Marcello Faletra argues museums have become zoos for artworks

In an essay published on Artribune, Marcello Faletra critiques contemporary museum and exhibition practices, drawing on Serena Giordano's book "Disimparare l'arte" (il Mulino), which compares museum collections to zoos. Faletra argues that excessive, redundant exhibition design often overwhelms artworks, making them "invisible" and reducing them to spectacle. He cites the 2015 exhibition "Pompei e l'Europa" at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli as an example, where elaborate fake niches, columns, and forced pathways sacrificed the show's meaning. Faletra suggests that such setups cater to tourists, treating them as inadequate beings needing entertainment, while artworks become melancholic captives. He ends by echoing Jean Dubuffet's call for a strike of artworks. The article appears in Artribune Magazine #30.