Exhibitions are like mortgages: Paestum director opens deposits against cultural exhibition bubble

Opening the deposits of the Paestum Archaeological Park to propose a recipe against the cultural bubbles of exhibitions: this is the thinking of the Park’s director, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, who in these terms returns to the discussion around the issue of opening the deposits (on which, moreover, we at Finestre Sull’Arte had interviewed him a few weeks ago). Thousands of exhibitions are organized in Italy every year, and the choice of Paestum, on the contrary, is to focus on the enhancement of the collections, both for the parts that appear in the normal exhibition itinerary and for the parts that are instead kept in storage. For Zuchtriegel, the very visit to the repository represents a cultural experience, which is why the director decided to make it accessible every day of the year. “I think that’s what the appeal is,” Zuchtriegel explained. “Being able to see an authentic working space, complete with dust, boxes with bones and fragments, and sometimes even archaeologists and restorers at work.”

A choice that, in some ways, also goes against the obsession with wanting to focus on exhibitions at all costs: “Exhibitions,” Zuchtriegel believes, “are like loans, they are culture that lives on loans, literally and metaphorically. The loans, however, are made by those who feel they do not have enough of their own resources. Behind it is the expectation of recovery, of growth, which, in order to be maintained, needs more exhibitions, more loans. The visitor or visitor who sees a great exhibition in a museum will want to see an equally great one when they return. Exhibitions are the financial bubbles of culture, and when they burst there is often nothing left. Paestum, on the other hand, like many other Italian museums, has a huge heritage of objects to show and stories to tell, beyond the exhibitions. That is why we decided to make the deposits a stable part of the everyday visit: what you see in there is an authentic piece of the history of Paestum and the excavations that have been taking place here for a hundred years.”

The Paestum director then quotes David Herbert Lawrence, who in 1927, speaking of the Tarquinia museum, observed, “If only one would understand it and not tear things out of their places. Museums anyway are wrong. But if there must be museums, let them at least be small and, above all, local.” In short, for Paestum, a change of course that aims to reconsider the role of the museum and that for now, they let the Park know, is also finding some success with the public, which is enthusiastically appreciating the decision to open the deposits on a permanent basis.

Pictured: the Paestum depots.

Exhibitions are like mortgages: Paestum director opens deposits against cultural exhibition bubble

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