Minister of Culture Alessandro Giuli, Mayor of Milan Giuseppe Sala, Mayor of Cinisello Balsamo Giacomo Giovanni Ghilardi, and President of the National Museum of Photography Davide Rondoni announce the transformation of MUFOCO - Museum of Contemporary Photography, founded in 2004 and housed in the Villa Ghirlanda premises in Cinisello Balsamo (Milan), into MUNAF - National Museum of Photography.
With the amendment and adoption of the new Statute, the administrative and legal process sanctioning this transformation was completed. Following the enhancement agreement, the Ministry of Culture officially became part of the Foundation as a founding and promoting body, joining the historical members: the Metropolitan City of Milan and the City of Cinisello Balsamo.
Minister Giuli confirmed by decree Davide Rondoni as President of the National Museum of Photography Foundation - MUNAF. The Board of Directors is composed of Sonia Bedeschi, Angelo Giovanni De Boni, Davide Colombo (designated by the Metropolitan City of Milan) and Massimo Pratelli (designated by the City of Cinisello Balsamo). The president and board members will serve for five years, beginning September 19, 2025, with the possibility of one renewal.
The National Museum of Photography will soon have expanded headquarters within the 17th-century Villa Ghirlanda complex and its historic park. The new institution will have the mission of strengthening Italy’s cultural offerings in the field of photography, collaborating with national and international institutions, constantly enhancing and enriching its collections, and promoting the knowledge, research and dissemination of photographic culture. Objectives also include supporting contemporary production and the dialogue between different arts.
The museum starts with a heritage of two million photographs, divided into more than forty photographic funds, which collect works by more than a thousand Italian and foreign authors. The collections, which range from the post-World War II period to the present day (with presences also from the nineteenth century and the avant-garde), offer a broad panorama of Italian and European photography, documenting crucial themes of contemporary research: from the changing landscape to portraiture, from social investigation to artistic experimentation. Among the most significant funds are Viaggio in Italia (1984), a collective project conceived by Luigi Ghirri and considered the manifesto of the Italian School of Landscape; Archivio dello Spazio and Milano senza confini, born from important public commissioning projects; and the Lanfranco Colombo fund, which brings together works by international authors exhibited at Diaframma, the first Milanese gallery devoted entirely to photography (opened in 1967); the Grazia Neri Agency archive, which documents forty years of international photojournalism; and finally the Anthological Collection, which brings together the acquisitions of the most relevant contemporary Italian artists collected by the museum from 2004 to the present.
“At a time when images dominate communication flows, the Ministry of Culture is promoting the establishment of a National Museum of Photography to reaffirm the central role of this language as an art form, a tool of knowledge and a primary cultural asset,” said Minister of Culture Alessandro Giuli. “The MUNAF will have a fundamental task in the preservation of historical archives, from the international promotion of emerging talents to the dissemination and enhancement of photographic culture on the national territory.”
“For the Metropolitan City of Milan, among the founding entities of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, it is a great satisfaction to obtain the status of National Museum,” said Milan Deputy Mayor Francesco Vassallo. “This demonstrates the value of this reality and confirms the foresight of those who, years ago, chose to promote and support it. Today more than ever, our country and the new generations above all need culture and to rediscover the great artistic heritage we have. It is even more a source of pride to see how a local reality, of great prestige and cultural value, finally and deservedly assumes a leading role in the national cultural offer: thanks to those who, in various capacities, have made it possible to get this far and to those who, from today on, will help build a new path full of satisfaction.”
“The transformation from MUFOCO to MUNAF is a source of great pride for us. The decision to build a National Museum of Photography is the result of work I have been engaged in since the beginning of my first term. We have finally arrived at a decisive turning point for the future of this prestigious institution and its heritage, with a proposal that offers the right recognition and enhances the value of both the Museum and our city of its birth. The National Museum status will certainly bring added value to the whole territory,” said Cinisello Balsamo Mayor Giacomo Giovanni Ghilardi.
“The transition to National Museum of Photography crowns a long journey and begins a new one. Credit must be given to all those who in these 20 years have believed in the preciousness of an authoritative museum dedicated to photography: founding members directors staff presidents and administrators. And credit must be given to the courage shown in recent years to reaffirm its value despite difficulties of various kinds. I am glad that, under the leadership of a poet, photography finds its national museum, a sign of the link between the arts and the importance of the human gesture of art that qualifies our nature while many would like to reduce us to artichokes or algorithms. Art shows the soul of a person and the various souls of an era. Now the journey starts again in a time where image-making is an attitude and art that vividly questions consciences in many respects. Thank you, then, to everyone. And to the work,” said MUNAF President Davide Rondoni.
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| Cinisello Balsamo, MUFOCO turns into MUNAF: National Museum of Photography is born. |
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