Broken. The Power of the Fragment: an exhibition in Florence in

Broken. The Power of the Fragment: exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi

Broken. The Power of the Fragment is an exhibition produced in collaboration with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, opening at Palazzo Strozzi from 25 September 2026 to 24 January 2027. The show assembles more than seventy works spanning antiquity to the present to investigate how fragmentation reshapes the meaning and form of sculpture.

The project takes a trans-historical, trans-geographical approach: fragments from Egypt, Greece, Etruria and Mesoamerica are placed alongside modern and contemporary pieces. The aim is not to aestheticize ruin but to examine the causes of breakage—iconoclasm, wartime destruction, vandalism, natural events—and how these forces affect the political, cultural and visual status of objects.

Exhibition highlights include:

• A selection of over seventy works on loan from more than fifty international lenders.
• Notable objects such as the right hand of the colossal statue of Emperor Constantine and a large-scale Mesoamerican sculptural group.
• A dialogue between archaeological material and contemporary practices by artists who engage with incompleteness and the fragment.
• An interpretive route that treats fragmentation as physical evidence of conflict and historical change.

Curated by specialists in sculpture and European and American art, the exhibition proposes fresh interpretive tools: fragments act not simply as remnants but as opportunities for formal and narrative redefinition. Visiting the exhibition reveals how broken surfaces and partial bodies can activate new meanings beyond their original intact form.

Practical information: the exhibition will be held at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. The dates above apply to this venue; the project reflects an international loan programme. The show complements the 2026 exhibition programme at Palazzo Strozzi, alongside other installations that reconsider the relationship between sculpture and its environment.