Italian art from the second half of the twentieth century to today, at the MAXXI course for journalists

The course is inspired by the exhibition of the same name “Tragicomica. Perspectives on Italian art from the second half of the twentieth century to today”, at the MAXXI from 2 April to 20 September 2026, curated by Andrea Bellini and Francesco Stocchi, which tells how many Italian artists have used comedy, self-irony and paradox as tools of criticism and as an antidote to the tragic, examining these themes within cultural production in a broad sense, from cinema to theatre, to architecture, literature and philosophy. The meeting promoted by the two institutions is part of this production by proposing the journalistic gaze as a key to reading and interpreting the distinctive trait of Italian culture, that is, the peculiar attitude of responding to the tragic with irony, from which the project starts.

The course will be introduced by Guido D’Ubaldo, president of the Order of Journalists of Lazio, by Emanuela Bruni, president of the MAXXI Foundation – National Museum of the Arts of the 21st Century and by Serena Bortone, secretary of the Order of Journalists of Lazio, and will see interventions by Paolo Conti, Mariarita Grieco, Filippo Ceccarelli, Flavio Natalia and the MAXXI Artistic Director Francesco Scocchi, moderated by Lorenza Fruci. At the end of the course it will be possible to take a guided tour of the exhibition “Tragicomica. Perspectives on Italian art from the second half of the twentieth century to today”. The course is part of a cycle of training meetings on “cultural journalism”, hosted in places of culture and dedicated to great intellectuals, started in 2023 by President Guido D’Ubaldo and the Order of Journalists of Lazio, carried out in collaboration with Lorenza Fruci.