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Contemporary Art

Francesca Cappelletti’s Vision for Galleria Borghese


rancesca Cappelletti stands with arms crossed inside Galleria Borghese, surrounded by classical marble sculptures and bathed in natural light.
Francesca Cappelletti, director of Galleria Borghese. Courtesy of Galleria Borghese

Staging resonant dialogues between antiquities and contemporary art has become an increasingly prevalent strategy for reactivating museum collections and revitalizing cultural heritage. This approach allows institutions to unlock new narratives and revive the latent meanings embedded in ancient artifacts or historical paintings—revealing how these works continue to speak in the present, echoing through time via recurring human conditions and historical cycles. Yet finding the right synergy is never straightforward. In the most successful cases, contemporary artists are invited to work site-specifically, creating exhibitions that engage directly with the existing heritage to generate a meaningful, timely confrontation that draws the past into the present.

Since taking the helm of Galleria Borghese in 2020, Francesca Cappelletti has actively embraced and championed this “contemporary direction” in the museum’s program, inviting artists to engage with its Baroque treasure trove. She saw bringing contemporary art into the opulent, elaborately adorned rooms seemed like a way to reenergize the centuries-old institution and activate “the lesser-known aspects” of its collection while transforming the museum into a living, evolving space relevant and compelling for new generations.

On the occasion of the opening of “Black Soil Poems” by American artist Wangechi Mutu, Observer connected with the esteemed art historian and museum director about how contemporary art can forge dynamic, evocative exchanges with the historic collection housed within the Galleria Borghese.

“Even Italians love the Galleria Borghese, but most only came once when they were at school. These exhibitions give them a real reason to return and see the collection from new angles,” Cappelletti says during our conversation, as we sit beneath Titian’s Venus Blindfolding Cupid, surrounded by Baroque opulence—gilded stuccoes, colored marble and mythological tapestries. The painting’s sensual, luminous palette and softly modeled, idealized bodies now hang in striking contrast to the raw, crusted surface of Mutu’s ambiguous form, which rises from the ground, totemic and primal.

Wangechi Mutu's bronze sculpture Throned displayed against the backdrop of vibrant red walls and classical oil paintings in the ornate rooms of Galleria Borghese.Wangechi Mutu's bronze sculpture Throned displayed against the backdrop of vibrant red walls and classical oil paintings in the ornate rooms of Galleria Borghese.
Wangechi Mutu’s Throned (2023) in “Black Soil Poems” at Galleria Borghese. © Galleria Borghese. Photo: Agostino Osio

Galleria Borghese is a truly extraordinary museum that often overwhelms visitors with the sheer density of masterpieces packed into such an intimate space. “This is not a white cube at all, and that’s the reason why we decided to start a program of contemporary art three years ago,” Cappelletti says.

She recalls walking through the museum with her team, conducting research around the theme of nature. The site’s original owner and collector, Scipione Borghese, had a deep and deliberate relationship with nature and the gardens surrounding the jewel-box building now filled with art. Cappelletti “wanted to emphasize that connection.” Although she is a Baroque scholar, and specifically an expert on Caravaggio, she became increasingly attuned to the ways contemporary artists are engaging with the complicated relationship between humans and the natural world. “They’re concerned with the fate of nature—its degradation, the destruction of some of the most important natural sites on the planet and with the preservation of ancient cities and historic urban centers.”

The threats facing our world, e.g., climate change, environmental collapse and urban decay, should be studied and analyzed by scientists, but many now argue that artists have the ability to symbolically and metaphorically illuminate solutions. For Cappelletti, that’s where the most compelling connection to the past emerges: in Baroque Rome, noble families were deeply invested in the countryside, engaging with nature in ways we might now describe as idealized. “There was a real interest in living within nature and recreating natural gardens within urban settings, even in interior spaces. This way of thinking was central to their worldview,” she explains. “In fact, it was during the Baroque period that we saw the true emergence of landscape painting on a large scale. Artists had long included landscapes as background elements, but this was when landscape became a subject in its own right.”

Louise Bourgeois's “The Last Climb” at Galleria Borghese, featuring a spiral staircase enclosed in a large metal mesh cylinder adorned with blue glass spheres, set against the backdrop of richly decorated walls and a dramatic Baroque ceiling fresco.Louise Bourgeois's “The Last Climb” at Galleria Borghese, featuring a spiral staircase enclosed in a large metal mesh cylinder adorned with blue glass spheres, set against the backdrop of richly decorated walls and a dramatic Baroque ceiling fresco.
An installation view of Louise Bourgeois’ “Unconscious memories” at Galleria Borghese. © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by SIAE 2024 and VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Ph.by A.Osio

A nephew of Pope Paul V (Camillo Borghese), Cardinal Scipione Borghese was a powerful figure in 17th-century Rome who leveraged his ecclesiastical influence and family fortune to amass one of Europe’s most important art collections. A fervent patron and early supporter of Caravaggio, Bernini and Raphael, he shaped his holdings with a focus on both classical antiquities and contemporary Baroque masterpieces. To house these works, Scipione commissioned the villa now known as Galleria Borghese as a villa suburbana—a pleasure and display estate located just beyond the city walls and surrounded by gardens. The villa remained under Borghese family ownership until 1902, when it and much of the collection were acquired by the Italian state. Following a major restoration, the museum opened to the public in the early 20th Century and continues to operate under the supervision of Italy’s Ministry of Culture.

Focusing on this connection between culture and nature, Giuseppe Penone—a leading figure of Arte Povera—was the first artist Cappelletti invited to engage with the villa’s interiors and gardens. It was, at the time, an experiment but also what gave her the confidence and clarity to keep moving forward.

Spanning thirty works from Penone’s 1970-2000s output, that exhibition staged in the spring and summer of 2023 revealed the visionary depth and layered meaning of his practice. Rooted in Arte Povera, Penone’s work explores the profound connection between humans and plant life, uncovering hidden forms within materials through tactile, sensory and organic sculptural processes.

Following that, Galleria Borghese hosted a luminous Louise Bourgeois exhibition. Centered on the theme of consciousness and unconscious memory, the show reactivated both historical and personal narratives embedded in the rooms, affirming the universality of life’s circumstances, emotional preoccupations and recurring patterns across time and civilization. “I believe museums often function as spaces where we construct an idea of the past, sometimes even idealize it. But placing works by Louise Bourgeois that are charged with painful, intimate memory within that context challenged this static, crystallized image,” Cappelletti observes. “It forced us to confront how we attempt to reconstruct the past and what we may be choosing to remember, carry on, or forget.” She saw that visitors could sense throughout the rooms the singular presence of the woman, her soul pushing back against the weight of her life, transforming that struggle into something universal. “In that case, her voice was deeply personal, but it became a personal interpretation not only of her own past, but of our shared past or our collective memory. There’s a sense that she was speaking not just for herself, but for many, reaching a broader, more resonant audience.”

Installation view of Wangechi Mutu’s bronze sculptures “The Seated I” and “The Seated IV” positioned on the external facade of Galleria Borghese, blending with the historical architecture and outdoor statuary.Installation view of Wangechi Mutu’s bronze sculptures “The Seated I” and “The Seated IV” positioned on the external facade of Galleria Borghese, blending with the historical architecture and outdoor statuary.
Wangechi Mutu’s Met sculptures, The New Ones, Will Free Us, are now at the entrance of Galleria Borghese in Rome. Courtesy of Galleria Borghese

The choice of Wangechi Mutu as the next artist emerged after she saw the sculptures the artist created for the façade of the Metropolitan Museum. She immediately sensed that Mutu was someone unafraid to engage directly with architecture, to confront the scale and history of a building and integrate her works within it. Working with ancient or historically charged spaces—especially those originally designed to display art—is always a complex task, and not one that every contemporary artist can approach gently, respectfully and meaningfully all at once. It’s akin to weaving an intricate web of unexpected connections, revealing past and present works on another sphere of resonance and meaning. “It’s often difficult to insert new works into those environments in a way that feels coherent or meaningful,” Cappelletti notes. “But what she did struck me as deeply intelligent.”

As the museum director delved further into Mutu’s practice, she became particularly drawn to the artist’s use of diverse materials, here brought into the museum to initiate a dialogue that reconnects us with nature. That connection felt essential to a curatorial program committed to exploring and proposing more harmonious, generative relationships with Mother Earth. “We’re inside a precious historical building, but it is one that has always been surrounded by gardens,” Cappelletti notes, underscoring that the natural context is inseparable from how visitors experience the space. It was a dimension Mutu was able to engage with powerfully and with intention.

Francesca Cappelletti and Wangechi Mutu standing together on the terrace of Galleria Borghese, with a sculpture behind them and soft evening light casting shadows.Francesca Cappelletti and Wangechi Mutu standing together on the terrace of Galleria Borghese, with a sculpture behind them and soft evening light casting shadows.
Francesca Cappelleti and Wangechi Mutu at “Black Soil Poems” at Galleria Borghese. Courtesy of Galleria Borghese

Much of Mutu’s work in this exhibition draws from ancient poetry and myth, not by establishing direct comparisons between cultures, but by revealing how many myths and archetypes they share. “Take the recurring motif of the serpent: in African cosmology, it’s central, powerful, tied to the earth. But it’s already present in our collection too, through Ovid’s Metamorphoses—the serpent Titan, a being that emerges directly from the earth,” Cappelletti points out. In the museum’s rooms, various mythological narratives trace a potent thread of connection between the animal, plant and human realms.

One of the most moving spaces in the show, she believes, is the room of the suspended prayers—massive necklaces crafted from black soil that give the exhibition its title. “It reminds us of the spirits, the sacred forces rooted in the earth. And it’s placed in the Room of Pluto and Proserpina—mythologically significant, since Proserpina is the figure who traverses both the underworld and the surface world,” explains Cappelletti. “In Ovid’s version, she unites opposites: darkness and light, winter and summer. Her presence in that room makes visible the very dualities the exhibition explores. It’s one of the most emotionally powerful spaces in the show.”

Notably, in each of these exhibitions, the works are selected not to compete with the Baroque collection but to reflect and complement it, creating an osmotic dialogue between the villa’s classical artworks and a contemporary aesthetic. “What I always ask of artists is not to superimpose themselves onto the collection,” Cappelletti explains. “I don’t believe we should be covering the walls or building excessive structures inside the space, because that risks denying the building its voice.” Everything must be integrated with the precious collection, but with a degree of tension. “We’re not aiming for a simple dialogue or a comfortable juxtaposition. That’s not what truly helps us understand the collection, nor does it help the public engage more deeply. What we want is to generate a new gaze—a fresh lens through which to see the collection.”

A scene featuring Wangechi Mutu’s Prayers and Older Sisters sculptures in the gallery space of Galleria Borghese, with a background of classic art and sculptures.A scene featuring Wangechi Mutu’s Prayers and Older Sisters sculptures in the gallery space of Galleria Borghese, with a background of classic art and sculptures.
Like floating ghosts, Mutu’s suspended artworks transform these lavish spaces with their earthly energy. © Galleria Borghese. Photo: Agostino Osio

Cappelletti sees the Mutu show as one of the most successful integrations to date. “Because of the way the works are suspended or placed on the floor, you can see everything; the exhibition isn’t intruding on the space but quietly adding something to it,” she says. “It opens up the historical architecture. You look up, look down, and start noticing details you’d usually overlook. How many visitors actually pay attention to the mosaics in the first room of the Galleria Borghese? Or the ceiling? But with this show, you experience the space in a new way. And crucially, you don’t lose contact with the collection—or the history of the place. You still come for Caravaggio, Canova, Bernini, and you still see them, but you also leave with new ideas, suggestions, directions and ways of seeing and reading those works.”

This kind of contemporary counterpoint creates a more dynamic experience of this timeless trove of beauty and mythological symbolism—one that invites visitors into a dialogue across time and cultures, rather than leaving them to wander passively. It also draws a different kind of public to Galleria Borghese.

“It’s not a vast institution, but every room is saturated with beauty, genius and the artistic legacy of the past,” she says. “Yet what makes it even more powerful is the opportunity it offers for reinterpretation.” For Cappelletti, engaging with the collection through fresh perspectives is an act of critical thinking and how we keep a fertile dialogue with the past alive.

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Contemporary Dialogues: Francesca Cappelletti’s Vision for Galleria Borghese





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