Sgarbi: If we can go to the supermarket we can also go to the museum. Franceschini to be more present

Vittorio Sgarbi spoke yesterday at hearings of the House Culture Committee to call for culture not to be left for last when it reopens, and indeed for consideration to be given right away to adopting supermarket-like measures for museums and exhibitions. Also in his speech, Sgarbi called for more presence from Cultural Heritage Minister Dario Franceschini. “I must express my disappointment,” Sgarbi said, “for this laconic meeting and with a minister who is a friend and fellow citizen of mine, with whom we have made common undertakings, but I have never seen a minister more defiladed at a time when it is necessary to reiterate forcefully that the testimonies of Italian culture, exhibitions, live and outdoor shows should not be last.”

“It is good that when everything is opened, culture is also opened,” he continued. “When I made the appeal for Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara I got forty thousand signatures in three days, this time a thousand: evidently people are so afraid and even we here live as if we were in the catacombs, that they are afraid to say yes even to the idea of doing an experimental exhibition. There is the Raphael exhibition, which cost 4 million euros, that dies without having seen anyone.”

Sgarbi then turned to Franceschini, who in his view “must be more present, louder, must shout the primacy of culture, and not because it is useful or because it brings GDP, but because it is part of our life, it is as vital as health, and it is ridiculous to have Raphael’s most extraordinary masterpieces and not see them. Then I believe that, just as one goes to the supermarket with a mask to get quinotto or potatoes, one will be able to go, through a principle that needs to be set up now, so important venues (Parma, Ferrara, Venice, Florence, Rome), with important exhibitions either not yet open or closed, allowing one to go in groups of ten every ten minutes. But I cannot understand why something like this has to be interdicted by fear: we will have to go back to normal.”

The art historian then continued with an attack on doctors: “we cannot be slaves to four vain doctors who say one day one thing and one day the other: Burioni, the head of this papalist clique, who dominates more than the pope, knows that God wants us to pray at home and on February 5 he said: never will an epidemic come. Nice clear ideas! Politics must not be subordinated to scienzocracy. And so I believe that Parma, the Italian capital of culture, the exhibitions of Canova and Raphael need a minister who is alive and present, not a kind and sensitive person who says we will do, we will subordinate, we will ask ... but what should we ask? That culture and the supermarket are two different things?” And again, on museums: “they are largely empty: how many people go to the Bassano Museum or the Spada Gallery? What are they afraid of?”

For Sgarbi, one should not be afraid: “I am not saying that one should be a denier as I was in the beginning, but neither should one be terrified and afraid of culture. Exhibitions have been closed before they have even opened; they are extraordinarily lost opportunities.” Finally, Sgarbi concluded by wishing the minister a more meaningful presence: “Venice has been closed for two months: but how is that tolerable? For what, because I cannot walk and someone tells me that going outdoors is dangerous? It’s not dangerous to go outdoors, it’s more dangerous to stay indoors if someone brings home the virus they had conceived over time. So I’m calling for more presence of culture, a minister who has strength, who is in the first place, alongside the minister of health, because this is a ministry of health of minds. Other than online and the Internet, we need to enter museums at quota numbers with a new proposal, which is precisely to make an offer: you buy the ticket first and go, ten at a time, to the halls at a meter’s distance, as we are here. We must not live in fear.”

Sgarbi: If we can go to the supermarket we can also go to the museum. Franceschini to be more present

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