Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea (PAC)

In 1947 the Municipality of Milan, pressed by the need to find a new exhibition space for contemporary art, focused its attention on the site of the ex-stables of Villa Belgiojoso, the neoclassical building designed in 1790 by Leopoldo Pollack and donated to the City by the Savoys in the 1920s. Architect Ignazio Gardella began work on the building in 1949 to create a museum that appears to contain three distinct but connected floors, each with different luminous spaces: two floors are visible from the great park surrounding the building and one floor faces the street. The first area, designed for sculpture, is on the same level as the park and connected to it by a 33 meter window. The second area, intended for painting, is on a raised level that can be partitioned using mobile walls. It receives light from above through skylights which can be adjusted to vary the amount of light that can spill through. The third area, designed for drawings, prints, photographs and objects is a rectangular gallery on a higher level still, with a balcony looking onto the second area, lit by artificial lighting.

The Pavilion opened to the public for the first time in 1954 as a home for 20th Century collections and immediately worked to meet the demands for European cultural exchange that were expressed with urgency after World War II. As a result, the Pavilion presented temporary exhibitions, beginning with the artist Georges Roualt. This activity alternated with the use of its space as a museum, as part of the desire to conserve its institutional status.

In 1979 PAC reopened after a long period of renovations to function definitively as a site to house temporary exhibitions. The flexibility of this historical museum architecture allowed the Pavilion to be receptive and in tune with new and heterogeneous types of art. The display areas, designed by Gardella, rotate around a central space or hub that creates a balance between them. As a result, the display space acts as a neutral container, as involved in the “dialogue” that works with the varied mediums and artist’s work presented.

In 1993 a Mafia bomb destroyed PAC at a moment in history when the country was heavily committed in its fight against the organization. The cost of this fight was a completely unexpected and violent attack on the symbols of culture and art in Italy. PAC was reconstructed by Ignazio Gardella according to the original design along with key technical improvements that now make it one of the most advanced galleries of its time. In 1996 it resumed its normal activity.

When the great exhibition spaces of the PAC reopened to the public after being closed for repairs for a long period, there were no public institutions in Italy which addressed the field of contemporary art on a continuous basis. The PAC proposes itself to Milan as an active structure, similar to the European kunsthalle, committed also to the prospect of opening a future museum of contemporary art for which it intends to be both witness and place of research.

The City of Milan’s art collections, already rich in twentieth century works, grew for years as a result of PAC’s activities, with the acquisition of recent works of contemporary arts. The strong increase in the flow of data in recent years, as compared to the pioneering years of the 1980s, indicates that interest in contemporary art in all its forms is growing and that the weight of tradition, particularly strong in Italy, is not preventing the public, a heterogeneous public at that, from approaching the more difficult and less well tested terrain of contemporary art. From 1978 PAC has produced exhibitions directed by guest curators who have collaborated on loans of art works with major international institutions of contemporary art, private galleries and public museums. From 2006 PAC has experimented with the production of new ways to present contemporary exhibitions by collaborating with private partners and co-producers to create rewarding exchanges between public mission and private interest.

In 2003 PAC promoted the birth of AMACI, the Italian association of public museums and spaces for Contemporary Art. The shared aim is to spread the knowledge and focus the Italian public’s attention on contemporary art. As part of this a yearly event each October (“The Contemporary Day”) was initiated to open all private and public institutions to the public fee of charge. PAC participates in the event scheduling an exhibition of an Italian artist – for 2010 this was Franko B – to represent Italian research in the field of contemporary expression. In 2009 PAC started a collaboration with MIART, the main fair of contemporary art in Milan, organising exhibition projects of international artists such as Vanessa Beecroft.

Number of projects exhibited yearly (total): 5

Most outstanding projects of the last 3-5 years: Christian Boltanski, 18th March – 19th June 2005
Andres Serrano 14th October – 26th November 2006
Street Art/Sweet Art 7th March – 25th April 2007
Ugo Mulas, 5th December 2007 – 10th February 2008
Robert Indiana, 4th July – 14th September 2008
Vanessa Beecroft, VB65 17th March – 5th April 2009
Yayoi Kusama, 28th November 2009 – 14th February 2010
Zhang Huan Ashman, 7th July – 12th September 2010
Franko B, 9th October – 28th November 2010

From 2002 onwards PAC has scheduled a series of different activities, guided visits to the artists’ studios, concerts of contemporary music, accompanying the exhibitions programme.

The PAC organises also conferences and symposiums going along with the themes of its exhibition and whit issues of contemporary art: among the others, excellent speakers were Massimiliano Gioni, Germano Celant, Angela Vettese and Carolyne Christov Bakargiev.

In 2002 the PAC started a programme of educational activities designed to introduce children and young people to art. The exhibition areas are open to children, families, young as well as teachers, with art lab where they can experiment all the issues of contemporary art.

All visitors receive a free paper guide that gives a brief explanation of the works and helps to understand the poetic of the artist. Often a video documents the backstage of the exhibition and offers short interviews, helping the public to get in touch with the artist and the curator. Free guided tours are organised on a weekly basis to explain the artist’s works, encouraging discussion and critical attitude of the public.

Number of activities by type per year: 50+ ( estimate)

The PAC collaborates with the main art editors in Milan in the production of its exhibition catalogues.

Surface area/capacity: 1200 m²

Three floors of exhibition area; café, 50 m²; educational lab, 25 m²; bookshop, 30 m².

PAC’s cultural strategies and yearly programme are decided by the Councillor for Culture of Milan, who selects exhibition projects proposed by various curators. PAC’s exhibition policy, corporate governance is now under the direction of the Cultural Director of the Municipality of Milan; the administration and organisation is led by the Chief of the Exhibition Department and his team. This Department, founded in 2005, coordinates all the exhibition projects in the public spaces in Milan and co-produces exhibitions together with companies specialised in art events organisation.

CEO: Massimo Accarisi – Cultural Director of the Municipality of Milan

Director: Domenico Piraina – Chief of the Exhibition Department of the Municipality of Milan

Curator: Guest curator