One of the main places dedicated to art in Palermo is the Gam, Gallery of Modern Art, inside the Sant’Anna complex in the Kalsa district. It has an internal library, a cafeteria and courtyards that evenings are open for concerts and cultural events. It has hosted important monographic exhibitions dedicated to great artists of the past, as well as projects dedicated to young talents in contemporary art.
Palazzo Abatellis, in the Arab district of Kalsa, has been home to the Regional Gallery of Sicily since 1954. Its exhibition rooms house the works of important protagonists of 14th- and 15th-century art, including Antonello and Domenico Gagini, Francesco Laurana, Antonello da Messina, Jan Provost, and Antoon Van Dyck. The extraordinary large fresco by an unknown author of the ”Triumph of Death” datable to the years 1445 and after is displayed at the Gallery with visually striking lighting. Death, on a skeletal horse, bursts into a garden and wreaks havoc among gay young men and noble damsels. After sowing the earthly hierarchies, lay and religious, popes and emperors, whose bodies now lie lifeless, sparing almost mockingly the group of wretches and derelicts who also invoke it.
The Palazzo Riso, built at the end of the 18th century, is now home to the Museum of Contemporary Art of Sicily, one of the region’s most important exhibition spaces, which features works by authors from all over the Mediterranean basin.
Home to the new Museum of the Banco di Sicilia Foundation is Palazzo Branciforte. The archaeological collection is its strong point: in addition to ceramics of various types and eras, it is also possible to admire rare and precious artifacts. Inside it houses a restaurant and an emporium with catalogs and souvenirs.
The Regional Archaeological Museum ”Antonio Salinas”, has, on the other hand, one of the richest collections of Punic and Greek art in Italy and evidence of much of Sicilian history.
Picturesque is the Antonio Pasqualino International Puppet Museum on Via Butera: in the halls one can admire puppet theaters, collections of ancient Sicilian puppets and marionettes from Sicily and around the world.
