When the splendid exhibition spaces of the PAC designed by Ignazio Gardella reopened to the public after being closed for repairs for a long period, there were no public institutions in Italy which addressed the field of contemporary art on a continuous basis. The PAC offered itself to Milan as an agile structure, similar to the European kunsthalle, committed also to the prospect of opening a museum of contemporary art for which it intended to be both witness and place of research. The City of Milan’s art collections, already rich in twentieth century works, grew for years, as a result of the PAC activities , with the acquisition of recent works. These filled many gaps and helped to define the layout and content of the future museum, then open in 1984 at the temporary site of Palazzo Reale. That vast organisation of The Civic Art Collections then became complete with a collection which embraced a time span reaching from the paleochristian era to that of contemporary art. It included the following institutes: the Museo d’Arte Antica and the Pinacoteca of the Sforzesco Castle, the Gabinetto dei Disegni, the Galleria d’Arte Moderna, the CIMAC-Civico Museo d’Arte Contemporanea and attached to the latter, the PAC.

The city currently plans to locate the twentieth century collections at a permanent site: the CIMAC (civic museum of contemporary art), closed at the moment because of restoration work at Palazzo Reale, will be reborn as the Museo del Novecento (museum of the twentieth century) in the spaces designed by Italo Rota in the same building.

The PAC continues its exhibition activity by seeking to maintain an open mind with the focusing on contemporary art with an eye to the future. The strong increase in the flow of data in recent years, as compared to the pioneering years of the Nineteen Eighties, indicates that interest in contemporary art in all its forms is growing and that the weight of tradition, particularly strong in Italy, is not preventing the public, a heterogeneous public at that, from approaching the more difficult and less well tested terrain of recent art.

This site, which takes up the reins of and updates that site opened in the now distant 1999, is designed to facilitate access to information and promote the exchange of ideas with the PAC’s public.

[Via comune.milano.it website]