Fabio De Chirico Appointed Director of Istituto Centrale per la Grafica in Rome

Fabio De Chirico, current director of Service II of the Directorate General for Contemporary Creativity at the Italian Ministry of Culture, has been appointed as the new director of the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica in Rome, succeeding Maura Picciau. The institute, housed in Palazzo Poli and Palazzo della Calcografia behind the Trevi Fountain, was founded in 1975 from the merger of the Calcografia Nazionale and the Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe. It preserves a vast collection of graphic works, including drawings, engraved matrices, prints, and photographs, alongside specialized restoration labs and an active historical printing workshop. De Chirico, appointed by Director General of Museums Massimo Osanna, outlined plans to increase visibility through strategic communication, social media, and AI technologies, targeting both international scholars and the general public, especially tourists visiting the Trevi Fountain. He aims to revitalize the institute's role as a creative laboratory for young artists, involving academies of fine arts and fostering national and international collaborations, including with Italian Cultural Institutes abroad. De Chirico emphasized a democratic, participatory museum vision and plans to develop a structured exhibition program in the coming months, building on existing projects and the institute's historical collections, which include 17,000 photographic works and a historic Computer Art and Video Art collection.