Your Art Escort's response to Dott. Rosa Maria Letts of London commentary on Sgarbi

First is the attempt to understand the definition of the CONTEMPORARY ART MOVEMENT and all that may be included in this concept. 

Second is the discussion of SGARBAGING, excuse me, I meant say, an understanding of some of the unfair trade practice or art poaching techniques of VITTORIO SGARBI.

Third is that the MAXXI National Museum of 21^st Arts in Rome is for the art of the 21^st century, not “20^th century”.  

Fourth is the concept of “Can we agree to disagree?”, which is not permitted in the “world according to Sgarbi”.

Since we are limited to 1000 words here, only half of one point will arrive here and that is where I shall start. The other 3 points will need to be reviewed at a different time.

For now I will address the 1^st point hyperlinking my footnotes to support my social discussion and art commentary/critique.

Contemporary Art, (which I am NOT a huge fan of, so let’s get that out on the table) can be defined as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since WorldWar II. Examples of international contemporary museums and international contemporary artists in this movement are numerous and well established outside of Italy.

To use the term, “ephemeral” may sound trendy, chic, cutting edge or “to look smart” but is without merit when applied too loosely to one movement as a mutually exclusive event.  To apply this word to any one specific art movement alone is not accurate, unless you are willing to look back over the entire history of art and see that. THIS WORD is part of what art movement is all about.  

That where the idea of “movement” comes from. It is either too narrow to apply to one movement, or possibly is better applied to any of all of the past art movements, as there are so many!

Ten different art movements have been identified to 19^th century 

and 37 different styles have been identified for the

20^th century. Even a child’s basic attempt at the simple law of averages would have to conclude 100/10 = 10 for the average length of a movement in the 19^th century and 100/37 = 2.7 years to the average length of an art movement in the 20^th century. But since these periods are NOT mutually exclusive this point of view doesn’t work either.

So the contemporary art movement has been around since World War II, 2011- 1945= 66 years, for example only. To call the works of the contemporary art movement “ephemeral” seems lacking a full grasp of what anything past the modern art movement is about, maybe “transient” movements might be more appropriate.

A sixty-six (66) year history and holding makes a statement, that even for those of us that may not be fans of the contemporary art movement.

Contemporary art is here and has been here and until the next brave group of controversial genius artist arrive pushing and dragging us along, here we lie.

In support of Francesco Bonami statements I agree whole heartily with his professional educated and well-rounded assessments of this clear analogy “Contemp­orary art is to Sgarbi what America is to Bin Laden.”

I also recommend any of you wanting to expand your art education watch this interesting PBS video, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE for a larger global perspective.

Dott. Rosa Maria Letts of London writes:

REPRINTED FROM the comments section of: Shock appointment of anti-modernist to Venice Biennale,
Critics include Whitney Biennial curator Francesco Bonami who says Italy "deserves Sgarbi" because of its antipathy towards contemporary art.

Comments

27 Aug 10
16:23 CET

Dott. Rosa Maria Letts, London

The appointment of Vittorio Sgarbi both as curator of the Italian Pavilion at the next Venice Biennale and as advisor for acquisitions at the Maxi Museum of modern art in Rome is very good news. Prof Sgarbi is at least one of the most cultured and intelligent man we have on the art scene in Italy. He has organized many important exhibitions and written extensively on Italian Art, Classical and Modern. His opinion is to be valued. He can be controversial but represents many trends and is conscious of our tradition and past supremacy in the sector. Modern Art should be the celebrated art of the 20 century,as opposed to contemporary art still to be proven. Gnoli is an artist he has mentioned - hopefully to enter the Maxi - he is a great artist like indeed De Dominici. But contemporary art should be kept to temporary exhibitions and await to enter the collections until they are accepted as Modern Artists. Much contemporary art is just ephemeral.

Shock appointment of anti-modernist to Venice Biennale

REPRINTED FROM:

Shock appointment of anti-modernist to Venice Biennale

Critics include Whitney Biennial curator Francesco Bonami who says Italy "deserves Sgarbi" because of its antipathy towards contemporary art

By Alessandro Martini and Gareth Harris | From issue 211, March 2010 Published online 24 Feb 10

LONDON. The appointment of Vittorio Sgarbi, the celebrity art critic and polemicist, as curator of the Italian Pavilion at the 2011 Venice Biennale and supervisor of acquisitions at Rome’s new MaXXi museum of 21st-century art is dividing the Italian art world, thanks to his well known antipathy to contemporary art.

Sgarbi was the under secretary of state for the ministry of culture from 2001-02 in Silvio Berlusconi’s government. In 2004, Sgarbi founded the Party of Beauty to halt the construction of new buildings in Italian cities. In 2006, he switched allegiance and stood for the centre-left Consumers’ List party.

Appointed as the mayor of the Sicilian village of Salemi in 2008, he is an outspoken television pundit.

The Venice appointment is especially sensitive as Italy celebrates the 150th anniversary of its unification in 2011. Italian culture minister Sandro Bondi defended his choice, insisting that Sgarbi “has in-depth knowledge of Italy’s heritage”.

The appointment has drawn stinging criticism from Sgarbi’s compatriot Francesco Bonami, the curator of this year’s Whitney Biennial, who berates the current Italian government’s attitude to contemporary art.

“Unfortunately we deserve Sgarbi,” he says. “Contemp­orary art is to Sgarbi what America is to Bin Laden.

Once in a while, Sgarbi, like Bin Laden, rants against his enemy. I have to say that Sgarbi’s joint appointment is very close to a suicidal attack on Italy’s dignity,” Bonami told The Art Newspaper.

Sgarbi has indicated how he will approach the Italian Pavilion: “I’m considering an empty pavilion that only contains an address book of Italian artists. I may also just include a single artist such as Saturnino Gatti, a 15th-century master who has been erased from art history, making him really contemporary. But in my ideal pavilion, I would like to install just one work, the Dead Christ by Mantegna [around 1480] next to a photograph of Che Guevara on his death bed.”

MaXXi

Meanwhile, Sgarbi has outlined his direction for the collection of the MaXXi, the national museum of 21st-century art, which is due to open this spring, telling our sister paper Il Giornale dell’Arte that he does not rule out a selection of Arte Povera artists but “alongside, in a so-called national collection, we should acquire works by Carol Rama, Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio, Sergio Saroni and Ottavio Mazzonis. And if we have Maurizio Cattelan and Vanessa Beecroft we should also have Domenico Gnoli, Fabrizio Clerici and Carlo Guarienti.”

“I believe that the MaXXi should concentrate on the generation in its fifties. The criterion should not be whether something is traditional or not—I want Antonio López García and Lucian Freud in the collection. The main point is, we are in Italy and our museum should be different from museums in London and New York,” he added.

But Bonami again raised concerns about the development: “Since 1999, the MaXXi has had a headless acquisition policy. The collection is a mediocre accumulation of late 20th-century art. The opening show, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva, will focus on Gino De Dominicis—you could not get an exhibition that is more 20th-century. They are going backwards. I don’t understand how the president of the MaXXi Foundation [Pio Baldi] and the curators can maintain their dignity. 

They have mismanaged MaXXi and Sgarbi is the natural consequence.”

A museum spokeswoman em­phasised, however, that Sgarbi has been appointed in an advisory role. 

“Sgarbi will not directly acquire works. The directors of the two MaXXi museums—Anna Mattirolo, director of MaXXi Arte, and Margherita Guccione, director of MaXXi Architecture—propose all acquisitions.” She also pointed out that the De Dominicis show is one of five planned for the inauguration.

The museum, des­igned by the Iraq-born architect Zaha Hadid, was originally scheduled to open in 2006. The E150m project was first mooted in 1997 but various obstacles, such as shortfalls in government funding, have delayed the scheme. The E10m annual running costs will be partly provided by the ministry of culture. The institution has so far acquired more than 300 works, ones by Italian artists such as Alighiero Boetti, Mario Merz and Giuseppe Penone, as well as work by non-Italians Anish Kapoor, William Kentridge, Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol.

But Sgarbi says that “works have been bought at prices that are completely inconsistent with [the usual] museum acquisition rates. These prices have definitely been inflated.”

He also criticised the appointments of Baldi, Mattirolo and Guccione, saying that they were “shoo-in” candidates, prompting the MaXXi spokeswoman to say: “The trio have worked with conviction on the MaXXi project since its inception, with excellent practical results.”