Italy appoints 20 new directors for top museums August 20, 2015 - 12:59 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - The Italian ministry of culture announced the 20 new directors of Italy’s most important state museums. Out of the 20 posts—evenly split between men and women—seven have gone to non-Italian EU nationals (three Germans, two Austrians, one British and one French). The ministry made the selection from 1,200 Italian and 80 foreign applications with the help of a committee that included Paolo Baratta, the president of La Biennale di Venezia, and Nicholas Penny, the former director of London’s National Gallery, The Art Newspaper reports. Italy’s beleaguered state museums are famous for the strength of their collections but bogged down by outdated bureaucracy and insufficient funding. So the ministry decided to look for manager-directors with experience of the more financially attuned and efficient UK-U.S. museum systems. Three of the seven foreign candidates have been given the reins to institutions the ministry has listed as “first tier”. The Uffizi galleries will be run by the German art historian Eike Schmidt, formerly the head of decorative arts at the Minneapolis Institute of Art; Milan’s Pinacoteca di Brera will be run by James Bradburne, the former head of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi; and the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, will now be headed by Sylvain Bellenger, the former head of European painting and sculpture at the Cleveland Museum of Art. “The government has clearly signaled it wants to see change in the country's museums, and has understood that this change is best made by giving the museums much greater autonomy,” Bradburne says. This includes the power to raise funds independently and to invest these back into the institution. Previously, all proceeds would go back to the ministry in Rome and then be redistributed (but not necessarily to the museum that generated them). “With these nominations, Italy is turning over a new leaf and is catching up on several decades worth of stagnation,” added Italy’s minister of culture Dario Franceschini.  Top stories The creative crew of the Public TV had chosen 13-year-old Malena as a participant of this year's contest. She called on others to also suspend their accounts over the companies’ failure to tackle hate speech. Penderecki was known for his film scores, including for William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist”, Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining”. The festival made the news public on March 19, saying that “several options are considered in order to preserve its running”   Partner news |  Latest news U.S. warns Georgia not to side with Moscow against the west  Georgia has been warned by the U.S. not to become an adversary of the west by falling back in line with Moscow.Power of One Dram sums up two-year program with Teach for Armenia Idram Junior also joined the companies during the visit, bringing with it a fascinating intellectual game for childrenMoscow slams EU mission in Armenia for “provocative activity” The EU mission is doing more and more against Armenia’s neighbors Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran, Mikhail Galuzin said.Yerevan Mayor to travel to Paris on May 15-19 The official delegation headed by Yerevan Mayor Tigran Avinyan will travel to Paris from May 15 to 19. |
