There is a Florence that stays off the usual tourist circuits, yet can tell the city’s truest soul, hidden behind the doors of studios where every day painters, sculptors, and multimedia artists give shape to their ideas.
In September and October this invisible city becomes accessible to everyone thanks to Interno 900, the new project of the Museo Novecento which for three days flings open the doors of 53 artist studios scattered around the Tuscan capital. A chance more unique than rare for those who want to go beyond the usual tourist stops and discover the contemporary face of a city that too often lives in the shadow of its Renaissance past.
Three days to enter the creative heart of Florence
The initiative arises from the collaboration between the Museo Novecento and the Interno-Studi Aperti collective in Florence, with the aim of giving voice and visibility to those who work daily in the field of contemporary art within the Florentine territory. The events are scheduled for Saturday, September 26, Sunday, September 27, and Saturday, October 2, from 10:00 to 13:00 and Saturday, October 2 from 17:30 to 20:00. Three time windows in which anyone can knock on the door of a studio and see up close how a work is born, with no filters or gallery setups.
This is precisely the project’s strength: to reveal processes, not just results. Materials, sketches, trials, reconsiderations—everything that would normally stay private within a studio becomes, for a weekend, part of the public experience.
Florence’s cultural councilor, Giovanni Bettarini, stressed how the initiative allows telling a city that continues to build its cultural identity in the present, bringing people exactly to the places where creation happens.
Faces and voices of today’s Florence
Among the 53 names selected for this first edition are very different realities, testimony to how heterogeneous the city’s artistic scene is. Here we mention only a few, such as Fabrizio Ajello, Marina Arienzale, the collective Artiglieria, Matteo Coluccia, followed by Daniela de Lorenzo, the project Toast, Aleksandra Trajkovic and Virginia Zanetti. Painting, sculpture, conceptual art and collaborative practices intertwine in a mosaic that tells Florence from novel angles.
As explained by the project’s artistic director, Interno 900 does not intend to replace Florence’s historical heritage, but to flank it with a parallel narrative, made of ongoing research and evolving languages. It is proof that beneath the glossy surface of postcards moves a vibrant artistic community, often invisible to those who merely pass by the Uffizi or the Ponte Vecchio.
For those visiting Florence during those days, or for those who live there and think they know it already, Interno 900 represents the perfect opportunity to change perspective: no longer just spectators of a glorious past, but direct witnesses to a present being built studio by studio, work by work.
