing to be the heart of a true art district, designed to remain in contact with the public at all times in everyday life. The museum’s open-air expansion is inspired by this utopian but concretely implemented idea, offering the public a vast green area in the city featuring monumental sculptures by well-known contemporary artists. This large space, which takes the form of a grassy plaza entirely dedicated to sculpture expanding and amplifying the garden, is open to the public and to citizens at all times. While the museum offers exhibitions and cultural initiatives, the garden provides visitors with a place in which to familiarise themselves with the unique beauty of the works installed in it, many of which were made specifically for the site. As if suspended in a fantastic, metaphysical world, with their fairy-tale-like figuration or dynamic abstract forms, all the sculptures resting on the bright green grass offer a unique panorama and a new way of experiencing the city, promoting social aggregation and enjoyment of the art of our times. Even outside the museum, the ceramic mosaic made specifically for the museum by Marco Pellizzola marks a gateway shared with the community, reporting the artists’ thoughts on sculpture and introducing visitors to the magic of the place. Here, in the variety of forms and expressive solutions dialoguing with the sky, the birds and the earth, aesthetic endeavour will always be available to all those who wish to live in a unique environment which is profoundly humanistic, in that it is designed to give expression and visibility to ideas, emotions and the power of an ancient yet ever-new art form, capable of enchanting us and taking us far away, even if only for the duration of a passing glance.
The Garden contains works by Simon Benetton, Anna Bertoldo, Sara Bolzani, Nado Canuti, Sergio Cappellini, Mirta Carroli, Pietro Cascella, Pino Castagna, Giuseppe Cavallini, Paolo Chimeri, Ciro Ciriacono, Girolamo Ciulla, Guido Di Fidio, Ettò, Lorenzo Guerrini, Gianni Guidi, Umberto Mastroianni, Emilio Mattioli, Mauro Mazzali, Marco Pellizzola, Mirko, Graziano Pompili, Simona Ragazzi, Ivo Sassi, Giovanni Scardovi, Franco Scepi, Vittorio Tavernari, Valeriano Trubbiani, Felice Vatteroni, Guglielmo Vecchietti Massacci, Cordelia Von Den Steinen, Nicola Zamboni, and Sergio Zanni.
