From Cimabue to Morandi: Sgarbi's exhibition amid publicity, moves and bargains


Considerations on the exhibition Da Cimabue a Morandi, curated by Vittorio Sgarbi for Genus Bononiae, on the eve of its opening to the public.

Despite much protest, the Da Cimabue to Morandi exhibition, curated by the indefatigable Vittorio Sgarbi, will open its doors tomorrow. Was there really a need for this exhibition? It would seem so, judging from Sgarbi’s words at the presentation of the exhibition, a report of which was published the day before yesterday in the pages of the Bologna edition of Repubblica. Well: there are interesting points to ponder. Net, of course, of the typically Sgarbian provocations, which constitute the most distinctive stylistic signature of ours, and which can now be skipped in stride. And also net of the sly detour: the fact that a Madonna attributed to Annibale Carracci left Italy under “unclear circumstances,” in addition to being all yet to be ascertained (the authorities will take care of that), is in no way relevant to the discussion of the exhibition. Not least because no one dreamed of calling Sgarbi’s exhibition a “criminal object”: it was simply considered inappropriate. In any case, the matter of Carracci’s Madonna is too steamy to be used as an argument. That being said, should Vittorio Sgarbi want to wage a passionate, no-holds-barred struggle to understand how the painting got away to America, he will receive our total support.

Da Cimabue a Morandi

But let us come to the exhibition. Fabio Roversi Monaco, president of Museo della Città di Bologna srl, the company that manages the Genus Bononiae project, i.e., the itinerary within which the exhibition is part of, rightly defends the exhibition. And it could not be otherwise: when has the top management of a company ever criticized its own product at launch? And Genus Bononiae is a serious project, we have always said so: we went last month to visit the exhibition on the Etruscans at Palazzo Pepoli, and it seemed to us to be a popular product of excellent quality. However, this time Roversi Monaco and Sgarbi will allow us a critique of Da Cimabue a Morandi. In December we had already stated our opposition to the exhibition by listing five reasons why the exhibition was, in our opinion, not a good idea.

A five-point critique that, albeit with some timid appreciation of which I will say more in a moment, we also confirm in the aftermath of the presentation. To think, as Councillor Alberto Ronchi said, that “an exhibition such as this serves precisely as an invitation to go and visit the permanent collections,” and thus to hope that a blockbuster exhibition, such as this one curated by Sgarbi, can entice people who have never visited the museums of Bologna to do so, is like hoping that a person who goes shopping at the supermarket will be enticed to go shopping in the neighborhood stores. It is, in short, an exhibition that does not encourage a correct approach to art; on the contrary: by passing off the idea that, in order to see the pieces considered to be the best of a city, it is enough to wait for an anthological exhibition that recounts its art from its beginnings to the present day, it makes the public even more lazy and even less devoted to in-depth study than Sgarbi already considers it to be, who moreover continues to show little consideration for the public that will visit the rooms of the exhibition he curates. And the museums that lend the works will probably suffer even more than usual, since many of them have had their major masterpieces taken away.

Such is the case with the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Bologna, which was forced for the entire time of the exhibition (three months) to deprive itself of one of its top works, Raphael’sEcstasy of Saint Cecilia. Sgarbi points out that those who criticize what is, in fact, a mere temporary move should go “to San Giovanni in Monte in Bologna, where there is still the frame of the painting because that is its original location.” Sgarbi, however, omits to say that the painting’s placement in the rooms of the Pinacoteca Nazionale is now a historicized fact, that is, the result of a historical process that brought the work to its current location. For exactly two centuries: it was 1815 when it was decided to keep at the Pinacoteca the painting, which had just returned from France where it had ended up due to Napoleonic spoliations. And now in San Giovanni in Monte there is a copy, a historical one, as it was executed in 1861 by Clemente Albèri. Sgarbi, perhaps, deliberately leaves out the discourse around the historicization of the placement of paintings in museums because, unless he has changed his mind in the meantime (and there may well be but, if so, I would not be aware of it), a few years ago he himself called the return of the works to their places of origin a folly. Again because of that process known as historicization, precisely. This does not detract, however, from the fact that the discourse of “re-contextualization,” as Dario Franceschini called it a couple of months ago, is interesting as well as worthy of being addressed: but it does not pertain to the case of the Bolognese exhibition, since in this case it is merely a matter of moving for an exhibition whose scientific, didactic and popular value we have, as mentioned, at least five reasons to doubt. In the hope that at least the benefit of the doubt is an institution worthy of continuing to be granted.

And all of this leaving aside the fact that the viewing of Raphael’sEcstasy has never been prevented from the public because of work on the rooms, which, moreover, has yet to start. The loan was functional for the restorations: superintendent Luigi Ficacci said that thanks to the collaboration with the exhibition organizers, the Pinacoteca will finally be able to start the work, although it is not clear from the interview where the funds will come from, and whether the exhibition was really necessary to find them or to unlock them. Can it be said, then, that without the exhibition there probably would not have even been a restoration? If, therefore, a positive aspect of the exhibition needs to be identified (besides the opportunity to see dozens of works from private collections: Sgarbi and Genus Bononiae must be given credit for this achievement, and it is to be appreciated), here it is found: I do not feel like condemning Ficacci for this collaboration (based on quid pro quo? Hopefully the terms will be clarified), in a situation of notorious scarcity of funds. Blame, if anything, should be sought elsewhere, in those who determine that culture is not an area in which to invest adequately.

Vittorio Sgarbi

That Sgarbi’s exhibition responds more to the logic ofentertainment than to the logic of culture (which, however, of course, is not deplorable in itself) can also be guessed from the cunning coup de théâtre with which a work, theAllegory of Fortune preserved at the Galleria dell’Accademia di San Luca, for which the name of the great Bolognese painter had in fact been circulating for some time, was presented as freshly attributed to Guido Reni: certainly since about two years ago, when we first visited the Gallery, talking about it on this very site. We would never have ventured to cite the work as a painting by Guido Reni if no one had advanced, before then, the name of Guido Reni for the attribution of what by the way is one of our favorite paintings. That there is a connection between the fact that, on that day, we were the only visitors to the museum and the fact that now the Sgarbian coryphaeuses are applauding this non-news? If anything, what is being bandied about these days, and for which Sgarbi has no particular merit (other than that of having brought a virtually unknown work to the attention of the general public) is a further confirmation, already announced a few months ago, however: in October, to be exact, when the Accademia di San Luca presented the results of the restoration of the Reno canvas. But then again, you know: even attributions now make marketing.

In short, we will continue to appreciate Genus Bononiae ’s work, and of course Sgarbi’s as well, because the criticism is not aimed, as many might think, at the character itself, but at the exhibition. But, frankly, Da Cimabue a Morandi seems to us an opportunity that could have been exploited in another way: using, for example, the excellent itinerary created by Bologna Musei (but also involving the Pinacoteca and museums not run by the municipality) to include an exhibition on collecting in Bologna, given Sgarbi’s commendable ability to have managed to obtain so many loans from private individuals. And the tribute to Longhi could have been configured, perhaps, as a new Exhibition on the eighteenth-century Bolognese, whose 80th anniversary falls this year, by the way. All that remains for us to do, then, is to wish Sgarbi that his exhibition really achieves its intended goal, that of awakening the consciences of the Bolognese and bringing them closer to the heritage of their city. If it does, we will congratulate him.

Guido Reni, Allegoria della Fortuna; 1637; Roma, Galleria dell'Accademia di San Luca
Guido Reni, Allegory of Fortune; 1637; Rome, Galleria dell’Accademia di San Luca


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