The Brera Art Gallery under the management of James Bradburne: a model to look to?

Last August 9, the Pinacoteca di Brera released its"2016 Annual Report" to take stock of the past year’s activities: and this is already news, since few (if any) museums publicly release reports on their activities, for the benefit of anyone who wants to read them. It is undoubtedly an interesting document, because it provides an opportunity to reflect on various topics, starting with the management of a museum that, according to many, has benefited greatly from the direction of James Bradburne, who arrived in 2015 from Palazzo Strozzi following the notorious competition that led to changes of top management in nineteen of the twenty museums that, following the Franceschini reform, were granted autonomy. Interesting then because the Pinacoteca’s report opens with a statement of intent: a letter from the director that, we can say without a doubt, in its outlines cannot but agree with anyone who sees a museum as a place of cultural growth, rather than as a machine for grinding out visitor after visitor. It is worth quoting a significant excerpt: “The museum is a fundamental part of our common humanity and our shared identity as citizens of a prosperous and dynamic society. As citizens we take part in the decisions that shape the world in which we live; in this sense, the museum becomes the place where we find our past in order to create our future. The museum is a space where, in dialogue with artists of all times, we find ourselves in all our complexity, richness and active role in society. The museum is not a place in which to consume culture, but in which to produce it.”

What does this vision of the museum as “a space to find ourselves and our active role in society” entail in practical terms, according to Bradburne? In the meantime, rethinking the museum as a more welcoming and accessible place, one that spurs the visitor to spend a meaningful experience within its walls, invites him or her to return, and above all allows him or her to feel the museum as his or her own. When I interviewed Bradburne a few months after his appointment, the director declared that his mission would be to “put Brera in the heart of Milan and to put the visitor’s experience in the heart of the museum”-concepts later often reiterated in these nearly two years of management. It is worth remembering that the Pinacoteca di Brera is not a museum like any other, at least in Italy: in our country it is probably as close, in terms of the very idea of a museum, to the Louvre. Brera is not only a Pinacoteca officially established in 1809 for the purpose of housing the tips of all the Italian artistic schools: it is also an Academy (born before the Pinacoteca, moreover), a Library, a Botanical Garden, an Observatory. It has become (and is becoming) necessary to unite all these fragments, through the rearrangement of spaces, of essential services, of signage, of installations, with a view to unity: there is no point in having a brilliant Pinacoteca if then, for example, the Library follows with difficulty or the Botanical Garden is not taken care of with the same attention. The idea is that a cultural institution should serve the local community first and foremost: and if you give the inhabitant an institution that works and in which it is pleasant and useful to linger, you can be sure that you will provide excellent service to the tourist as well. The opposite model, on the other hand, often does not allow one to reap as much good fruit.

The new layout of room XXIX. Ph. Credit James O’Mara.

The second practical consequence is the declared renunciation of blockbuster exhibitions. Because the Pinacoteca di Brera is already a blockbuster in its own right, given the exceptional nature of its collection, it does not need to reinvent itself as a container (an eventuality that could also lead to the death of a museum). From Brera, therefore, there are no reports of “sold out” exhibitions or tens of thousands of visitors. Rather, the choice has been to focus on “dialogues,” a very interesting series of small events that have accompanied the refitting of some rooms by bringing to Brera works that, precisely, would profitably and intelligently dialogue with the masterpieces (and not) of the permanent collection. And even the choice of frequently focusing on names without media echo, such as Lorenzo Lotto or Pompeo Batoni, could be in itself an indication that the museum’s will is to look above all at the historical collections. And it is worth pointing out that these new arrangements have radically changed the museum’s image: bilingual panels with more detailed captions than before (and with a trail of “author captions” written by poets, writers, artists, and intellectuals: an initiative of sure interest to bring the visitor to look at the work from an often unseen point of view), new lighting, different wall colors according to historical periods.

Finally, the third consequence: communication, a theme on which Brera has insisted a great deal, with a totally renovated site that conforms to European standards (it is almost a rarity in Italy to have a site that presents its collections with fact sheets and details on individual works, and high-resolution images), a timely newsletter that informs the visitor of all the news and events held at the institute, an effective press office that, moreover, responds to requests with diligence and speed.

One can then reproach director Bradburne for his continuous distinction between preservation and enhancement (concepts that, in the writer’s opinion, remain inseparable), one can argue about dinners in the courtyard with bags and spritzes resting on the base of Canova’s Napoleon, we can continue to be indignant if we see restorers carrying out urgent glazing operations on paintings directly in the rooms because a wave of intense cold caught everyone unprepared. However, it is also necessary to look impartially at the achievements of the Pinacoteca di Brera, and it is at least necessary to ask ourselves, in all honesty, whether Brera cannot be a model for other Italian museums. We have been (and still are) detractors of the Franceschini reform, but since that reform is in place, since it is impossible to go back, and since the future of cultural heritage is burdened with the question of the 2018 elections, it might be time to start seeing if it is not also necessary to find something good among the meshes of a reform that has shown itself to be all but oblivious to peripheral centers, with all that this has entailed (the situation in Central Italy is there to prove it), and in fact has left unresolved the main problems undermining the sector, which have long been discussed on these pages. However, if we are to reflect on museums, then the Pinacoteca di Brera could perhaps offer some insights into rethinking the role of the museum in society. In his essay The Museum as an Active Element in Society, Franco Russoli, the historic director of the Braidense, wrote that the museum should be "a maieutic instrument, of problematic knowledge of nature and history, which does not lead to a dogmatic indoctrination, but which gives matter and occasion to a free, spontaneous, perhaps contesting judgment, matured through direct relationship (whether aesthetic, historical or scientific) with the original documents of the evolution of the life of nature, society, and man." Surely it is too early to lavish peremptory statements, but just as surely we can say that a furrow, at the very least, has been drawn.

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