In conjunction with the opening of the URBAN CENTER inside the museum, from 20 November 2021 the Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art in Prato presents L'ARTE E LA CITTÀ / ART AND THE CITY, an exhibition curated by Stefano Piebald that puts in dialogue a wide selection of works from museum collections with rare archive materials.

Conceived as a direct expression of the city of Prato, where the Pecci Center was founded and has its headquarters, but also as a reflection of a metropolitan context in constant renewal and extension, the area between Florence, Prato and Pistoia where the Pecci Center is inserted and work, this new exhibition presents an unexplored overview of the relationship between contemporary art and the urban environment.

The exhibition itinerary is divided into three sections that are divided into the large wing of the museum, which extends and overlooks the axis of Viale della Repubblica: the city investigated and interpreted by various contemporary artists; art produced in recent decades, which refers to or integrates with the urban reality; contemporary art in the fabric of Prato and in the very frame of the Pecci Center, which represents and promotes it.

Paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs, videos, together with drawings, prints, archive materials of about forty artists and groups, both Italian and international, collected in the collections and documented in various archives of the Pecci Center investigate current issues such as transformations , the transfigurations and utopias of the city, the conflicts, the ups and downs that develop within it. Works that speak of encounters and comparisons, scenarios and subjects typical of the urban environment, but which also reveal artistic insertions conceived and created for Prato, which has a cultural and identity reference point in the Centro Pecci, assuming the role of city dedicated to the development and collection of contemporary arts.