The real museum today is the ability to train new eyes. The museum is already in your home. We don’t need to express ourselves, we do it too much, we are victims and perpetrators of a pollution of content, works and information. Together with the work you will receive a presentation of the value of the work for your life, as a tool to train new eyes.. 

For more informations: lucarossicampus@gmail.com 

Messilimiano Giorni: OpenMoMA was born from a project active since 2014. The concept is to bring our museum concept into people’s homes. We could say a kind of hakerage of the institution in order to make it “opensource.” Why has this concept been important to you over the last eight years?

Luca Rossi: Because our private dimension is the only gymnasium where we can “train new eyes”. MoMA must became HoME. 

MG: You have a positivist view, what if the work of art served to close our eyes or put our consciences to sleep?

LR: Everything can be. #OpenMoMA, like Blind Work in Italy, wants to distil the value of the best modern and contemporary artists. For example Jeff Koons, as a good son of Andy Warhol, wants to bring all the work into a colourful and attractive surface that looks very much like the surface of our mobile phone. Having a work by Jeff Koons in the house is like having an alert on how stupidity can generate monsters.

MG: You also talk about the “ecology” of art. Can you explain more?

LR: The works are only made on commission and are only seen once they arrive at home. This choice is opposed to the pollution of content and artworks, but also wants to reactivate our imagination, which has been completely anaesthetised and suffocated by the digital world where we see things “from home” before we can experience them “live”.

MG: This project is very critical of the system, somehow cutting out the traditional museum, the role of the curator, but also the traditional communication of an exhibition. You seek a direct and intimate relationship with the viewer. Don’t you think this could hinder the project?

LR: Actually, I don’t want to go against the system but to renew the system. OpenMoMA wants to stimulate the museum to be more fluid, dynamic and inclusive. The same goes for all the conventional roles in the art world that could find new functions and new stimuli in this project. 

MG: What is the point of contact with project like IMAGES Series, Black Mirror or Lumbung Orationes?

LR: The “screen” is always central in all the projects you mentioned: in IMAGES Serie it is the space to order and not to produce, in Black Mirror it is the boundary to be crossed, in Lumbung Orationes it is the place of activation of the project. In this case the screen becomes the place of dialogue with the audience who can choose three artists to be brought together in the same artwork. We could say that the screen is the bridge to activate the possibilities of our private dimension.