Starting on October 15, Palazzo Massimo will host the photographic exhibition Hidden Collections by Giorgio Di Noto, curated by Alessandro Dandini de Sylva, with the coordination of Agnese Pergola, who has designed an installation that engages in dialogue with the works and spaces of the Museum.
The exhibition is part of a broader photographic commission project won by the Museo Nazionale Romano through the Strategia Fotografia 2024 call, promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture. For this project, photographer Giorgio Di Noto carried out a visual investigation into the Museum’s invisible heritage.
The project focuses on spaces that are usually inaccessible to the public, such as the photographic archive, storage rooms, and restoration laboratories. Hidden Collections approaches archaeology as a critical device—like photography itself—capable of selecting, isolating, and interpreting. The image thus becomes a tool for questioning memory and testimony, challenging the boundary between the visible and the invisible.
At the heart of the exhibition lies the photographic archive of the Museo Nazionale Romano, housed in Palazzo Massimo, explored as a genuine archaeological site where photographs become artifacts to be unearthed and re-mediated. The project delves into themes of concealment, isolation, and masking. The processes of reproducing and cataloguing artifacts become subjects of inquiry in their own right: masks, erasures, and other techniques devised to isolate and clarify the photographed object end up generating new layers of meaning. What was meant to remain an invisible background takes on presence; what was a mere technical act becomes a critical gesture, revealing unexpected possibilities for interpretation.
The project is accompanied by a publication edited by Quodlibet.
Download the exhibition leaflet here.
On October 29, a conference will also be held on the relationship between art, photography, archaeology, and archives, curated and moderated by Alessandro Coco, with the participation of scholars and professionals from the field.