Florence Puts Broken Sculpture Centre Stage
A statue with no arms can still stop a room. That is the bet behind Broken. The Power of the Fragment, which opens on 25 September at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence.
The show gathers 80 works, from ancient artefacts to Modern sculpture and contemporary pieces, spanning more than 4,500 years of global history, according to The Art Newspaper. The focus is on damaged work. Missing heads, snapped torsos and cracked surfaces are the point, not the problem.
It is organised in collaboration with the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The Florence presentation runs from 25 September 2026 to 24 January 2027, according to the National Gallery of Art. It will then travel in a slightly modified form to Washington.
The Washington dates are 3 March to 27 June 2027, according to Palazzo Strozzi. The museum describes the theme as the evocative power of the fragment in the history of sculpture. A fragment, meaning a broken-off piece that survives on its own, can be a torso, a head, a hand or a shard.
Curation is led by Claude Douglas Dickerson, working with Andrew Sears, assistant curator of northern European paintings at the National Gallery of Art. Arturo Galansino is the director of Palazzo Strozzi.
The two institutions have worked together before. Their earlier collaborations were a 2015 exhibition of Hellenistic bronzes and a 2019 show dedicated to Verrocchio.
The Washington listing describes some 75 works, ranging in date from 2,500 BCE to today. The small change in number reflects the slightly modified hang planned for the second venue.
What makes this stand out for visitors is the mix. Ancient stone sits near modern and living artists. No repair job hides the break. For fans, this means a chance to see how accident, age and survival become part of the story.
