2023-09-13 16:14:00
Time.news – Singapore, Tokyo, New Delhi and Seoul. Never before in these metropolises has it been possible to appreciate a complete exhibition on contemporary Italian art, from the 1900s to today. The feat succeeded to ours Foreign Ministry, the only one in the world to have transformed in the space of twenty years into a ‘museum’ that everyone envies us.
From the Farnesina Collection, which has almost 700 works on display in the ministry’s headquarters, around seventy were chosen for “La Grande Visione Italiana”, an exhibition which has just concluded its first Asian tour registering a success beyond all expectations.
Among the works on display – now headed to New York, in the UN Headquarters – there are pieces created by famous artists such as Carla Accardi, Mimmo Jodice and Michele Pistoletto, just to name a few. I am a “sample” of the much larger ‘Farnesina Gallery’, the rich and dynamic art collection of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that the whole world envies.
© Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The success of the Asian tour of “La Grande Visione”, however, would not have been possible without an equally great vision: the innovative project carried out over time with passion and tenacity by the former secretary general of the Farnesina, the ambassador (today at rest) Umberto Vattani.
Speaking to Time.news, Vattani, the founder of the Collection, explained how the idea of collecting some manifesto-works of our contemporary art to exhibit them in the building that has housed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 1959 was born and in what context.
The Farnesina Collection is conveying the image of contemporary Italy to the world. Where did the initial project come from?
“In 1986 I was in London, where the state visit of the then President of the Republic Francesco Cossiga was being prepared, a very important and demanding visit. I went to visit him at the Quirinale to propose, among other things, to give him something more original than the usual gifts given in these situations. I proposed giving him an Italian fountain with a sculpture since our contemporary art was not yet well known. Cossiga found the idea extravagant but did not oppose it. I then took steps to bring the fountain which had as its focal point a statue, the Nereid, by Emilio Greco. It was placed not far from our embassy, in front of the historic Hotel Connaugh, in the center of Carlos Place, where it still stands today. they renamed the fountain of the Italians, which obviously can only please us. In the same year I met the critic Maurizio Calvesi, curator of the Venice biennial that year. I told him on that occasion what we had done in London and from then on he became interested always to our initiatives. Two years later, on the occasion of the anniversary of the Marshall Plan, I suggested to the Prime Minister to bring an Italian sculpture, this time by Arnaldo Pomodoro to Los Angeles, where Cossiga would meet President Ronald Reagan. Even there the proposal surprised but no one opposed it: the statue, considered one of the most evocative of Pomodoro, is still found on the body of water, next to the opera house.
© Ministry of Foreign Affairs
When he returned to the ministry at the end of the 1990s, however, something particular happened…
When I returned to Italy from Germany, about ten years later, I found the Palazzo della Farnesina unadorned, just as we had inherited it since 1959, when the ministry was transferred from the very central Palazzo Chigi, in front of a thousand-year-old column, on the other side of the Tiber, in what seemed to many to be a suburb. That transfer deeply disappointed the diplomats who almost felt ‘downgraded’. Consequently they did nothing to embellish a building which, quite evidently, was a building from the Twenty Years period, simple and with rational geometries. In 1997, when I returned it was also in a rather degraded state with the marble of the facades darkened and completely unadorned. I decided to talk about it with the head of diplomacy at the time, Lamberto Dini, pointing out the importance of giving ourselves a newer image that was in step with the times. “Whoever enters here cannot help but think about the past and not even a very exciting one… we can do better, I told him, suggesting that we include works by contemporary Italian artists as I had done in other cities of the world. The problem raised by Dini was immediately inherent to the absence of an item in the budget to purchase works of art. In fact we didn’t have one, but we had good relationships with many artists who we could have convinced to lend works…So I went to Pietro Consagra asking if he would lend us a sculpture, then I asked for a couple of canvases from Piero D’Orazio, Accardi, Perilli and many others. Once the contacts were exhausted I asked for help from Calves himself, whom I had met in Venice in 1986…In a short time the ministry changed its image to starting from the first floor where all the rooms open to the public and foreign delegations were now full of works. And since more were arriving, they had to be included in the offices too, and then one floor was no longer enough and we began to go up to the second, to the third…Today all the floors of the ministry are covered with works above all: not only in the shared spaces, but also in the special offices. Calvesi was also the first to be impressed by the operation we were carrying out and to understand its importance, to the point of helping me by making my tasks easier.
Another key element for the Collection was the free loan for use of the works. An equally original loan formula for those years…
But this was not the result of a ‘crisis of imagination’: we didn’t have the funds and we couldn’t think of anything else. This formula, however, gave an enormous advantage compared to purchasing: with the loan, the artists remain the owners of the work which they can withdraw or replace as they wish. This process meant that the Farnesina Collection was not a static accumulation of works but a living collection that continues to amaze those who return to the ministry after a few years of absence.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was ahead of its time in other aspects too, can you confirm this?
When we started this operation, the Museo del ‘900 in Milan did not exist, just as the Maxi in Rome, born ten years later, did not exist, and the Madre Museum in Naples did not exist, much less the Mart in Rovereto, inaugurated in 2002 We were precursors and with practically non-existent means we created a Collection that today is envied by everyone. No other Foreign Ministry in the world has something similar, and no other Italian ministry, not even the Ministry of Culture, has something similar within it. We’re a bit exceptional…
What impact did the Collection have?
This collection had a double effect: it managed to capture the imagination of ministers and foreign delegations visiting us. I heard Madeleine Albright (US Secretary of State from 1997 to 2001) exclaim in amazement on the staircase. She wanted to see all the works on display while the former French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine wondered if the Quai d’Orsay should imitate us, forgetting however that their Napoleonic style building, rich in stucco and decorations, was not very suitable for hosting works contemporary. Unlike the Farnesina which is a perfect container.
What was the meaning of an Asian tour for the works of the Collection?
We owe first of all to the unparalleled talent of Achille Bonito Oliva the choice of 71 works, out of 700 that make up the Collection. Not an easy choice because the objective was to
represent the entire Italian artistic panorama from the 20th century to the present day and show that Italy has never known eras in which there was not extraordinary progress in the arts and sciences. Everyone knows about our country above all for its Roman antiquities, the Renaissance and the Baroque, but they neglect the current eras and are wrong because in reality the 20th century also knew great masters whose memory should be preserved with greater care. Furthermore, we have demonstrated how a Foreign Ministry, beyond political talks, economic collaborations and in other areas, also has the possibility of using a ‘weapon’, the one defined with the American expression ‘soft power’: the art is lighter, more playful, attracts attention and facilitates dialogue. In some way it introduces into the hardest discussion, that of interests, a theme that is very suited to our country. Our nation has always exercised an influence that goes well beyond its size, strength and wealth. We showed that in a very short time a Foreign Ministry was capable of producing works of art that show a different Italian way of life. Our Collection is certainly not a ‘museum’ but it signals a curiosity also felt by Italian diplomacy.
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