Riace bronzes at the gas pump

And yes, we had seen bad ad campaigns, and lots of them. And in this sense MiBAC has been a master. We have seen Michelangelo ’s poor David taken away by helicopters. We saw the young man in Francesco Hayez ’s Kiss change partners and choose a girl in jeans and sneakers. We saw Zephyrus and Chloris from Sandro Botticelli ’s Birth of Venus blow out the candles of a birthday cake. We have seen Antonello da Messina ’s portrait of a man whose serious and vaguely enigmatic expression has been transformed into a satisfied smile at the increase in visitors to state museums, and not content with that the creative people (if you can call them that) at MiBAC have well thought of accompanying the “revisited” portrait with a further revisitation, that of the famous phrase from Eduardo de Filippo ’s Napoli milionaria, which, however, placed in the terms of the poster, sounds more like a phrase from a Gigi D’Alessio song. Moreover, it is not clear what Antonello’s portrait will have had to celebrate, given that it is kept at the National Gallery in London. For Women’s Day we saw a horrendous reimagining of Raphael ’s Veiled Veil transformed into an ugly bearded mug, and we also saw one of the Riace bronzes offered a bouquet of mimosas. And I’ll stop here but one could go on and on: the MiBAC creatives probably have a clause on their contract that obliges them to harass the great masterpieces of the past for their bad publicity initiatives. Speaking of the Riace bronzes: what about the magnificent stunt (this time by the Calabria region) that saw them flicking through a touchscreen and then running away from the museum to go on vacation? After all, given their current state of preservation, one could not blame them.

The lowest point, however, this time has not been touched by the Ministry’s creatives (fortunately), but by those of a Viterbo-based non-profit organization with a name that is a whole program (Fondazione Caffeina Cultura), who have seen fit to return to harass the Riace bronzes , proposing, however, a change of profession and transforming the statue A from a florist to a gas station attendant, all to promote a contest with the highly original title:"Culture oil of Italy." A metaphor that has already done too much damage on its own, why moreover have to put a green gas pump in the bronze’s hand? By comparison, the vacationing bronzes of the Calabria region may well appear sympathetic to us. The contest rules themselves are a patchwork of clichés and contradictions: from the culture that “Italy must begin to exploit in order to have hope for an economic revival”(and we have already seen how the verb “exploit” is the worst to be paired with the term “culture”), passing through the metaphor of “culture as a non-polluting fuel” (evidently in the Foundation they are not very clear in their ideas, since oil is one of the most polluting fuels that exist), concluding with the assertion that “Italy must begin to build cathedrals again” (then maybe from the Foundation they will explain what they mean). All with the aim of “sounding out the country and discovering its best resources” (assuming the best resources are willing to spend the 25 euros of the participation fee... otherwise what better resources are they?). Finally, the call for entries also gives us a little gem, namely the “social prize” intended for the entry that receives the most likes on Facebook, and given the latest Facebook trends that reward a page that revisits works of art by having its characters speak in Romanesco, it will be nice to see which entry will emerge. Surely we don’t want to take away Italy’s best resources from such an educated jury? And if after going to the award ceremony our car runs out of gas, there will be one of the masterpieces of ancient art ready to fill it up.

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.