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Following an international head-hunt, the culture ministry on
Tuesday named 20 new managers to lead Italy's most prestigious
galleries.
Seven of the successful candidates are non-Italians - including
those chosen for the Uffizi and Accademia museums in Florence,
which respectively house The Birth of Venus, one of the world's
most famous paintings, and the marble David.
The appointments are part of a ministry-wide reorganization
aimed at boosting Italy's capacity to preserve and promote its
artistic and architectural treasures, whose upkeep has been
threatened by decades of mismanagement and neglect.
"The museum system was sclerotic. A weak system: inadequate
resources and paralyzing rules," Paolo Baratta, tasked by the
ministry to guide the selection process, told La Repubblica
daily on Tuesday before the nominations were announced.
"It is a very different situation from what happens abroad,
where museums are real cultural engines," said Baratta,
currently president of the 120 year-old Venice Biennale art
fair.
The roster of 20 new managers is evenly divided into 10 men and
10 women. Among them is German art historian Eike Schmidt, who
will direct the Uffizi Gallery after stints working in the
United States and Britain as well as Italy, and British-Canadian
architect, designer and museum manager James Bradburne, who will
run the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan.
German historian and museum director Cecilie Hollberg will run
the Accademia.
Culture Minister Dario Franceschini said on Twitter that the
appointments marked an "upgrade" of the system, but the
appointment of foreign directors drew some criticism in Italy.
Art critic and former junior culture minister Vittorio Sgarbi
said Franceschini had embarrassed "his army of excellent
Italians".
"Why did there absolutely have to be seven foreigners? And why
precisely 10 men and 10 women?" Sgarbi said. "It was a sort of
political correctness ... for show."
Baratta said the museums would remain partly under the aegis of
the state but new directors would have to raise funds
independently, echoing a call from Franceschini for private as
well as public investment.
(Reporting by Isla Binnie; editing by Clelia Oziel)
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