Contemporary art museums to Count: we complied with the rules, let us open on holidays

AMACI, the Association of Italian Contemporary Art Museums, joins the chorus of individuals calling on Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and Minister of Cultural Heritage Dario Franceschini to reconsider the decision to close museums on holidays.

As is well known, the dpcm of Jan. 14, 2021, in Article 1, point 10, letter r, provides for the reopening of museums only on weekdays (specifying then, in the articles containing the measures on red zones and orange zones, that in the regions included in these two bands, museums will still remain closed). AMACI, taking into consideration the concerns expressed by the majority of its member museums, calls on the premier and the minister of culture to review the decision. “After more than two months of complete closure of museums and cultural institutions (during which the Association appealed to the sense of responsibility of its members, who were called upon to contribute with their closure to the containment of potential opportunities for contagion),” reads a note, “today AMACI intends to emphasize how this partial reopening risks further penalizing their role and social function, jeopardizing sustainability, not only economic and financial, for many of them. Museums and cultural venues are not all the same. Eleven months after the start of the pandemic, the index of contagion in territories as vast as the regions can no longer be the only factor determining the closure or reopening of these institutions.”

“AMACI,” the note continues, “asks that museums and their representatives be involved in the evaluation on the reopenings of these places in relation, not only to the contagion index, but also to the population density and the annual average number of visitors, so that all the necessary evaluations can be made so that they manage to keep alive the link with their public and their territory. Contemporary art museums are not mere containers of works of art or mere exhibition venues: they are centers of study and production, fundamental points of reference for the art community and its entire production system, which is hard hit by the current situation, as well as important principals for reading the present. Toward all the subjects of this diffuse system, contemporary art museums feel a strong sense of responsibility, and for this reason they ask that their connection with their communities of reference be recognized and no longer delegated to digital modalities alone.”

“Contemporary art museums,” AMACI concludes, “have so far been responsible, attentive and respectful of directives even in relation to the situation of individual geographical areas. Now they are asking to continue to do their part in relation to their own specificities and their own function, of which it is essential that they become aware, putting them in a position to exercise, in the forms and ways possible, their task towards society.”

Contemporary art museums to Count: we complied with the rules, let us open on holidays

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