Frigidaire Magazine Gets Major Retrospective at Museo di Roma in Trastevere

A major exhibition dedicated to Frigidaire, one of the most revolutionary cultural publications worldwide, will open at the Museo di Roma in Trastevere on March 19, 2025, running until June 29, 2025. The show traces the magazine's journey from the 1970s to today through original artworks, historical posters, photographs, and video projections, supplemented by special events, meetings, and performances. To fund the exhibition, a crowdfunding campaign has been launched on the Produzioni dal Basso platform with a target of €40,000. Frigidaire was founded in Trastevere in 1980 by director Vincenzo Sparagna and five cartoonists from Cannibale: Stefano Tamburini, Andrea Pazienza, Filippo Scozzari, Massimo Mattioli, and Tanino Liberatore. The group formed between 1978 and 1980 at the satirical weekly Il Male, known for creating famous fake newspapers. Frigidaire blends news and fiction, comics and reportage, literature, cinema, music, theater, satire, and photography. In 2005, the magazine moved its editorial office to Umbria, where Sparagna and staff founded the Republic of Frigolandia in a former colony in Giano, home to the Arte Maivista movement created in 1985 by Pazienza and Sparagna. The magazine was sold at newsstands until 2017 and is now distributed to subscribers. In 2017, Yale University acquired part of Frigidaire's historical archive for its Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.