National Gallery stars on Instagram

(by Cinzia Conti).
    (ANSA) - Rome, March 16 - Rome's National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art is launching #ScrollTheExhibition, a virtual exhibition on its official Instagram profile @gallerianazionale.
    The show's idea is to make available on everyone's smart phone the show #MuseumBeautyContest, which showcases the museum's masterworks through more than 150 photos with posts on, among others, Giovanni Boldini's portraits of Giuseppe Verdi and Mademoiselle Lanthèlme, to Dante Gabriele Rossetti's painting of his muse Jane Morris and The Three Ages of woman by Gustav Klimt.
    The Museum Beauty Contest is an initiative by artist Paco Cao, promoted by the gallery's director Cristiana Collu, to select online the finalists of a virtual beauty contest among the protagonists of the gallery's portraits with the election of a Miss and Mr National Gallery on March 27.
    And the masterworks at the center of this show, including 70 stunning portraits, become available to virtual viewers on the social platform in hopes of encouraging them to actually visit the gallery, organizers said.
    The museum's director, Cristiana Collu, told ANSA that, "this project, which is simple yet innovative, is part of a digital evolution the National Gallery started in June 2016, when it opened a new website and developed a strategy" for social networks.
    "In this way, the Gallery and its projects can be experienced from a multitude of points of view" and shared online, said Collu.
    Indeed, with over 150,000 clicks a week, the Gallery's Instagram account, which opened in June 2016, has been acquiring on average 300 new followers every seven days.
    Followers are on average aged 18 to 34 and live in Rome.
    And a new Instagram profile will specifically target a teen audience, Collu said.
    "Learn from teens. Teens teach us" is the slogan of the gallery's new Instagram profile @lagallerianazionaleteens".
    photo: Boldini's portrait of Verdi