Google Art Project

MAXXI becomes a Google Cultural Institute partner and joins Google Art Project, a network composed of 345 museums and institutions throughout the world, a digital platform with over 63 thousand works of art to explore, 96 works in ultra-high definition (7 Gigapixels) and over 460 thousand galleries created and personalised by individual users. Making art accessible to all and allowing it to be explored and loved in its most minute details.

A virtual tour with Google Street View technology, the collection to be explored, every detail of Alighiero Boetti’s Mappa at ultra-high 7 Gigapixel definition.

MAXXI IN A CLICK
The museum becomes “virtual”! With a selection of works from the Art, Architecture and Photography collections always available online for all, academics, tourists, enthusiasts and the merely curious.
From works and installations by the Italian masters to the great international artists through to the latest generations. From models, drawings and site-specific projects from the Architecture collection to the portraits by leading photographers. Visitors can navigate and explore 55 works and obtain comprehensive information about them: you start from the MAXXI lobby and proceed to discover some of the most important works in the permanent collection.
It is also possible to conduct true virtual tours of the architecture of Zaha Hadid and the installations of Maurizio Mochetti, Anish Kapoor and Giuseppe Penone.

THE GIGAPIXEL
Mappa, the great tapestry (163 x 217 cm) by Alighiero Boetti made in 1971 during his second trip to Afghanistan, has been photographed and put online for the first time at the ultra-high definition of 7 billion pixels! Thanks to the Google Art Project’s Open Gallery you can examine every detail of the work: the loose weave characterising the first embroideries, the diverse hands of the embroiderers, the shades of colour in the hundreds of threads making up this universe.

The tapestry, in which every state is represented by its own flag, depicts the global geopolitical situation in the early Seventies, highlighting the balance of power. Around the edges, an inscription provides information about the work, the artist’s signature in alphabetical order: ABEEGHIIILOORTT and the phrase “Mettere al mondo il mondo”, which emphasises the correspondence between art and life underlying the artist’s work.

Google Art Project, part of the Google Cultural Institute, is an online platform that allows the global public to access high definition images of the most important works of art made available by the project’s partner museums, with the objective of “democratizing” access to culture and promoting its preservation for future generations.
As well as browsing the works, visitors to the platform may also assemble and share with friends their own personal gallery with the User Galleries feature and examine two works side-by-side on the same screen thanks to the Compare function.