Goldin will not hold his exhibition in Treviso. But art still comes out defeated

“Goldin is tired of criticism, committees opposed to the use of Santa Caterina for the exhibition and art historians pontificating about the quality of his projects.” So wrote, on February 24, 2015, the Treviso Tribune in an article by Alessandro Zago. What to say? It may happen that, in a civilized country, freedom of expression is still in force, with good peace to those who get tired of criticism and committees. As those who follow us surely know, a vexata quaestio has been going on for months that includes several key players: Marco Goldin and his company Linea d’Ombra, the City of Treviso, the Museo Santa Caterina Bene Comune committee, and many art lovers and insiders. The object of contention: Goldin’s project for a major exhibition (which later became a project of several exhibitions over several years: but we would only find this out yesterday) to be set up in Treviso’s Santa Caterina museum complex, which would be repurposed ad hoc. We had also talked about it on these pages.

The latest events, briefly summarized in an article published in the Gazzettino, tell us that Goldin has decreed the end of his Treviso project even before giving it the go-ahead. The reasons: the climate of uncertainty that had arisen over the work at the Santa Caterina complex, and the refusal by the City of Treviso to guarantee a three-million-euro surety as a penalty in case the project ran aground due to causes unrelated to the creditor company, namely the company organizing the exhibition, namely Linea d’Ombra. The latter made known its willingness to abandon the project in a statement sent to various newspapers, including again the Tribune of Treviso, which published it in full on March 6.

Goldin in front of a Van Gogh painting. Photo by Vicenza Report distributed under a Creative Commons license.

What is written in the statement has something surreal about it. “The need for a guarantee has emerged with all evidence as a result of the opposition that has been widely and daily echoed in the press, of self-styled exponents of the art world, of representatives of the same majority, of committees formed ad hoc, all agreeing in threatening initiatives aimed at hindering the use of the museum venue of Santa Caterina for the exhibition organized by Linea dombra.” So, disregarding the nonchalance with which Linea d’Ombra indiscriminately apostrophizes the project’s opponents as “self-styled exponents of the art world,” Goldin’s company had seen fit to demand a 3-million penalty rather than dialogue to try to settle differences with the opposing side. And if many people criticized the project, there must have been some reason: it is hard to imagine that everyone did so only out of bias against Goldin. “Exhibition whose project they did not even know about, and perfectly well known instead, and for a long time, to the mayor and other aldermen”: if there was criticism, perhaps it was not also because the details of the project had not been disclosed? How can the residents of a city be expected not to object to a project whose terms they do not even know?

However, in spite of the fact that we have arrived at the final archiving of a project with such smoky contours, we have to take note that art still comes out the loser. Yes, because for all these months, in Treviso, art has not been considered, by most, as what it should be: a way to enrich culture. It has been regarded as a means of economic enrichment, moreover unproven and untestable: Treviso itself, despite having been a favorite land of Goldin’s exhibitions in the past, has never managed to carve out a prominent space for itself in the tourism sector. It is a sign that the desirability of a destination grows not where there are unique and sporadic events, and above all it does not grow at all where the absurd thought is spread that an unlikely deus ex machina will bring lasting fame and glory to the city simply by organizing an exhibition, especially if it is completely unrelated to the context that hosts it: desirability is nurtured where there is long-term planning, where there are shrewd reception policies, where quality rather than quantity is worked on.

Art then comes out defeated also because many commentators lost sight of what the main problem of the issue was, as Il Giornale dell’Arte also rightly reminded us in an article by Veronica Rodenigo published on February 25: that is, the problem was not whether or not to oppose Goldin’s project. A figure, that of Marco Goldin, towards whom even yours truly has no antipathy and about whose products I have no objection, as long as they are classified under the sphere ofentertainment, rather than under that of culture, as I have already had occasion to express in the past. The problem was twofold: on the one hand, the upheaval of a public museum for a project whose terms were not known with certainty (a museum that, in the absence of serious planning, would have risked becoming an empty container), and on the other hand, the repercussions on the finances of the City of Treviso of the Goldini exhibition. Those who criticized the project felt that the scales leaned exaggeratedly in favor of Linea d’Ombra, and above all that the economic commitment required of the municipality was hardly sustainable.

Finally, art comes out defeated because the experts in the field were, arguably, the people least listened to. Personalities such as Luca Baldin, director of the Casa Giorgione Museum in Castelfranco Veneto, the great scholar Lionello Puppi, members of theNational Association of Local and Institutional Museums, and even the art historian Nico Stringa, the architect Guglielmo Botter, and many others have spoken out on the matter.I do not want at all to think that Linea d’Ombra, when it speaks in its statement of a generic cauldron of “self-styled exponents of the art world,” is referring to the people listed above. That would be a serious disrespect.

Therefore, it is necessary to reiterate the concept: art cannot be sold out for mere economic interest, art cannot be hostage to vote-hunting councilors, art cannot pursue low-business logic. If we really have to compare art to economic processes, then we should consider it as an investment for the cultural enrichment of citizens.

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