For a large group of managers of Italian state museums it is time to end of course report cards. Among these, one in particular is the director of the Uffizi Eike Schmidtwhich has often hit the newspapers in recent months and in particular in recent weeks, also thanks to the fact that on Friday the minister Gennaro Sangiuliano appointed him director of Neapolitan museum of Capodimonte and above all, whether we like it or not, for the moment it is the candidate in the chest of the centre-right for the next municipal elections Firenze. All this makes the analysis of his work easier Uffizi not only interesting, but even necessary.
Between 2015 and 2023, Schmidt carried out the role of Director of the Uffizi as a first-tier manager, i.e. equal to the role of general director of the Ministry of Culture and who reports only to the minister. Until December 19th he will lead the most famous Florentine museum, the “Uffizi Galleries”, according to the meaning coined eight years ago, following the capricious Franceschini reform. In practice, with the unpacking of the Florentine Museum Complexgoverned by Antonio Paolucci and then from Cristina Acidiniwere formed three groups Of autonomous museums (Uffizi, Bargello and Accademia Galleries), while the remaining museums merged into the regional museum complex, which has since been “condemned” to live in hardship. The result for the Uffizi was that from a star of the first magnitude in the Italian panorama he found himself leading a mini-hub of around ten institutes – Between museums and the Boboli’s Garden – and headed by a new manager, Schmidt in fact.
Not even halfway through his first term – when the minister was the five-star minister Alberto Bonisoli – took part in the competition to become the new director of Kunsthistoriches of Vienna, he won it but then thought better of it a few weeks after taking on the job, resulting in a less than positive impression of both himself and the Uffizi Gallery. And instead he has now reached the end of two mandates during which it seems the Gallery did more good for the manager than the other way around. So how have these eight years as head of the Uffizi gone? Unlike the mini-pole of Bargello Museumsthe mini-pole of the Uffizi Galleries – formed by the lead museum, those of Palazzo Pittiil Boboli’s Gardenil Vasari corridor and the never-born Carriage Museum – also served for merge multiple museums and emphatically increase the number of entries. According to Schmidt, for example, this year the Uffizi Galleries will arrive at five million visitors and they will probably even manage to overcome that theshold psychologicalbut as often happens, all that glitters is not gold.
These days many directors of autonomous museums whose terms are expiring do races to finish their projects; if instead they have not succeeded, in some cases they flock justifications. Which matters little to the audience of museum visitors. Those who pay the entrance ticket, often expensive, are interested in that the museum functions, is usable and allows you to have a strong experience. If this is not possible, the reasons for the apology will not make up for the gap.
In recent weeks Schmidt has intensified his activity inauguration of exhibitionsOf presentation of volumesof concession of interviews on the eight years spent at the helm of the most visited museum in Italy. In all these years the director of the Uffizi has also been able to count on the collaboration of consultative bodies established by law and made up of professionals. Some of them, however, sometimes showed themselves in disagreement with management actions, but it always is remained in place (and it would be interesting to understand why).
In any case it is useful to stay connected to certain data: for example i visitors to the Uffizi – both as a mini-pole and as a single museum – in 2022 they still had not returned at the pre-Covid level of 2019as well as the situation of institutes of Palazzo Pitti It’s not that rosy after all. Starting with Costume gallery – which was immediately renamed “Museum of Fashion and Costume” – which was supposed to become a flagship of Italian museography, but was only reopened last December 12th, after three years of oblivion.
Then there is the Carriage Museum of the Palazzo Pitti complex, whose birth was taken for granted by the manager at the end of October 2018, but which five years later it has not yet materialized. And again the Porcelain Museum of the Boboli’s Garden, which has also been closed for some time for “refurbishment”. Always in Boboli he shines for his eternal closure the eighteenth century Coffeehousefor whose management tender many years ago they were even consulted Bocconi teachers; for too many years that work present in the main architectural history manuals still remains inaccessible.
And then there is the case of Vasari Corridorwhich the manager closed just a year after taking office and which he was never able to reopen: seven years is almost a geological era if you look at how quickly they were undertaken other initiatives (also linked to a particular interest of yours in contemporary art proposed in the main “sanctuaries” of the more classical one and which has fueled numerous controversies). The closure of the “Corridor” deprived visitors of exclusive beauty of the aerial walk which connects the Vasari factory to the Boboli’s Garden and then to Palazzo Pitti and above all of the vision of over 500 self-portraits of Italian and international artists, i.e. just under a third of the entire exclusive collection preserved in the Gallery’s storage. And it almost feels like a mockery to have recently destined it just over 200 Self-portraits in a series of rooms on the main floor of the Gallery: after all, the visitor can admire over 300 fewer than those that were on display in the Vasari Museum. In fact it is a notable loss.
Still in terms of space management, the large room on the ground floor below the Uffizi Library – in alluvial areas (a stone’s throw from the Arno) – initially intended for temporary exhibitions of the Gallery, between October 2018 and January 2019 hosted the exhibition Water, nature’s microscope. The Leicester Codex by Leonardo da Vincithen followed by the one dedicated to Antony Gormley (between February and May 2019) then nothing more because the same spaces, outside the museum itinerary, did not attract the expected public and so were destined for bookshop operated by the dealer; today the temporary exhibitions are set up along a route immediately after the metal detectorbefore going up to the Gallery and, since the public passes in front of whatever is on display in that initial stretch, every person who passes through is counted as a “visitor” of that exhibition, whether you look at it or not even pay attention to it. Obviously we could discuss for months the meaning of such a museographic solution.
Then there are other initiatives undertaken by the manager which have caused discussion in recent years, such as theticket increase to 25 euros and the creation of “short route” so after admiring many masterpieces on the second floor of the Gallery, the visitor in a hurry and only in the mood for selfies in front of the indispensable artistic totems, is as if invited to skip the main floor completely and to leave the museum. Except that by doing so you lose, for example, the paintings of the Florentine sixteenth century, Caravaggio and all the Sixteenth century. These are decisions that have to do with the ministerial doctrine of transforming museums, especially the most attractive ones, into real money machines – is called “capitalization of culture” – rather than in places of culture, education and reflection, so the managers involved in this case have relative responsibilities.
At the level of administrative issues there is to be registered at the Uffizi widespread appeal a retired staffas well as the tender for the assignment of additional services – those that the State is unable to cover and therefore entrusts them to private companies for a certain period of time – it is as if paralyzed, despite the dealer present has been acting under a prorogatio regime since 2006 (i.e. without awarding contracts after a regular tender). For the new assignment a tender has finally been prepared, the outcome of which should have already been known, but communications are taking a long time. At the end of last September the envelopes for the technical offer were opened, while the economic one still seems to require some time. Certainly, for the moment there is no winner, nor official communications about it. And the extension goes on.
Poison in the tail: the infinite construction site of New Offices: Schmidt never gave the impression of having succeeded in the feat speed up the work that have been going on since March 2006: a year ago he stated that by this year (2023) the “gru mom”, the one that stands for 17 years in the Uffizi square, it would be disappeared by New Year’s Eve; shortly thereafter rumors began to circulate that it would instead be dismantled by Easter (also from this year), but it’s still there, because it seems to be too expensive to remove. And the tale of hardship continues. Indeed it widens, because Minister Sangiuliano’s first visit to the Uffizi was to verify the end of work on the new restaurant which however has yet to be born. When the happy event occurs, it will no longer be possible to say that culture cannot be eaten.
2023-12-17 08:05:08
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