The seven exhibition rooms of the MACTE were, until recently, the seven stalls of a neighbourhood market. The redevelopment kept the plan of the building exactly as it was: the large circular central area and the side modules that housed the sales units. Anyone walking in today moves through a perfectly recognisable piece of commercial architecture, filled with painting from the second half of the twentieth century.
The museum opened to the public on 28 April 2019, run by the Fondazione Macte, set up in February of the same year by the town of Termoli and Emi Holding. What it guards, though, is much older: the Premio Termoli, a contemporary art competition launched in 1955 on the purchase-prize formula, whereby the winning work is bought and enters the permanent holdings. That is how an Adriatic fishing town ended up, year after year, with a collection. On 1 December 1959 the ministry recognised the fifth edition as a national artistic event; in 1961 the jury included Giulio Carlo Argan and Palma Bucarelli, and the show featured Alberto Burri, Lucio Fontana and Enrico Prampolini. Since 2020 the competition has been run by the foundation, which has added a section for architecture and design.
What to see
The permanent collection runs to nearly 500 works, almost all of them acquired through the prize. Most are paintings on canvas, with sculpture and graphic work around the edges, and they cover post-Informel, abstraction, Nieuwe figuratie, kinetic art and programmed art: in effect a vertical core sample of Italian art from the post-war years onward. Among the names are Carla Accardi, Mirella Bentivoglio, Nanda Vigo, Dadamaino, Tano Festa, Bice Lazzari, Mario Schifano, Giulio Turcato, Giuseppe Uncini and the Venezuelan Jesús Rafael Soto. The opening exhibition, titled Art is easy, lined up works from the late fifties to the eighties, with Gino Marotta and Mario Ceroli.
Our editors' tip
This is not a museum to rush through between two swims: there are few rooms and the hangings change often, so check which temporary show is on before you go, because that is where the foundation puts its best work. The museum collaborates with the restoration school of the Accademia di Brera and belongs to AMACI, the association of Italian contemporary art museums: the collection can also be consulted in the RAAM digital archives, useful if you are after a specific piece and want to know whether it is on display.