From De Chirico to Dali, a large museum, free to everyone

“Quando il pensiero supera il gesto” (“When thought exceeds deed”), is the name of the large, new museum that the Boga brothers (well-known businessmen from Tradate, national and international leaders in the furniture sector and owners of the Habitare Group), are building in Tradate, along the “Varesina” highway. The museum will cover an area of over 3500 m², and, from 2011, will exhibit works of art by such great artists as De Chirico, Morandi, Dali, Fontana, Marini, Matta, and many more. The works exhibited will include paintings, sculptures and installations from the three brothers’ private collection; the museum’s permanent exhibition will contain works from the 15th to the 20th century. Entry will be completely free.

“But not only,” Fausto, Felice and Cesare Boga explain. “There’ll be a number of areas; in addition to a section containing the permanent works, there’ll be an area for travelling exhibitions, and more importantly, an area entirely dedicated to young artists, to those trying to make a name for themselves, who, today in Italy, have nowhere that they can exhibit. Art must not be an end in itself, or be at the whim of some dealer. Art must just be, and anyone that has anything to say, to show the world, must have the chance to do so.”

The museum, which will be called “Quando il pensiero supera il gesto”, is inspired by a movement that the Boga brothers themselves began in the 1980s, by creating works based on art and on famous people. These works will be on display inside the museum. “Our guiding theme is the transcendent unity of and in shapes, of and in colours, of and in contents, of and in everyday experience, of the religions with which we relate to earthly things and also, but above all, to the divine.”

Furthermore, “Art is a phenomenon that has existed since the dawn of mankind, and if it is true art, it must live on through the centuries. Otherwise, it is dead as soon as it is created. Like the view of art as transgression, where art is not personal expression, but only and exclusively a commercial phenomenon.

On the question of why they should build a museum like this in Tradate and not in a large city, the Boga brothers have clear ideas. “The Amboise Castle, where Leonardo worked, was also in the middle of nowhere. Art is not the expression of only a few people, it can be everywhere. It’s not the place that makes the art. The town we come from is Tradate, and we want to leave a mark here, after a life that has given us so much. Culture is history, the love of art, to leave a tangible mark and to bring our children the culture of our fathers, not only economic culture.”

“We haven’t built our museum according to any existing model,” they conclude. “We’ve excelled in everything we’ve been involved in, from furniture, to security, because we’ve believed in our ideas. We also believe in this project, which is dedicated to spreading culture. We want to bring great art within everyone’s reach.