Marino Marini Museum, Eike Schmidt: an absurdity to take museum works out of Pistoia

The director of the Uffizi, Eike D. Schmidt, intervened on the Marino Marini Museum affair: as we had told you in recent weeks, the board of the Marino Marini Foundation had discussed last March the proposal to transfer the works of the Pistoia sculptor to the Florentine museum dedicated to Marino Marini (Pistoia, 1901 - Viareggio, 1980). In Tuscany there are two museums dedicated to Marino Marini: the one in Florence houses the works that the artist donated to the City of Florence, while the museum in Pistoia, located in Palazzo del Tau, houses the artistic heritage that Marino Marini had instead decided to leave to the city and which consists of the gipsoteca, video library, photo library, library and a rich corpus of paintings, sculptures and drawings. The proposal to move the works from Pistoia to Florence had aroused strong controversy and even street protests, while also registering the opposition of Pistoia’s mayor, Alessandro Tomasi (Fratelli d’Italia).

It was precisely the mayor who, at the end of January, had gone to the headquarters of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage in order to reiterate the link between the works and the Tuscan city in the ministry as well. And on the works, moreover, the Superintendence recently also placed a territorial constraint, against which the Foundation appealed to the Tar.

In favor of the Marino Marini Museum in Pistoia now, as mentioned, Schmidt has also moved, who spoke about it on the sidelines of the presentation of the tenth edition of the Yellow Festival in Pistoia, talking to journalists about the suspension of the activities of the Marino Marini Museum in Pistoia and the possible transfer of their works to the Tuscan capital. “The Marino Marini Museum,” said the director of the Uffizi, “is one of the great beacons, one of the highest points of culture in Pistoia and Italian territorial art. In these years, in which Pistoia is working to become more and more a center of twentieth-century and contemporary art, it would be an absurdity to take away, in order to move them elsewhere, the masterpieces of Marino, a great artist, among other things, precisely from Pistoia. It is also necessary to preserve Marini’s archive in its integrity along with his works.”

About the constraint, Schmidt wanted to emphasize that it is a “very just” measure. “And it is fundamental,” Schmidt went on to conclude, “that Marino Marini’s works that are in Pistoia, where among other things they play an important role as a cultural attractor to Pistoia remain; indeed they must be enhanced even more.”

Pictured: interior of the Marino Marini Museum in Pistoia.

Marino Marini Museum, Eike Schmidt: an absurdity to take museum works out of Pistoia

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.