On the Paths of Enlightenment. The Myth of India in Western Culture 1808-2017

Running from September 24, 2017 until January 21, 2018. The exhibition will occupy two floors of the museum and will provide a broad and varied perspective of how, from the early nineteenth century, India with its traditions, religions, landscapes, cultures and arts – has increasingly enthralled the Western world. Not so much India itself as the profound influence it exerted on international art and culture. This is the theme that the exhibition develops on through a plethora of materials and works, from the writings of Schopenhauer and Hermann Hesse, to the photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson, the avant-garde works of Le Corbusier and Alexander Calder to the contemporary art of Francesco Clemente, Luigi Ontani, Robert Raushenberg, Damien Hirst, Maurizio Cattelan and Thomas Ruff, from the contemporary photography of Sabastiao Salgado, Ferdinando Scianna, Steve McCurry and Martin Parr and filmmakers like Roberto Rossellini and Louis Malle, down to the Beatles for music.