The government's inelegance and failures on the issue of new museum directors

When faced with the eventuality of having to replace with fresh forces, for whatever reason, a worker who has always performed his or her duties admirably, there are two options. The one widely practiced consists of sincerely thanking the person being replaced, wishing him or her good luck in the continuation of his or her career, and hoping that the newcomers will do their best. The second way consists of the inevitable lack of good taste, because any exit other than the one described in the first case can only turn into a fall in style. In bidding farewell to the museum directors who had, until a few days ago, served in the twenty new state super-museums and in welcoming the newcomers, the government chose the second option.

Beginning with the tweet with which Cultural Heritage Minister Dario Franceschini announced the appointments, “a quantum leap for Italian museums with great professionals from Italy and the world.” As if until before the other day museums had been in the hands of amateurs in the dark, when instead they were directed by serious scholars and professionals, among the best in the world, with years of experience behind them. To speak of a"quantum leap" from previous management is a gross form ofungratefulness to those who, for years, held firmly at the helm of Italy’s major museums despite a thousand difficulties.

In our circles it is customary to say that form is substance. And the renzian-youthful style of the government’s communications, often branched out through tweets, probably conceals not only heavy shortcomings in tact and delicacy, but also a great lack of content. For it would be reductive to think that the interviews, communiqués and forays into social media by those who speak of “leapfrogging,” “meritocracy” and “revolution” (implying, by the latter term, that it is undoubtedly a positive revolution) are merely a matter of unrecognizance and inelegance. The recently concluded competition resulted in the directors of state museums being appointed by a minister for the first time in history, because previously they were appointed by their respective superintendencies. The government, however, did not reckon with a detail of no small importance: the directors are, yes, new, but the people they will direct will be the same as before, namely employees of the superintendencies.

The Borghese Gallery in Rome

It’s a bit like the tweet, translated, sounds like this, “Dear technical staff of the superintendencies, we have appointed directors who represent a quantum leap from what you thought were the best ... because the best are the ones we chose.” It is, in short, “a kind of delegitimization of the technical-scientific functionary of the Mibact,” as Antonio Paolucci rightly pointed out. And it is clear that a minister who speaks of a “qualitative leap” referring to people who replaced directors who were expressions of the superintendencies, mortifies and demotivates his workers. There can be no enthusiasm for new things if the new things are not supported by adequate justification. When changes are put in place, the grassroots should also be involved, because the grassroots constitute the engine of any kind of activity. To be sure, the appointment of the new directors has had the effect of creating discontent among superintendency staff who, already severely strained by the MiBACT reform that revolutionized the structure of the ministry, have had to endure the crossfires of civil service reform and director appointments in recent weeks. This change in the leadership of state museums will, perhaps (and the doubts are not only legitimate but also obvious), trigger a change, and it may not necessarily be a change for the better. Certainly, such a change will have to deal with the problem of having to rely on the strengths of a tired, high average age (since new hires are virtually blocked) and highly demotivated staff. But we will defer to a further discussion of the main problems that the new directors will face.

Alongside all this must then be added a further lack: we still do not know how the candidates who arrived at the orals were judged, and on what criteria the choice of the minister, who had the final say on the names, was based. What is still lacking, in short, is the basic transparency that should instead be fundamental in any public competition, especially if the winners are going to be in charge of Italy’s major museums, because we would be very pleased to know what merits made some people prevail over others. Certainly, we do not believe that a single quarter-hour interview was sufficient for a considered choice: a recent graduate applying for an internship in even the shakiest company usually faces interviews of a very different length. But we would also like to know for what reasons some candidates, often possessing more experience and qualifications than other competitors, were discarded.

In essence, there is a lack of clarity on the part of the ministry, a lack of addresses, a lack of answers to all those questions that were raised loudly in the hours following the announcement of the names of the directors. And the latter find themselves, moreover, in the position of having to operate, barring sensational turnarounds, with the same tools, the same people, probably even with the same procedures as those who preceded them. Indeed, perhaps even with some greater difficulty: several museums have been made autonomous but, precisely, there is a lack of guidance from the ministry to make that autonomy effective. However, in this respect, it is perhaps too early to express an opinion, although it is still legitimate to raise concerns.

What is certain is that we do not want to, nor can we believe in the fact that appointments respond more to purely commercial or political needs than cultural ones. And without a clear vision of the future and an equally clear vision of the problems that have so far plagued the cultural heritage system (to put it bluntly: the fact that a museum lacks a restaurant, is not currently a priority problem), the appointment of new directors, at the moment, seems to be nothing more than a large carpet woven specifically to cover a conspicuous layer of dust. Perhaps, before putting a carpet in the house, it would have been more appropriate to remove the dust.

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