With its collection of roughly 20,000 paintings, drawings, sculptures and installations, the Galleria Nazionale offers a rich panorama of Italian art from the 19th century to the present day. The current presentation of the works, conceived as an exhibition on the theme of time, supersedes the customary chronological order to develop simultaneous pathways, juxtaposing items in terms of similarities and differences, references and citations, to offer an unexpected vision through the multiplication of viewpoints, perspectives and interpretations.

Establishing a dialogue between past and present, this rereading also involves the building designed by Cesare Bazzani in 1911, restored to its original splendour by means of a quasi-archaeological approach and brought into immediate contact with contemporary reality. The rooms are once again flooded with light and relations with the city and the world outside take on paramount importance.

Time is a factor that, as it grows and shifts, sunders your work from contemporaneity (or the avant garde) to place it squarely before its true qualities. In this sense, the Time is Out of Joint exhibition is an empirical demonstration of the dissolution of time - something of which only the finest art is capa-ble. On this wondrous journey, time is the proverbial gentleman, stepping to one side, squashing one civilization into another, and transforming its line into a non-orientable surface. With this new exhibi-tion, the Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art has become far more similar to how I dream the Large Hadron Collider is than a museum. In fact, It is a perfect staging of the space-time paradox. Take all the people you love along.

Antonio Canova Produced by Antonio Canova between 1795 and 1815, this marble sculpture shows Hercules, maddened with rage after donning the poisoned shirt brought to him from his jealous wife by Lichas. In a fit of agony, the hero hurls his innocent servant, the unwitting bearer of the gift, into the Aegean.

Gustav Klimt The painting addresses the symbolic theme of the three ages of women: childhood, motherhood and old age. The juxtaposition of the old woman with the swollen belly and the young mother with her daughter in her arms can be read from right to left in terms of increasing physical deterioration or from left to right as eternal rebirth.

Alberto Burri Exhibited in 1965 at the 8th São Paulo Biennial in Brazil, Grande Rosso P. N.18 belongs to the series of works consisting of sheets of PVC perforated with a blowtorch and shaped by the artist with his hands. Burri participated in the work's restoration at the Galleria Nazionale in 1978 and provided a sample of the original material.

Ugo Rondinone The painting consists of large concentric circles of colour forming a sort of blurred target. While the disorderly arrangement of the rings induces the visitor to seek a viewpoint capable of bringing the whole into focus, the overall view creates confusion from every angle. Ugo Rondinone appears to have pursued the same aim in his choice of a title, which can be translated as 17 January 1994, the possible date of the work's completion.