A proposed cut of 35% in Italy?s performing arts and film budget has suddenly thrown Italian cultural policy into the spotlight. Christopher Gordon explains the political backdrop.
Italy is heading for a general election in April 2006, by which time Berlusconi?s second administration with his Forza Italia party in coalition with the unsavoury Alleanza Nazionale and the secessionist Lega Nord will have been the longest-lasting Italian government since the end of the Second World War. This time round, it looks as though the oft-expressed European arts and heritage sector?s longing for ?culture? to be a high-profile electoral issue may be satisfied ? but not for particularly positive reasons. To add drama, the recently appointed Culture Minister, Rocco Buttiglione (the rejected EU Commissioner) is currently threatening resignation over cuts to the grants budget.
Paradise ? lost
The main debate centres on two laws enacted in 2002 ? Patrimonio dello Stato S.p.a. and Infrastrutture S.p.a. The first paved the way for a radical change in the status of the national heritage, whilst the second provides for a new mechanism ? a potentially gigantic state property-holding company farming out heritage on long leases. ?Sales? are in the hands of the Finance Ministry ? which ?consults? (pretty late in the day) the Heritage Ministry over its ?decisions?. Giuliano Urbani, Culture Minister at the time, said everyone could relax ? the Colosseum and the Trevi Fountain were not up for sale. Not yet, anyway... Many see this as being as much motivated by urgent balance of payment and national debt considerations as by political dogma or coalition partner sweeteners.
Until very recently Italy?s cultural heritage legislation (based on a Fascist law of 1939) was characterised exclusively by the ownership and preservation of national cultural heritage, assigned specifically to the State administration to guarantee its protection. This was enshrined in the 1947 post-war Constitution (Article 9) ?to protect and preserve the countryside, historical and artistic monuments which are the inheritance of the nation.? Article 9 has always been used to justify a centralised system beyond even the wildest dreams of New Labour and the DCMS. When these laws were proposed, the professional museum and heritage world was immediately up in arms about the threat posed by the new legislation, and by October 2001 an open letter to the Italian government, a roll-call of ?major international museum? directors with the customary ?don?t you touch my little brother or else I?ll, I?ll...? tone, was appearing in the correspondence columns of major national and international newspapers.
World Heritage
This international concern for Italy as a ?special case? is nothing new. John Ruskin, in 1857, drew scathing attention to what he saw as an incestuous British obsession with mediocre contemporary decorative art fashions while ignoring the peril to which major Italian masterpieces were then being exposed from war, ignorance and vandalism. Italy?s biggest asset is also its biggest headache. The country is the world?s largest museo diffuso, as UNESCO listings confirm. Its heritage is far too extensive for any middle-ranking 21st century economy to be able to manage on its own. A 1970s survey of 8,000 Italian towns revealed that 87% of them predate the 14th century. Conservation policies in Italy can be traced as far back as the 13th century. Both Siena and Venice by the late 15th century had detailed planning controls in place specifically to preserve heritage. In the 17th century Papal States, anyone caught selling statuary abroad was imprisoned. The unified Italian state has, since 1870, had strict rules regulating export of art ? as the J. Paul Getty Museum is belatedly discovering.
Purgatory
Three major questions arise out of this unique embarras de richesse, which are surely essential for the Italian government to consider as it rushes headlong into change:
? Given the huge extent of Italy?s heritage and the constitutional obligation to retain and maintain it (even when in private ownership), how are the tricky resources and management concerns dealt with?
? With so much heritage being in the public domain, how can citizens be constructively engaged as stakeholders and part of a solution? What rights of access do the contributing taxpayers have to their heritage?
? With the ?burden? of the past being so overwhelming, how do you strike a reasonable balance between looking after national inheritance and supporting/encouraging contemporary creation?
Short answers to these questions up until now would have to be something like ?ineffectively?, ?very little? and ?sorry?? The longer answers are equally disturbing.
The government?s solution to the key problem of profusion over 50 years has been to ignore it, simply assuming everything has equal value. Consequently there is still no French- or British-style graded ?listing? system for monuments and historic buildings enabling the public authorities to prioritise on a professionally-informed and manageable basis. Financial and personnel management is therefore all too often synonymous with panicky crisis management. Individual museums and sites are unable to begin to manage by objectives, as they are all enmeshed with the centralised soprintendenza, with minimal control over their own budgets, income and personnel.
Since conservation is a major issue ? in which Italy is probably the world leader ? it has been all too easy to elevate scholarly and academic ?access? over wider social access. In any potential conflict between protection and public access, the easiest solution is invariably to deny access rather than find ways of managing it responsibly.
Performing arts institutions (such as the 13 major operatic organisations and the teatri stabili) are treated effectively as if they are part of the heritage, and the contemporary visual arts as either in the market or the private sphere (where gallery owners double as critics!).
Inferno
Regional government and local authorities are, of course, operating in a less rarefied atmosphere and usually deal with the policy and resources issues in a more pragmatic way at their own (dependent) levels. They are also more successful at harnessing private sector and foundation assistance. It is difficult not to conclude that the Ministry?s current predicament is at least partly of its own making. Whilst the professional world is screaming (with justification) about the government?s cavalier irresponsibility, at least an Italian government has at last recognised the size of the issue needing to be addressed, even if its solution is ill thought-through and dangerous. Urbani stated that his Ministry needed to be more accountable to citizens, more decentralised and efficient, more welcoming to researchers and schools. He wasn?t wrong about any of that.
The real danger is that far too much currently has to be taken on trust ? and why should anyone trust Berlusconi?s word with his near-monopoly grip on private and public TV news reporting, and much of the press and publishing? Vague goals without any serious assessment of resource needs (financial, professional or personnel) or timescales, outsourcing for the sake of outsourcing, devolution for the sake of devolution (usually central government code for saving money?), rupture of continuity in what has been done well over the past half century. This is massive change without any real change management, which is hugely confusing, destabilising, ambiguous and therefore highly dangerous. But whatever the outcome of the 2006 election, the next Italian government cannot avoid giving priority to trying to develop long term solutions.
Christopher Gordon has 35 years? experience as an arts professional in the public sector, and is now an independent consultant in cultural policy.
e: christophergordon@compuserve.com