Broken. The Power of the Fragment in Sculpture
A journey from ancient Egypt and Greece to Michelangelo, Auguste Rodin, Louise Bourgeois, and Francesco Vezzoli, exploring the power of the fragment in the history of sculpture as both a trace of the past and a form of the present.
From 25 September 2026 to 24 January 2027, Palazzo Strozzi will present a major exhibition exploring the power that broken sculptures, or fragments, have held for humans across centuries and cultures, from antiquity to the present.
The exhibition—organized in collaboration with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, where the exhibition will travel in spring 2027—brings together more than ninety works from a wide range of cultural contexts, examining the fragments’ striking beauty as well as the complex histories they embody, with loans from major international collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Vatican Museums, the Musée du Louvre, the British Museum, and the Acropolis Museum in Athens.
The exhibition spans the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesoamerica, Etruria, and Greece, extending to premodern and early modern cultures from Peru to Cambodia. Alongside masterpieces from the past—including works by Italian artists such as Giovanni Pisano, Michelangelo, and Antonio Canova—it presents the research of modern and contemporary artists who have taken the fragment as a point of departure for new expressive possibilities, including Auguste Rodin, Alberto Giacometti, Louise Bourgeois, Huma Bhabha, Francesco Vezzoli, and Danh Vo.
The exhibition explores the key reasons and diverse circumstances that have resulted in the breaking or fragmentation of works of sculpture: from acts of ancient and modern iconoclasm, to war and vandalism, to erosion and other forces of nature. Visitors will be led through many episodes in history, including ancient shipwrecks, the Protestant Reformation, World War II, and the flood that ravaged Florence in 1966, and be asked to reflect on how fragments can become political or religious symbols.
The exhibition is organized by Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Florence and the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The exhibition is curated by C. D. Dickerson, senior curator of European and American art and head of the department of sculpture and decorative arts, and Andrew Sears, assistant curator of northern European paintings, both at the National Gallery of Art, in collaboration with Arturo Galansino, Director General of Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi.