With a two-part multimedia installation, Nora Ancarola concludes a research process centred on the Museum’s structure and the architectural renovation led by Gae Aulenti between 1985 and 2004. Her work offers a glimpse into the hidden core of the building’s construction and consolidation. The artist has filmed figures moving through and interacting with the museum’s mysterious foundations, acting as agents of balance, containment and play. Through this exercise in transparency, she reveals the museum as a vast presentation device – a display – that shapes our experience of art.

 

Ancarola sees the Museum’s architecture as an archive, layered with strata that reflect its inner workings, hierarchies and history. In doing so, she challenges the divide between what is visible and what is hidden – between the museographic spaces dedicated to art, the areas on display and those considered merely functional – often concealed from view. A phenakistoscope, an early optical device and forerunner of cinema, evokes the idea of a dynamic, illusory vision – where movement, like that of the tightrope walkers, enables us to look and to uncover the enigma.