In 2009, when Ilaria Marotta and Andrea Baccin founded Cura. in Rome, the city was experiencing a quiet renaissance: MAXXI had just opened in Zaha Hadid’s building, MACRO was expanding, and a string of independent galleries and foundations were making a case for Rome as something more than a museum of its own past. The couple — trained in art history, curatorship, and creative direction — launched their magazine into that energy, and it quickly became the art crowd’s favourite read. Forty-five issues later, Cura. is no longer just a magazine: it is a curatorial and editorial platform encompassing a biannual publication, a publishing house (CURA.BOOKS), an exhibition programme, and since 2012 the artistic direction of Basement Roma, a non-profit contemporary art centre on Viale Mazzini.
The magazine itself runs to over 300 pages per issue and is published in English, with cover artists that read like a who’s who of contemporary practice. Themed issues have explored Futurity, Post Society, Manifesto, The Generational Issue, and most recently We Monsters — a special "horror" edition investigating the revolutionary role of monsters in modern civilisation. Contributors and collaborators include Nicolas Bourriaud, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Anthony Huberman, the Serpentine Galleries, and MAXXI. The 40th issue was a collector’s edition featuring over one hundred contributions from artists, writers, and philosophers who had worked with the platform since its founding.
In September 2025, Marotta and Baccin launched BAAB — the Basement Art Assembly Biennial — from the underground space of Basement Roma, with an advisory board that includes Nicolas Bourriaud, Simon Denny, and Lumi Tan. The biennial embodied everything Cura. has built over fifteen years: a liminal, self-sustaining exhibition space that refuses to separate the printed page from the gallery wall. Stocked at Castello di Rivoli, MAXXI, Hangar Bicocca, magCulture, and bookshops across Italy and beyond, the magazine reaches the people who make contemporary art happen — from a city that has always known how to hasten slowly.
<a href="https://curamagazine.com/">Visit Cura.