Big words fly between Montanari and Daverio around Giulia Crespi's Burri case

Heavy clash, in the pages of Il Fatto Quotidiano, between art historian Tomaso Montanari and critic and television personality Philippe Daverio over the affair of the sale of Alberto Burri ’s (Città di Castello, 1915 - Nice, 1995) Great Wood and Red, created by the great Umbrian artist between 1957 and 1959 and owned by Giulia Maria Crespi, founder and honorary president of Fai - Fondo Ambiente Italiano. Crespi, in particular, submitted (quite legitimately) the work to the export office of the Venice superintendency, which reportedly gave the go-ahead for the work to leave Italian territory: the Large Wood and Red, barring sensational turns of events, will therefore be sold at auction by Phillips in New York on November 15 with an estimate of between $10 and $15 million, a record for Burri. The work is indeed of great importance, exemplifying Burri’s style in the late 1950s, and since its creation to date it has been exhibited only once: in 2015 at the Burri retrospective organized by the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

For Montanari, the exit of the Great Wood and Red, made possible by the reform on the export of cultural goods (which increased from 50 to 70 years the threshold for evaluation by the Superintendency for the purpose of issuing a certificate of free movement), is a kind of affront to the country: “how is it possible that such a masterpiece,” he wondered in the columns of Il Fatto Quotidiano, “has crossed the patriotic borders without the Ministry of Cultural Heritage moving a finger? The person responsible has a name and a surname: Dario Franceschini. The latter’s latest ’gift’ to Italy’s cultural heritage was Law 124 of August 2, 2017, written literally under the dictation of the art dealers’ lobby.” The Florentine art historian spares no comment on the operation: "Mibac, now led by Alberto Bonisoli, is studying ways to close the loophole, but in the meantime someone rushed to take advantage of a protection on its knees. It was taken into account that unscrupulous dealers, venal collectors and developers who use paintings to clean up their dirty money would do so. But really no one could have predicted that the most serious damage would be done by the founder and honorary president of Fai, Mrs. Giulia Maria Crespi. Indeed, for fifty years that great Burri welcomed, on the monumental staircase, visitors to Casa Crespi, on Corso Venezia in Milan: where he crowned a very select collection, which includes, among others, the two celebrated, monumental Canalettos. It is hard to believe that this stab at the nation’s cultural heritage was inflicted by the man who founded, and still presides over, an association whose purpose is ’to protect and enhance the Italian heritage of art and nature, to educate and raise public awareness, and to supervise and intervene in the territory.’ [...] Having decided to sell the Burri (which is sad, but perfectly legitimate), Mrs. Crespi could have (and, being her, should have) turned face to face with the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, accepting the possibility of a denial and leaving it to the state to buy it. Instead, the path of alienation abroad was chosen, to maximize profit without any cultural and moral scruples: the work was exported without explicitly declaring the historical connection with the Crespi family."

Responding to Montanari, also in Il Fatto Quotidiano, was Philippe Daverio, who used fiery words against the scholar. “Montanari’s article that appeared in Il Fatto Quotidiano about the ongoing sale of the Burri painting that Giulia Maria Crespi kept hanging in the hallway of her house,” the critic wrote, “is ethically repellent and morally ridiculous: ethically because the journalist had a Ministry official provide him with the deeds relating to a legitimate private export in defiance of every privacy criterion (one hopes the minister will provide), morally because he uses parameters of ’nationality’ that not even the jawbone of Predappio would have digested. Everything can be said about Giulia Maria Crespi except that she has not always been a person who has dedicated her life and often her own money to the interests of Italian cultural heritage, both in personal battles and in having promoted, financed and supported the Fondo Ambiente Italiano. That she then decided to sell, perhaps to further finance her commitment, a work of contemporary art that she had bought cheaply and is now of high value, is not only her right but also perhaps the joyful verification of her own intuition in having identified in Alberto Burri an emerging talent when the rest of the Italian bourgeoisie was dull and buying equally opaque works. It would be nice if there were still today in the emerging Italian affluent class the same ability to intuit the arts that will rise to world stage glory! Selling the works of our contemporary art today for millions of euros, pounds or dollars does not deprive the national heritage, since there is an entire museum of Burri’s in Città di Castello, but instead helps to restore a national honor that is daily demeaned by the stupidity that reigns supreme, unfortunately also in the printed media.”

And today came the rejoinder of Tomaso Montanari, who in the same newspaper addressed Daverio directly: “In what capacity does Daverio write? The insults with which he invests me forbid thinking that he does so as a spokesman or valvasser for Mrs. Crespi. Perhaps then as a merchant, which he has tried to be, opening galleries in Milan and New York (all of which he managed so well as to induce him to change trades). Yes, there is no doubt: he writes as a merchant, since his (culturally laughable) arguments are those typical of the mantra of merchants who, for centuries, have wanted their hands free.” Montanari then cites examples of “cultured and civilized” merchants, such as Marco Boschini, who in seventeenth-century Venice “recognized that, without the restraint placed on the market by public authority, there would not have been a single painting left in Venice,” and reiterates, after declaring that he has had access to the records thanks to the 2013 legislative decree on civic access, that “theexport of the Burri, until a year ago, would have been illegal,” and that “it is now lawful only thanks to a serious rift, which (if the 5 Star Movement is consistent with its past struggles) will soon be healed.” There is no shortage of further remarks about Giulia Crespi: “That the breach is taken advantage of by a personality like Giulia Maria Crespi is sensational news. That the modalities are those cunning and disloyal to the protective bodies, which I have described, seems to me very serious. In short, one must make up one’s mind: one cannot want to be canonized in life for merits toward heritage, and then blithely mind one’s own business. Either you are really for protection, or you are for free hands over heritage and territory.”

Pictured, from left: Tomaso Montanari and Philippe Daverio

Big words fly between Montanari and Daverio around Giulia Crespi's Burri case

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.