Eugenio Viola Named Madre Museum Director

(MENAFN- USA Art News) Last month, Eugenio Viola was appointed the new director of the Madre Museum in Naples. Viola, a native of Naples, was selected from a pool of 33 candidates and returns to the institution where he previously served as curator at large from 2009 to 2016. The museum, located in the Palazzo Donnaregina, features a collection of works specifically designed for the building, linking it to the city since its opening.

Viola emphasized the emotional significance of his return, stating that Madre was formative for his professional identity and taught him to view museums as dynamic structures of ideas, relationships, and conversations rather than mere exhibition spaces. He described his return as“the beginning of another trajectory,” driven by a desire to integrate a decade of international experience with the city that shaped him, focusing on future possibilities over nostalgia.

When discussing differences between institutions in Latin America and Italy, Viola noted that Latin American museums often fill gaps in the public sphere, functioning as spaces for encounter and responding to social or political crises with limited resources. This scarcity, he explained, fosters inventiveness and a culture of solidarity among institutions. Italy, conversely, benefits from a dense institutional history, robust public cultural infrastructure, and a wealth of heritage and expertise, which provide continuity but can also lead to less agility. Viola aims to combine Italy's strengths with the flexibility and collaborative spirit he observed in Latin America, asserting that a museum's social function must be continually negotiated with the society it serves.

Viola's relaunch plan centers the permanent collection, highlighting its unique strength in works conceived specifically for the Palazzo Donnaregina. He sees the collection not as static but as a“living archive” that demands reinterpretation by each generation. His strategy includes evolving displays, unexpected juxtapositions, focused research, and new commissions that enable contemporary artists to engage with existing works. He also advocates for temporary exhibitions to leave lasting contributions, such as new artworks, archives, or research. According to Viola, a truly public collection extends beyond preserving the past to generate meaning in the present.

Referencing his writing in ArtReview, where he called for museums to move beyond singular narratives, Viola described his vision for Madre as positioning Naples at the core of its project, not as a backdrop but as a horizon and method. He explained that Naples's“radically stratified” nature, with its coexisting histories, cultures, migrations, and conflicts, should be embraced by the museum rather than simplified. This perspective also informs his focus on the Mediterranean as a central theme, viewed as a space of circulation, friction, and interdependence where Europe, Africa, and the Middle East intersect, and critical contemporary issues unfold. For Viola,“listening” means allowing diverse voices to reshape the museum's questions and its operational framework.

Viola's Artforum Best of 2025 list included the Tomaso Binga retrospective at the Madre, curated by Eva Fabbris with Daria Khan. He praised the exhibition for not only rediscovering an overlooked artist but also for revealing the mechanisms through which art history creates visibility and invisibility. He cited Binga as part of a generation of radical women, including Mirella Bentivoglio and Ketty La Rocca in Italy, whose contributions to experimental, language, performance, and feminist art were recognized belatedly. Viola highlighted similar reassessments in Latin America, referencing artists such as Olga de Amaral in Colombia, Cecilia Vicuña in Chile, Margarita Azurdia in Guatemala, and Letícia Parente in Brazil. He emphasized that the goal is not merely to insert neglected women into an existing canon, but to acknowledge that the canon itself was never neutral, urging museums to question how art history was written, what it excluded, and by whom.

Viola uses the term“body poetics” to describe practices where the body serves as a site of meaning, conflict, and transformation. He traces its historical roots to Body Art and radical performance practices of the 1960s and 1970s, while also exploring its later manifestations, particularly around the turn of the millennium. He views the body as a multifaceted entity, acting as a medium, image, archive, battlefield, or interface through which issues of gender, sexuality, race, vulnerability, desire, technology, and power are materialized. Viola clarified that“body poetics” is not a style or medium but a long-standing analytical lens, noting his continued fascination with the body's centrality even when it appears absent or displaced into images, technologies, prostheses, or digital identities.

Regarding his 2022 Italian Pavilion in Venice, Gian Maria Tosatti's Storia della Notte e Destino delle Comete, which involved a partnership with Valentino, Viola clarified the distinction between financial support and artistic authorship. He expressed deep gratitude to Valentino and Pierpaolo Piccioli for their crucial sponsorship, which enabled the project's scale and ambition. However, he stressed the institutional importance of differentiating financial backing from artistic and curatorial decision-making.

Source: Observer Arts

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