Milan is crazy about Pop Up Museums, where there are only selfies of art

They are called Pop Up Museums, but they have nothing to do with a museum. On the contrary. Anyone who approaches with the vague intention of seeing something resembling a work of art will be disappointed. But if you want to change your Instagram profile picture, then they are absolutely perfect. In the vast majority of cases they are born in Milan and are good for both adults and children. Even if an entrance for the whole family is not exactly cheap. They are called Beautiful Gallery, Museum of Illusions, Museum of Dreamers, balloon museumthe latest arrival is the Bubble World Experience. Going there is certainly an experience. They are huge sheds, set up with imaginative sets and perfect for photographs, especially in the late afternoon crossed by hordes of children who rightly experience it as a somewhat strange playground and parents who try to find a balance between immortalizing them and immortalizing themselves in order to seem alone and not surrounded by hundreds of people.

Some examples. Let’s start with the Museum of Illusions, which on paper also seems instructive, so much so that school trips can also be organized. In reality, you can take a picture of yourself in a room where those who are big seem small, where everything seems upside down, where you seem headless, where those who are small seem large, etc. etc. Fun, but also tiring. So much so that towards the end of the visit some mother even loses patience and threatens her son: “If you don’t stand still and take this picture, I’ll slap you”. Not too educational.

Then there is, the better there was, because now it has closed and has started again to conquer new cities, the Balloon Museum, translated, the Balloon Museum. On paper, devoted toinflatable art Contemporary. The works are there, complete with tags. But you can jump on it. There’s also a giant pool of color-changing balls and a room where soap bubbles rain from the sky. Not too much art. In the end, the photographic sets and the shop arrive, which in these cases is never missing. And it’s expensive, just like the entrance.

The latest arrival in town is Bubble World Experience. It was supposed to arrive sooner, but there was a dispute with the Balloon Museum. After tidying up the invasion of the bubbles in the city, the exhibition was extended until the end of May: over 100,000 visitors in two months. They describe themselves as follows: «The installation is a hymn to joy. It allows adults to become children again. To live a carefree hour by entering a fairy-tale, magical world and for children to play, have fun and fantasize surrounded by giant clouds, soap bubbles to catch and giant animals to ride». Will be.

THE Pop Up Museum they are a relative Milanese novelty, they follow the long tail of exhibitions in the rest of the world. The Museum of Ice Cream for example, it opened in New York in July 2016, then made pilgrimages to Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco. More than half a million people who visited it, took advantage of the countless Instagram opportunities. For the detractors, these experiences do nothing but flatten the art, making it scenography. For others they are a good way to bring art, intense in a very very broad sense, to the general public. The sentence is not up to us, but considering the amount of parents and children who immerse themselves and spit among thousands of colored plastic bubbles, there is good news: we have definitely archived the terror of the pandemic.