Into the crypt of the Marino Marini Museum come...sharks and whales

From July 1 to September 30, 2020, the crypt of the Marino Marini Museum in Florence will host the installation Di Squali e di Balene, theunprecedented exhibition project in collaboration with ’La Specola’ Museum of the Sistema Museale di Ateneo di Firenze.

Extraordinary artifacts from the 19th century will be on display: a tiger shark over 3 meters long and the skeleton of a sperm whale about 10 meters long. The project aims to place past and present in dialogue and to draw attention to environmental issues.

Curated by Fausto Barbagli, curator of the Florence Athenaeum Museum System and president of the National Association of Scientific Museums, Di Squali e di Balene includes, for the first time in the evocative crypt, the display of some artifacts from the Specola, currently closed to the public. A parallelism between “cultural ecosystems” and “natural ecosystems” and is intended to help raise public awareness of environmental changes and the consequences of human action on natural balances.

“The collaboration between the Marino Marini and ’La Specola’ Museum demonstrates the importance and effectiveness of the multidisciplinary approach in the field of art. The museum today can no longer be just a place of preservation but must play the role of knowledge propeller, establishing multiple connections to stimulate the public’s reflection and make them aware of the epochal transformations of our time. The environment, climate upheavals, and the preservation of social and cultural heritage are fundamental issues that must be addressed by museum institutions, capable of building a renewed consciousness precisely through the powerful language of art,” said Patrizia Asproni, President of the Marino Marini Museum.

“History and the contemporary meet in the spaces of the Marino Marini Museum in Florence,” added the curator. “Sharks and whales are the emblem of marine life, down among the abysses. They recall in the collective imagination the concepts of life and death, power and vulnerability. These two creatures, with their silent and imposing presence in the solemn atmosphere of the museum’s crypt, invite us to open our minds to lead us to broader reflections and questions about the present and tomorrow. What we are building, is it really the future we want?”

The exhibition project is accompanied by the Marine Fragments review curated by theater critic Roberto Incerti with appointments for a reading-interpretation of the human-nature relationship and its consequences, offering excerpts from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.

For more info: www.museomarinomarini.it

Into the crypt of the Marino Marini Museum come...sharks and whales

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