MudaC Carrara, chaos over ministry announcement. What's going on?

The project Sculpting the Wind by Francesco Bartoli, an artwork with which the Municipality of Carrara won a grant of 61,150 euros as part of the second edition of the PAC - Plan for Contemporary Art, the public notice of the Ministry of Culture’s Directorate General for Contemporary Creativity for the selection of project proposals for the acquisition, production and enhancement of works of contemporary art and creativity destined for the Italian public heritage, is in danger of not seeing the light of day. The municipality was awarded funding in the second area, “Production,” which provides for commissioning funding to artists and creatives for the creation of works that will increase the beneficiary’s public heritage: in the case of the Municipality of Carrara, the destination collection was designated as that of MudaC - Museo delle Arti Carrara.

On July 28, thelist of winners had come out, among which MudaC with the work Sculpting the Wind by Francesco Bartoli was also included. What is it about? “The project,” reads the brief, "is intended to be a particular research on the territory of the Apuan Alps and stems from the need to talk about matter (landscape-sculpture relationship) and its absence from the point of view of contemporary art. A look at the best sculpture studios in the city of Carrara in search of a parallelism between classical marble working - the legacy of the old stonemasons - and the contemporary one with robots, between the concreteness of the emptiness in the quarries and the levity of the sculptures made. Protagonists of the narrative will also be the territory of the Apuan Alps and the people who make it up; among them the poet shepherd Rolando Alberti. Some of Alberti’s most evocative poems and some songs by Demetrio Stratos from the record Cantare la voce will accompany the artistic actions that have been written for the project."

It will be, specifically, a docu-film will make use of the “performative element, sometimes poetic and symbolic sometimes surreal and dreamlike, within a more linear narrative syntax.” There will then be a role devoted to “quarries” and “man’s transformation of the landscape.” Finally, there will also be a chapter “dedicated to the relationship between the blind and sculpture, between matter and touch, between form and imagination.” The project, the detailed fact sheet further states, “will be conceived as a multidisciplinary video installation that will have the prerogative of merging audiovisual languages and artistic disciplines within the same exhibition project. The video installation is designed with the intention of making the new work dialogue with the rest of the collection but also with the aim of pushing it beyond the place that hosts it.” In addition to the video, in fact, the in situ intervention “will consist of a sculpture, also used as a prop for filming, and a large-format photograph extrapolated from the video.” The docu-film will propose a dialogue in a “poetic and metaphorical way” between “marble and the people who work it, between landscape and society, between contemporary art and history.” Indeed, Francesco Bartoli’s research focuses on the landscape, and has led him to produce “many multidisciplinary works dedicated to the ephemeral and/or permanent traces of man in the natural landscape context.” The title of the project is inspired by Andrei Tarkovsky ’s book Sculpting Time and refers to “the ephemeral and invisible matter, sculpture, marble and emptiness of the Apuan Alps.” The project has Laura Barreca, director of MudaC, as curator/scientific supervisor.

What happened? According to a report in the newspaper La Voce Apuana, the new municipal administration, which took office after the June 25 elections, did not accept the funding, the preliminary investigation of which had been submitted by the previous administration. In fact, the Municipality of Carrara did not forward the formal acceptance of the funding within the deadline. Providing an initial explanation was, to Voce Apuana, Cultural Councillor Gea Dazzi, who said, “We did not have enough time to understand the project, we do not go into the merits of its validity but we did not have a way to understand it, so out of a sense of responsibility we decided not to accept it. It is public money that we therefore save. We preferred not to accept it because for us it is an unclear project, there is a video yet to be set up and we have asked several times for a viewing but that was not the case.”

Of course, this is not money saved, since it cannot be set aside for other expenses (in fact, it is a grant, granted 100% by the Ministry of Culture, tied to a specific project), and it is not even possible to see a video before it is set up, if by “viewing” we mean precisely that of the project. The alderman went on to explain that “It simply did not seem to us to be an appropriate project. The intention of the administration is to revive Mudac, which has had few visitors so far. There is a need to do reevaluations in terms of permanent and temporary exhibitions.” Bartoli’s project, Dazzi concluded, “is too vague and we have not had a chance to verify it, which is why we preferred not to accept it.” In short: for Councillor Dazzi, from what she herself stated to the press, the problem seemed to be the project tout court (this is what she seems to be referring to when she says that “we did not think it was an appropriate project”, without further specifying for what reasons it was considered inappropriate), despite the fact that we are talking about a work that received a positive opinion from a ministerial commission where important experts were included, nor is it clear what connection there is, according to the councilor, between the work and the theme of the exhibitions.

Francesco Bartoli, reached by Finestre sull’Arte, said, “The municipality had the documents since April, never read them, and since they received the communication of winning, with this call, such an important award, the administration has never contacted me. You cannot declare that the project is ’smoky’: they are overturning a national-level commission without any expertise.” Bartoli claims that the municipality did not challenge him on “anything specific. That the City did not want to do this,” he adds, “I learned about it through an email from Laura Barreca informing me on September 5, one day after the deadline for acceptance. The project scored very high in all its points, from the specific economic framework for each expense to the effects on the territory, to the projects to be done, parallel with the Academy of Fine Arts of Carrara, to the course I wanted to do with the students of the Academy. To say it’s a smoky project is ridiculous to say the least.” Indeed, in the brief, under the heading “outline programming for the next two years on the theme of contemporary art” by the proposing party, reference is made to the mudaC’s “public program for 2022-2023” that “takes place in community participation [...] including different the [sic] disciplinary fields, such as art, crafts, design, site-specific and participatory projects, seminars, workshops with the aim of contributing to urban redevelopment and a cultural enhancement of the city, in an idea of work in progress and a museum spread over the territory.” The mudaC program, the brief goes on to say, “will be in close collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts, with the city institutions and associations that animate Carrara’s cultural, economic and social life.” In addition, the “possible enhancement activities” related to the work include "for the promotion of the Sculpting the Wind project, events will be carried out in the territory that develop the active participation of the public, such as workshops aimed at the students of the Academy of Fine Arts and meetings to the general public at the Garibaldi Hall throughout the exhibition period." The details of the initiatives include a workshop based at the Academy of Fine Arts and directed to students of sculpture and visual arts, held by Domenico Quaranta, the publication of a catalog edited by Laura Barreca, and at least two presentations with the public and associations in the area, which will be organized by MudaC between winter 2022 and spring 2023, and a screening at Carrara’s Garibaldi Cinema.

The artist, according to whom there was a problem of "prior censorship, " laments the fact that he was not received: “I contacted them several times (both the mayor, the alderman, and the manager in charge of the culture office), because Laura Barreca on July 28 sent out an email saying to get to work. I immediately thanked her on July 28 saying that I was looking forward to getting to know each other and meeting as soon as possible, then I sent another email after the vacations. However, no one responded to anything, and no one told me that they had not accepted. And then in my opinion the important fact is that from the little meeting I tore up on September 12, when I personally went to Carrara (the administration had a meeting with Laura Barreca, and she informed me about it), with the mayor I had only five minutes and no more, with the alderman a little more, but from what she said (she had not read anything) it seemed that their museum policy maybe was another one, and that they would like to approach other things.” Bartoli concludes by saying that he will sue the municipality, adding, “My lawyer made a request for the deeds because they were denied to me. Both the document in which there is my project with which the municipality went to the call for bids, and the official notice that I won it. In that document is written the deadline for acceptance. A municipality that is transparent and open to dialogue does not do this. For no reason whatsoever. These people are not from the industry but they well understood that a comprehensive project of this magnitude would access the spotlight on their territory and from the first moment they tried to discredit it.”

Mayor Serena Arrighi, similarly reached by Finestre Sull’Arte, explained that this is not a problem of substance as she seemed to perceive from the alderman’s words: namely, that the municipality does not intend to evaluate the artistic quality of the project. “The clarifications,” Arrighi explained, “have never been inherent to the artistic content or the quality of the work, that’s not our job, the clarifications have always been related to what channels the work should follow.” Specifically, Arrighi demanded to know who specifically are the parties involved and in what capacity they are involved, whether there is a participatory path, what human resources the municipality should in the event dedicate to the implementation of such a possible participatory path, should the administration be involved. “We came to the day when we had to decide whether or not to join the proposed funding without details in hand,” Arrighi continued. “From my point of view, whenever public money is involved (because it is still public money even if the Ministry and not the municipality gives it), I think a minimum of reasoning should be done. What happened next was that an email came to me with a number of protagonists, including the Academy, asking for a meeting.” Arrighi asked the technical office if there was any involvement of the Academy in the realization of the work, which “does not appear according to the preliminary investigation: the involvement of the Academy is welcome, but the administration must be aware of who is involved in the project, even more so if it is a funded project.”

In essence, the mayor seems to contradict the alderman: the point is not about whether or not the project is appropriate, but how it is carried out. Furthermore, on the issue of the project waiver, the mayor let it be known that she has activated the technical offices to find out whether the waiver will result in a penalty for the municipality in the next possible calls for bids. “Our official,” the mayor stated, “spoke with the ministry and the ministry guaranteed that there would be no penalty, and immediately afterwards, the ministry itself called us and said it would give us an extension on the terms of acceptance. After that, I asked the technical office if it appeared that the academy was involved, and it did not, what documents we had in our hands, and they gave me the brief, whether it appeared that there was a possible penalty or not for the administration, and from the phone call with the ministry this did not appear. In the September 12 meeting, I then asked Barreca for further clarification because from the communications we had with the artist, there was mention of the possibility that the project involved a ’participatory pathway’, and I wanted to understand whether or not the administration was involved, because if so I have to disburse hours and resources of our staff, but in a not so immense staffing situation I have to be informed, because this aspect was also unclear. We were provided with additional materials about the project (e.g., photographs), but not what I am interested in. I am interested in the organizational aspect. So even at the end of the September 12 meeting, these points were not clear, and to this day I still do not know who is the key player in the project at the level of the institutions involved, what the key roles are and who plays them, and also how the funding money is distributed.” Finally, on the terms of accepting the funding, the mayor lets us know that the municipality is waiting to hear from the ministry whether there is a possibility of having the extension.

On the management of MudaC, “the issue,” the first citizen concludes, “is administrative. I would like the MudaC to come to completion, because there are still some small interventions to be done. I would like to see the current heritage in the possession of MudaC enhanced because some investments have already been made, and I think it is important to enhance that heritage, and then to have proper museum programming that also aims to attract visitors. I think this is the administration’s job.”

The scientific contact person for the project Laura Barreca, reached by Finestre sull’Arte, lets it be known that she has forwarded all the documentation, that the municipality is still in time to be able to accept the funding, that both she and the artist are open to maximum dialogue with the administration and are available to provide all the necessary clarifications, including the actors involved, and that for administrative aspects the person to turn to is the cultural office of the municipality. While waiting for new developments, Finestre Sull’Arte will continue to follow the matter: perhaps it would not be wrong, for the good of the city and the artistic community, that a final clarification be reached between the parties involved.

Pictured is a room at MudaC in Carrara.

MudaC Carrara, chaos over ministry announcement. What's going on?

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