The Management of the Musja, a museum in Rome born just under a year ago (we gave the news exactly last July 2019) the goal of sharing, with the whole community, the vast collection of the late founder Ovidio Jacorossi, informs the closure of the space with a letter.
However, Musja's brief but intense experience ended with a great success: the exhibition "The Dark Side - Who's afraid of the dark?", curated by Danilo Eccher, with which the exhibition schedule was inaugurated in October 2019. In a few months we have welcomed over 10 visitors, whose enthusiastic response has given us strength, confirmed the validity of the project and demonstrated the need for similar initiatives.
Unfortunately, the restrictive measures due to the Covid-19 health emergency did not allow the Museum to reopen its doors. In fact, the access limits and the numerous health regulations do not match either with the characteristics of an exhibition full of large site-specific installations or with the very particular structure of the space, created in a building located in the heart of Rome, on the ancient ruins of the Teatro di Pompeo and which over the centuries has seen the stratification of architectural elements from different eras, from the Roman age to the Renaissance.
Guardian of such a precious heritage, the Jacorossi family decided in 2017 to intervene with an important restoration work that protected the space, preserving its peculiarities, and making it suitable for opening up to the public. From here was born 'Musia', a multidisciplinary experimentation laboratory which over time has grown to then transform itself into 'Musja', a real, innovative museum, open to dialogue with the public and inspired by Ovidio Jacorossi's profound conviction on the centrality of the human person. A principle that has allowed him – in the course of his long career – to consider art and business as an inseparable pair, identifying precisely in art that meeting point between the pursuit of profit and the collective interest.
Unfortunately Musja's experience ends here. However motivated we are to roll up our sleeves and eager to contribute to the restart of the cultural sector, for a small private reality like ours, the moment is not the happiest. The excessively bureaucratized procedures, the few incentives for restarting and the great uncertainty as to what will happen, do not allow us to set up a schedule for the next few months. And yet, art and culture look to the future, imagine it and contribute to outlining its contents. In the absence of perspectives, their light is extinguished, they are rendered impotent and the community is deprived of an essential value. The exhibition "The Dark Side - Who's afraid of the dark?" addressed precisely this theme: 13 internationally renowned artists presented their personal interpretation of that feeling and how to overcome it. We hope that this darkness will soon fade away and that art can return as soon as possible to play its role of light and guide. Ovidio Maria Jacorossi – Director of Musja
