Bergamo, Carrara Academy director Martina Bagnoli resigns

Not even a year into her tenure, Martina Bagnoli, director of theCarrara Academy in Bergamo, has resigned following disagreements with the institute’s general manager, Gianpietro Bonaldi. Bagnoli, an art historian born in Bolzano in 1964, had taken office at the helm of the Carrara on Feb. 1, after experience at the Gallerie Estensi in Modena and Ferrara, and had replaced Maria Cristina Rodeschini. However, relations with the general manager were stormy, and nothing the city council and the museum’s board of directors could do to try to sew the rift: in particular, the extraordinary board of directors of the Fondazione Accademia Carrara, convened on the afternoon of October 31, tried to find a solution to avoid Bagnoli’s farewell, but failed to do so. Bagnoli’s experience thus lasted just eight months.

The case came to public attention only a few days ago, and even today it is still being discussed practically only in Bergamo and its environs, since the national press, including the trade press, has dealt little or nothing with an affair that has therefore held court almost exclusively in local newspapers. However, there had been no shortage of signs of the now former director’s impatience: above all, the article she wrote last October 7 in the daily newspaper Domani, in which Bagnoli lashed out against “cultural managers,” writing that “at the head of the great international institutions there are professionals with years of experience in the sector,” while “in Italy, instead, different profiles are favored and the mentality is corporatist.” “To run museums,” Bagnoli continued, “’culture managers’ are invoked because museums are ’companies’ and must be run by people who know how to make ends meet. People who have little experience of museums, little familiarity with the collections they are supposed to care for, little affinity with the research they are supposed to promote, little inclination to conservation, and above all no understanding of the difficult balance between reputation and marketing are often called upon to manage important Italian institutions. The profile of culture managers is fluid, based on varied curricula in very different fields: from journalism to public relations, from academia to television.” For Bagnoli, art historians should be in charge of museums, “because to get there they have worked for years in other museums: they are, that is, professionals in the field.”

Bagnoli’s polemical article, reread a month later, thus appears to be a succession of jabs at Bonaldi. “There has been a lack of transparency and trust,” Bagnoli wrote in her letter of resignation, which was accepted by the board on Nov. 1. In particular, according to the director there was “an imbalance on the position of the general manager that is in fact no longer a duality, but a real subordination. This was not transparent at the beginning and therefore created disagreements.”

For her part, the mayor Elena Carnevali, who is also president of the Fondazione Accademia Carrara, in an interview with theEco di Bergamo let it be known what proposal the board of directors tried to put forward to mend the rift: a proposal “that would shed light on the respective attributions of responsibility and operations, starting with acquisitions of works and collaborative projects of an artistic order and on cultural content to enhance the museum’s identity and the communication of exhibitions.” The “effort made in recent weeks,” Carnevali continued, “which we think has not been understood or not wanted to be grasped, has gone in the direction of making clarity in their respective responsibilities.”

In fact, the Carrara Academy’s organizational structure provides for a kind of dual leadership: the director and general manager are in charge. Both are appointed by the board of directors at the proposal of the president, and both have terms of office set by the board of directors. The director is in charge of tasks concerning conservation, protection, enhancement and planning of cultural activities (so, for example, he or she prepares the program on conservation, research and enhancement activities, proposes opening hours, promotes quality standards for the management of educational activities, proposes loans of works for national and international exhibitions, promotes activities study, outreach, education and training initiatives), while the general manager has overall responsibility for the management of the Foundation (thus, he or she prepares the business plan, fundraising and museum development projects, submits budget proposals to the board of directors, takes measures to improve functionality and efficiency, enters into purchase contracts for goods and services, and signs collection and payment orders). In essence, the director has scientific duties, the general manager manager managerial and administrative duties.

According to the Bergamasque edition of the Corriere della Sera, Bagnoli, for her part, reportedly made a counterproposal to the foundation’s board of directors to redefine the responsibilities of the two roles, a counterproposal that was not, however, accepted. The former director, however, has given her willingness to continue working, as a consultant, on the scientific projects already underway, particularly the Autentic and Copy exhibition, dedicated to copies of works of art, scheduled for spring 2025. In the meantime, the Foundation will have to look for a new director.

Bergamo, Carrara Academy director Martina Bagnoli resigns

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