Art and cultural heritage, the 10 most discussed and controversial facts of 2019

As the year draws to a close, what were the ten most talked about and controversial facts of this 2019? We tried to compile a ranking, from the tenth to the first position.

10. The investigation of cultural professionals in Italy.
Exploited, poorly paid, without a contract. The investigation by the collective Mi Riconosci? I am a cultural heritage professional takes a snapshot of the situation of cultural professionals in Italy: half of them earn less than 8 euros per hour, and less than 850 euros per month, with 38 percent of the total even having figures of less than 5 thousand euros in their tax returns. The research closed on September 30, 2019, and collected testimonies from 1,546 workers. Full story here.

Restorer at work. Ph. Credit Manfred Glössl

9. Bonisoli launches his reform (later dismantled by his successor)
A “counter-reform” of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage that introduces strong centralism, grants unprecedented powers to the secretary general, removes autonomy from several museums, and merges others on an interregional basis. Minister Alberto Bonisoli is at the center of controversy in the summer: the change of government will then bring Dario Franceschini back to cultural heritage, and his successor, after bringing tourism back into the purview of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, will dismantle Bonisoli’s innovations piece by piece. Here is our editorial on the Bonisoli reform.

Minister of cultural heritage Alberto Bonisoli

8. The call for the 1,052 reception staff.
Still an all-Italian affair: the ministry launches the call for the 1,052 enjoyment, reception and supervision (AFAV) workers. Participation is very high(209,729 applications arrive) and controversies, sensible or not, are many, from those on access qualifications to those on the enormous delays with which the dates of the pre-selection tests are announced (the competition is announced in August and the dates are announced in December). It has been three years since MiBACT announced a competition. Full story here.

Public competition

7. Banksy’s performance in Venice
Whether you want to think of him as an artist or a sympathetic buffoon, Banksy always makes people talk, even when he tries to sabotage the media attention for the Venice Biennale by giving a performance that stigmatizes the presence of large ships in the San Marco basin. For a few hours, the whole world talks about his umpteenth stunt, which captures the attention of audiences and news outlets on every continent. After that, it’s back to talking about art. Full story here.

Banksy’s performance in Venice

6. The Tinder of museums is born.
In France, three entrepreneurs launch Muzing, the Tinder of museums: an app that aims to facilitate meetings between art lovers, allowing those who wish to do so to make new friends or find a soul mate. The buzz about the news is huge: it may not be the discovery of the century, but it sure has entertained us. Full story here.

Muzing, the museum Tinder, arrives.

5. Auschwitz Memorial launches appeal against inappropriate photos
A March appeal by the Auschwitz Memorial, which lashes out at visitors who take silly photos at the sites where hundreds of thousands of innocent people tragically lost their lives, causes controversy. Controversy rages, however: are silly photos disrespectful of memory, or a way to exorcise what happened, a hymn to freedom finally won, and thus in a way also a kind of bizarre tribute to the victims? The discussion gets heated. Full story here.

A visitor to Auschwitz balancing on the railroad tracks that led to the death camp

4. Lithuania Pavilion wins Golden Lion at Venice Biennale.
A mock beach set up inside a warehouse near the Arsenale: this is the work with which the Pavilion of Lithuania presented itself at the Venice Biennale, overcoming and winning plaudits everywhere. The winning work is titled Sun & Sea (Marina), is created by artists Lina Lapelyte, Vaiva Grainyte and Rugile Barzdziukaite, and won the Golden Lion. There is no shortage of discussion, however. Here is our take on the work.

Lithuania’s pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale. Ph. Credit Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.

3. The loan of the VitruvianMan to the Louvre.
The controversy of the year in Italy is over the loan of theVitruvian Man to the Louvre for the major exhibition celebrating the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death. The sovereignist government does not want to grant it to France, more for political than scientific reasons. The scientific community, for its part, questions the appropriateness of lending such a delicate drawing by subjecting it to a trip for an exhibition that might as well do without it. The Veneto Regional Administrative Court suspended the loan, then rejected Italia Nostra’s appeal. Franceschini eventually grants the loan. Here is a summary of the affair.

Leonardo da Vinci, The Proportions of the Human Body According to Vitruvius - Vitruvian Man (c. 1490; metal point, pen and ink, touches of watercolor on white paper, 34.4 x 24.5 cm; Venice, Gallerie dellAccademia)

2. What happened to the Salvator Mundi?
Still Leonardo da Vinci is the big star of 2019. The world’s most expensive work, the Salvator mundi attributed to the Tuscan genius and costing a whopping 450 million euros, has vanished into thin air. No one knows what happened to it. It was supposed to go on display at the Louvre Abu Dhabi; in the end, nothing will be done with it. The whole world wonders what happened to it. At the end of the year, the authors of the book L’affare Modigliani, Claudio Loiodice and Dania Mondini, report in their volume an indiscretion that the work is well kept in a Geneva vault. And meanwhile, a leading Leonardo expert, Carmen Bambach, claims that the work is almost all by Boltraffio. Here’s the story.

Leonardo da Vinci (attributed), Salvator Mundi (c. 1499; oil on panel; 65.6 x 45.4 cm; Private collection)

1. Cattelan’s Banana
Probably the big star of 2019 is Maurizio Cattelan: the echo of Comedian, the banana taped to a wall of Perrotin’s booth at Art Basel Miami, is monstrous. Everyone is talking about it, even those who are not interested in art know about it, it is the subject of thousands of memes, and in the meantime the debate about its meaning and its place in the artist’s career (as well as in art history) is raging. It is certainly a work we will remember for a long time, even longer than other inventions of the Paduan artist. Here are the main critical positions on the work.

Maurizio Cattelan, Comedian (2019; banana and tape)

Art and cultural heritage, the 10 most discussed and controversial facts of 2019

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