10 priorities for the next minister of cultural heritage

In the past four years, since Dario Franceschini has held the position of minister of cultural heritage, the sector has undergone momentous changes. There has been the reform of superintendencies, the reform of museums, the reform of the export of cultural heritage, and again the laws that liberalized photos in museums, libraries, and archives; there has been the competition to hire five hundred new officials; the weight of the ministerial budget in relation to the overall state budget has grown (we have gone from an expenditure corresponding to 0,19% to 0.29%, but we are still a long way from 0.39% in 2000), we have seen the introduction of theArt Bonus and the 18app (the â?¬500 bonus for 18-year-olds), as well as an increase in the activities of the ministry and state museums on the web and social media, the birth of free Sundays at museums, and the establishment of the blue helmets for culture, which were the brainchild of the current minister. Franceschini’s has been a ministry characterized by lights but also by many shadows: little has been done, for example, on precariousness, research, and protection for smaller centers, and the reforms of superintendencies and museums contain many dark sides that have been discussed at length on these pages.

The work to be done, therefore, is still much. There are many structural problems that need to be solved (and as soon as possible) to ensure further revitalization of the sector. It was therefore thought to draw up a list of ten priorities that, in our opinion, the next minister of cultural heritage, appointed with the government that will be formed following the March 4 elections, will necessarily have to deal with.

The Collegio Romano, headquarters of the MiBACT

1. The work in cultural heritage
On this point we believe there is little to discuss: labor is the top priority. MiBACT’s stable workforce has shrunk by about five thousand in five years, and the great competition of 500 officials has failed even to cover retirements. There is a need for a new recruitment plan for civil servants, since several superintendencies are forced to work with a small number of technicians (cases in which just two art historians have to cover the needs of territories corresponding to three or four provinces are not rare), but technicians are also needed to deal with promotion and communication, as well as room attendants who can cope with the now structural staff shortages affecting several museums (from the Ducal Palace in Mantua to the Pilotta in Parma, from the Archaeological Park of the Campi Flegrei to the National Museum of Capodimonte). Substantial investments in personnel are therefore needed: the challenge will be to find the cover, considering that one thousand technical officials, framed in F1 position (area III), cost the state about forty million euros a year. And the Ronchey law on outsourcing needs to be revised: it is unthinkable to believe that staff shortages can be met by a reckless recourse to volunteer work (it lowers the quality of work and creates a kind of unfair competition against oneself). Investment in personnel also means more services to users and more quality, and thus more revenue for the public coffers.

2. A real revolution on museum admission fees.
We are still far from European standards when it comes to museum admission fees. And we are not simply talking about ticket prices, since on the face value of admission tickets we are almost in line with European averages. What the Italian museum system lacks is that carnet of facilities present instead in several foreign museums. Discounts and free admission for those who are not employed, conventions with other cultural venues, reductions for those who show up at the museum during the last hours of opening, extension of the duration of ticket validity: measures that would make it possible to carry out a real revolution never attempted before. And again, we need to rethink opening hours (more evening openings that meet the needs of citizens: we need to start looking at museums not as places to be kept open only during office hours, but as places where it is pleasant to go after a day’s work or after dinner) and initiate a study on free Sundays, to understand whether this is really something we need, or whether it would not make more sense to abolish it by making up some of the shortfall and instead allocating freebies to minorities who do not go near museums because of economic problems.

3. Digital culture.
The Franceschini-led ministry has done a lot for digital culture: we have revamped and useful websites, we have seen an intensified social presence of cultural institutes, good digitization projects have sprung up, and cataloging of the national heritage has continued. However, according to research by theObservatory for Digital Innovation in Cultural Heritage and Activities, which took into account 476 Italian museums (which also included non-state museums), in 2016 only 57 percent of museums had a website and 52 percent had an account on social media, and even smaller numbers of museums provided with newsletters (25 percent), virtual reconstructions or interactive displays (20 percent), and an online catalog (13 percent). The next minister will therefore have to consider consolidating investments in digital culture: many museums, even major ones, do not even have a website, or, when the website is present, it is of little use, since it is limited to brief communications about the museum’s opening hours and purpose. Equally often, there is a lack of easy-to-consult online catalogs with useful information (bibliographic passages, official catalog entries, loans for exhibitions) and high-quality photographs, and still the presence on social media in many cases is not widespread. Digital cataloging of heritage must also continue, with renewed vigor, and the general catalog of cultural property must become a useful and user-friendly resource. Usefulness for the public must be the main objective that will have to guide all digital tools promoted by the ministry.

4. Give new impetus to protection and strengthen the links between museums and the territory
One of the main demerits of the Dario Franceschini-led ministry has been to have effectively created an opposition between protection and enhancement: two principles that before the 2014 reform went hand in hand. How did this link come to be severed? With the separation of museums from superintendencies, with the reduction of superintendency staffing (many officials have in fact been assigned to the new museum poles as well as to autonomous museums, bodies that no longer have anything to do with superintendencies), with the amalgamation of the bodies in charge of protection (if previously there were superintendencies for cultural heritage, archaeology and architecture, now there are single bodies: it is the so-called"holistic vision" of the ministry). It is a topic that is little talked about, partly because ministerial officials, out of prudence, prefer not to talk to the press (implications of the new MiBACT code of ethics, approved in 2016), but due to mergers, role divisions and retirements, many superintendencies have come to situations of paralysis (just think of the serious situation of the cultural heritage of central Italy). The next minister must therefore bring order to this chaotic situation. There is a need to give new impetus to protection: targeted recruitment, division of responsibilities and respective scientific coordination, measures to bring museums back into the orbits of the superintendencies and thus become again cultural presidencies linked to their territory.

5. Take care of small museums, which are experiencing declines in visitor numbers.
The numbers speak for themselves: despite the bombastic announcements at the beginning of the year, when ministerial communiqués spread in triumphant tones the news of the overall increase in museum visitors in 2017, the number of visitors to small museums is in sharp decline compared to the pre-reform period. And it is not hard to understand why: before the Franceschini reform, when museums were de facto offices of superintendencies, revenues were distributed fairly so that all institutions benefited. Following the reform, there were two negative effects. The first: the autonomy of the major museums has diverted funds that used to reach their “little brothers,” and the 20 percent solidarity fund that, by law, the major museums still have to allocate to the smaller ones represents little when one considers that, in 2016, the autonomous institutes alone accounted for 54 percent of visitors but 77 percent of gross revenue. Minus 20 percent, this still results in 62 percent of receipts benefiting the autonomous institutes. To reach a point of balance between revenue and number of visitors would require raising the solidarity fund to close to 30 percent. The second: the ministry’s investments have focused mainly on large museums. Of the so-called “billion for culture” presented in 2016, a plan that up to 2020 will cover all heritage (so not only museums), 292 million (so almost 30 percent of the total) is earmarked for interventions for autonomous museums, while the rest is mostly concentrated on a few sites. It is necessary to reverse the trend and allocate more investment to the small diffuse heritage: the main flaw of the so-called “culture billion” has been considering museums more as tourist attractions than as true presides of citizenship and places for the formation of civic sense and culture. It is from this perspective that we need to think.

6. Research must become a topical subject again
Little scientific research is done in Italian museums. On the contrary: scientific research in museums and superintendencies is practically excluded from the debate, is absent from almost all political forces’ programs and is never taken into consideration when it comes to allocating funds for cultural heritage. With the reduction in personnel, the space for research has also been reduced, there is a lack of a real common protocol between MiBACT and MIUR on the issue of scientific research in museums, museums, archives and libraries seem to speak different languages, and the ministry’s action has favored museums (or rather: favored big museums) at the expense of archives and libraries, which instead are juggling a thousand difficulties. Possible new hires of art historians as well as of archival and library officers to cover the ministry’s needs will also be useful to heal this important lag that the sector suffers in relation to research. It is also necessary to establish memoranda of understanding with universities and to ensure that archives and libraries work under at least normal conditions.

7. Dealing with contemporary art
Another major excluded from the debate on the sector iscontemporary art. It is true that the Italian presence, MiBACT-tagged, at this year’s Venice Biennale has instilled a modicum of hope in everyone, but it is too little. Contemporary art has to contend with serious communication difficulties with the general public, few targeted initiatives, and little support for artists. With the Franceschini ministry, a special directorate for contemporary art was established, responsible for action plans in the sector. The 2016-2018 three-year plan focused mainly on the enhancement of museum networks and new acquisitions for state collections, but little or nothing was done in terms of communication: suffice it to say that the ministry participates with booths in several tourism fairs, but is absent from the main contemporary art fairs, and this detail is very telling about what the ministry considers its priorities. There is a need to strengthen awareness about contemporary art: communication campaigns, initiatives to present the major themes of the current debate to the public, quality exhibitions, consolidation of the enhancement of contemporary collections, and interventions in public spaces could be the keys to a turnaround.

8. Attention to the suburbs and social inclusion.
Suburbs are also talked about too little. Toward the end of December, the Chamber of Deputies’ Commission of Inquiry on the Suburbs produced an eight-hundred-page report with programmatic lines to be bequeathed to the new Parliament. It is a good document to start from: it talks about housing policies, urban reforms, security, squatting, integration and inclusion policies. The Ministry of Culture certainly cannot stand at the window. The body in charge of suburbs is the General Directorate for Contemporary Art, whose full name is “General Directorate for Contemporary Art and Architecture and Urban Peripheries.” But it is not only necessary to bring art to the suburbs: we also need to bring the suburbs closer to the center and bring citizens closer to art and culture. Without integration and inclusion policies that also address the cultural heritage sector, simply “beautifying” the suburbs is not enough.

9. Museums making museums
In recent times we have seen museums being transformed into restaurants, gyms, dance halls, catwalks for fashion shows, locations for weddings, corporate presentations, food and wine events, and so on: the examples are numerous and can also be found in the pages of our magazine. Often, however, these occasions are transcended causing inconvenience to the public, with early closures, reductions in opening hours and assorted unpleasant situations. We have never been preconceived against the opening of museums to events: the writer does not consider it scandalous for a museum to host a DJ set, a wedding, a dinner or a fashion show. However, it is absolutely necessary to establish a single code that contains guidelines for the letting of spaces and that takes into account several factors: events must take place away from the works, the fee schedule must be appropriate to the importance of the space, events must be respectful of the place, there must be no inconvenience to the public, and the museum must not close for even a minute to allow activities to take place. Of course, the ideal situation would be for museums to be museums. But renting space allows museums to earn extra income that can be used for restoration, research, preservation, and enhancement. And if everything is carried out in a respectful manner and without harming the public, perhaps we need to weigh well, on the scales, both the (very just) questions of principle and the benefits that might be gained.

10. Landscape plans and the merging of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage with the Ministry of the Environment.
Article 9 of the Constitution says that the Republic “shall protect the landscape and the historical and artistic heritage of the nation,” and the reference law in the field is called the “code of cultural heritage and landscape.” It is therefore strange that the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and the Ministry of the Environment are two separate entities: the next legislature should consider merging two bodies that have common competencies and can work in concert on closely related issues. In addition, Articles 135, 143, and 156 of the Cultural Heritage Code require regions to have landscape plans to identify areas to be subject to protection, preservation, and redevelopment, but not all regions have them: according to the synoptic framework of landscape planning, a document prepared by the Ministry in the summer of 2017, only three regions have approved plans (Piedmont, Tuscany, and Apulia) and one has a plan in the approval process (Lazio). However, most regions have started the process of approving a landscape plan, and it will therefore be a priority to get those regions that have not yet adapted to speed up the pace on landscape protection.

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