Jago Museum: Is This the Future of the Artist Museum?
From Naples to Capri, Jago’s museum project moves beyond the idea of a permanent exhibition, opening up new questions about artist-led institutions, cultural branding, and the future of contemporary museums.
What happens when an artist no longer simply exhibits their works, but builds a museum around their own vision?
Within the contemporary art landscape, there are many monographic museums dedicated to artists, but it is far less common for the artist themselves to create an institution capable of evolving, expanding, and engaging with different territories. This is precisely the challenge undertaken by the Jago Museum.
Founded in 2023 inside the Church of Sant’Aspreno ai Crociferi in Naples, the project quickly moved beyond the idea of a simple permanent exhibition, becoming an interesting case study for the contemporary cultural system. In just over two years, the museum has welcomed more than 200,000 visitors, demonstrating how an artist’s work can become the starting point for the construction of a fully fledged cultural institution.
The opening of the new Capri venue, housed within the spaces of Villa Lysis, marks a further step in this evolution. Yet this is not merely an extension of the Naples museum. While in Naples the project brought together contemporary art, historical heritage, and social inclusion, in Capri it enters into dialogue with one of the island’s most fascinating and symbolic places: the former residence of Baron Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen and a historic refuge for artists, writers, and unconventional spirits.
In this sense, the Jago Museum seems to be moving closer to a model that remains relatively unexplored in the Italian context: the artist museum as a “cultural brand”, a recognisable entity that maintains its own identity while adapting to the places that host it. It is a format that raises compelling questions about sustainability, replicability, and the future of cultural institutions built around the figure of a single artist.
On the occasion of the inauguration of Jago Museum Capri, we met with Jago to reflect on the challenges of this project, the relationship between art and territory, and the possibility that an artist museum might become something more: a cultural platform in continuous evolution.
When you first began imagining the first Jago Museum in Naples, did you already think it could become a replicable project in other cities?
Even today, a few years later, I do not consider the Jago Museum a truly replicable format. First of all, one has to understand where the project is being brought, because it is not something that can simply be copied and pasted from one place to another.
At the foundation of every museum there are people: the humanity, sensitivity, and ability of those who coordinate it and those who take care of it over time. To this is added the fundamental value of the places that host it and of the works I imagine for those specific spaces.
Each venue has its own identity, its own critical issues, and its own human dimension. In Capri, for example, there are several people taking part in the project who will help determine its success.
For this reason, I do not think in terms of “replicability”, but of autonomous projects that share the same name, the same quality, and the same love. They are distinct realities, deeply connected to the territories that welcome them, but at the same time linked to one another by a shared vision.
How will the Capri venue enter into dialogue with the one in Naples? Will it be a simple extension of the existing museum, or will it have its own identity and its own programming?
The Capri venue will be connected to the Naples one, just as all future Jago Museum venues will be. At the same time, it will have its own identity and its own programming, because these are different places that draw on the dignity and characteristics of the territory that hosts them.
The works that will live at Villa Lysis have a different dimension from those displayed in Naples, also in terms of transportability and logistics. Making things tailor-made for the place that welcomes them is always the best choice.
The dialogue between the two venues exists above all on an organizational and managerial level. Coordination is entrusted to the young people of Cooperativa La Sorte, who already run the museum in Naples and who support and coordinate the staff involved in the daily management of the Capri venue.
Your works were created at very different moments in your life, often connected to personal experiences, reflections, and challenges. What effect does it have on you to see them now coexisting within the same museum? Are there new emotions or awarenesses that you have developed by observing this journey as a whole?
Seeing all my works together is one of the things that gives me the greatest satisfaction, because they are inevitably connected to one another. In fact, while I am making one, my mind is already on the next one.
Finding them today in the same space, within a new dialogue that perhaps existed only in my head, helps me better understand why I made them at certain moments in my life. Behind each one there was an intuition that I chose to trust, and that then turned into a gesture that became a work.
Seeing them all together gives me confidence and also allows me to understand them better. I probably began creating them, perhaps unconsciously, already imagining them in relation to one another, within a shared space.
I do not know whether this is the right interpretation, and I do not know what I will be able to say over time, but today I see that it works: the works have their own dignity, they are able to relate to one another and, beyond each individually telling a story, they participate collectively in the meaning of the others.
How did the exhibition proposal for the works inside (and outside) the Jago Museum in Capri come about, and how will it develop?
Here in Capri we began with a relatively limited number of works: six pieces on display, to which are added another eight works currently being created in my studio.
The studio is located within the same exhibition complex, but in a space that is normally not accessible to the public, which on certain occasions may be visited when I am not working. This choice represents an evolution of what happened in Naples, when my workshop was housed inside the Church of Sant’Aspreno ai Crociferi and visitors could spy on me through the keyhole while I was working on the Pietà or on other sculptures.
Here the concept develops further: during the visit it will be possible to observe and “peek at” the works in progress that I will create during my stay in Capri.
The three floors of Villa Lysis will be entirely dedicated to the exhibition of the works. Each room has its own identity, and the project has been conceived to be reshaped over time, expanded, and transformed. In fact, I am already working on the works that will be exhibited next year.
Inside the museum there will also be a cinema room dedicated to recounting the birth of the museum and the history of Villa Lysis.
Outside, in the large park overlooking the sea, we have installed the bronze of David in the small temple, with its gaze turned toward Marina Grande and toward Capri.
Behind the success of a museum there is not only an artistic vision, but also significant organizational, managerial, and economic work. What are the greatest challenges you have encountered in keeping a project like the Jago Museum alive and sustainable?
This was probably the most ambitious and complex project we have ever undertaken, especially from a logistical point of view. The paradox is that many of the difficulties we had imagined were overcome thanks to the support of the municipal structure and of several key figures who accompanied us from the beginning to the end of this year of work.
We found people capable of turning ideas into reality very quickly: great professionals, but above all men and women of action, who never held back and who worked as a team from day one.
This confirms something I have learned over the years: results of this kind can only be achieved through collective work and by surrounding oneself with people who share a vision and have the skills to realize it.
In Capri we encountered extraordinary professionals and a territory capable of achieving results that seem almost impossible in terms of speed and quality. I am sincerely surprised by the timeframe in which we managed to complete this project.
Naturally, the ability to maintain a clear entrepreneurial vision always remains fundamental. In this case, every subject involved worked with great responsibility and intelligence: from the Municipality to the architects, from the installers to the graphic designers, from the technicians to the transporters, all the way to everyone who concretely contributed to the creation of the museum.
Until now, the Jago Museum has primarily been the place where your artistic journey is told. In the future, do you imagine it could also become a space open to other artists, transforming into a cultural platform capable of generating new dialogues and collaborations?
It is certainly an idea I have always held close to my heart. Creating a platform such as the Jago Museum and being able to place it at the service of art, turning it into a stage also for those who wish to enter into a relationship with the spaces and with the works that inhabit the museum’s different venues, is a project I have had in mind for a long time.
In reality, this process has already begun. In the coming months, we will host a first event that moves precisely in this direction and that could represent the beginning of a format destined to grow over time.
I hope that all of this can further enrich the public’s experience and bring new opportunities for dialogue, inspiration, and discovery to the many people who visit the Jago Museum’s venues.
With the opening of new venues, such as the one planned in Anagni, the Jago Museum seems to be taking shape as a project destined to grow over time. Do you think this model could become a replicable example for other contemporary artists, both from a cultural and an economic point of view?
I am convinced that anything can be replicated. The point, however, is that anyone who wants to do something similar to what we have done should start from themselves, in order to create something new. And I hope they manage to do it even better.
I have always thought that what we create should become a starting point for others. I therefore hope that this project can be a source of inspiration and that someone may take up its legacy, developing it further. After all, a museum is an attempt to safeguard and preserve an idea of beauty, and for this reason all the museums that can be created are welcome.
My greatest satisfaction, however, lies in the fact that the Jago Museum is an accessible and living place, where the works can be known through the people who inhabit it. I am thinking, for example, of Cooperativa La Sorte in Naples, which today counts more than forty young people involved in the museum. Each of them brings their own talent, their own personality, and their own experience to the visits through which they accompany the public.
This creates an authentic relationship: none of our visitors is left alone, but is accompanied along the exhibition path. The most special thing is that every person involved is unique and contributes, with their own qualities, to this project called Jago Museum.
In Capri, too, we will move in the same direction and with the same energy, seeking to make an extraordinary territory known in a different way, going beyond the fast tourism that often stops at the Piazzetta and a photograph. Capri deserves attention, care, and time.
In the end, what truly makes me happy are the human beings I have the opportunity to meet along this journey.
Tommaso Zijno is a curator, project manager, and cultural communication professional. Born in Rome in 1989, he holds a degree in Art History and has curated exhibitions and cultural projects in both institutional and independent spaces, collaborating with artists such as JAGO, Alessandro Calizza, and Bruno Melappioni. Since 2020, he has worked as project manager for JAGO, contributing to projects including JAGO – PIETÀ at the Church of the Artists in Rome. He is co-founder of SA.L.A.D. – San Lorenzo Art District and NAW – New Art Way Ltd., a platform created to connect contemporary art, brands, and wider audiences. For over ten years, he has also worked in publishing and communication, combining his curatorial practice with ongoing roles as editor, content manager, and social media manager.
