Antonio Lampis is MiBACT's new director general of museums. And it is immediately a controversy

There is a turnover at the head of the Museums General Directorate of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage: the post left vacant, as of August 1, by Ugo Soragni (who retired) now goes to Antonio Lampis. From Bolzano, born in 1964, he is currently head of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano with the post of director of the “Italian culture” department, which deals with cultural activities, libraries, bilingualism, and youth. A law graduate from Trento with a thesis in regional law, he studied public management, social communication, economics and marketing. He has a long management career in the public sector behind him and was an adjunct teacher of marketing and event management at the Free University of Bolzano. In the cultural sphere, he was vice president of the Civic Theater and Auditorium Foundation of Bolzano (from 2003 to 2008), of which he was also a member of the board of directors until 2012, served as vice president of the MUSEION Foundation from 2008 to 2010, was vice president of the South Tyrolean Museums Council, and had various roles in the cultural coordination of the province of Bolzano.

Antonio Lampis will hold a role of high responsibility. The General Directorate for Museums, we quote from Ministerial Decree No. 171 of August 29, 2014 (Article 20), “takes care of the collections of state museums and places of culture, with reference to the policies of acquisition, lending, cataloguing, fruition and valorization,” “ oversees the national museum system and coordinates the regional museum poles. It also performs functions and tasks of cultural heritage valorization [...] with regard to all institutes and places of culture [...] that are pertaining to the State or constituted by the State.” Again, “the Directorate General exercises the powers of direction, guidance, coordination, control and, only in cases of necessity and urgency, informed the Secretary General, avocation and substitution with reference to the activities carried out by the regional museum poles and the directors of the institutes and museums referred to in Article 30, paragraph 3, letter b” (i.e., the autonomous museums that have the status of non-general managerial level: the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence, the Galleria Estense in Modena, the National Gallery of Ancient Art in Rome, the Bargello Museum, the Royal Palace in Genoa, the Royal Pole in Turin, the Paestum Park, and others).

However, the appointment has raised some controversy. Giuseppe Urbino, national secretary of the Confsal-Unsa Beni Culturali union, has expressed opposition about Lampis’ appointment because the executive is involved in an investigation for fiscal damage, which concerns the expenses incurred by Bolzano for its candidacy as European Capital of Culture 2019 (a title that then went, as is known, to Matera), and has therefore spoken of a “suspicious appointment, perhaps even unnecessary and harmful for MiBACT.” Lampis was reached by Artribune and responded to Urbino as follows, “As for the alleged fiscal damage, it is not like writing a crime. I am certain that I am not at fault, because our offices only applied a law. I have great respect for the mayor and hope for a better greeting.”

The editorial staff of Windows on Art wishes the new editor well.

Antonio Lampis is MiBACT's new director general of museums. And it is immediately a controversy

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