Alberto Garutti: Temporali

Along MAXXI's roofline above Via Masaccio, a sentence in glowing handwriting reads: "These lights will vibrate when lightning strikes Italy during thunderstorms. This work is dedicated to those who, passing by, will think of the sky." The letters are Alberto Garutti's own hand, and the sentence is literal: each time lightning hits Italian ground, the lights grow brighter, using data from the lightning-detection firm Meteorage.

Garutti (1948-2023) first made Temporali in 2009, before the museum opened, as the first work to occupy the building. He later reworked it in this form, MAXXI acquired it, and it was switched on on 7 October 2023. He called it "a caption to the celestial panorama", a machine "not of detection, but of revelation".

It's one work on the outside of the building: you stand on Via Masaccio and look up. It's the one artwork in Rome that improves with bad weather, as long as it's bad somewhere in Italy. MAXXI lists it until 1 November 2026.