He didn’t even like it Luigi Brugnaro who, during the official press conference, had declared, more or less candidly, that he preferred «The figurative». But regardless of the mayor’s unfortunate quip and his aesthetic tastes, now the games for the Italian Pavilion of Massimo Bartoliniedited by Luca Cerizza for the recently inaugurated 60th Venice Art Biennale, they could become decidedly more serious: Codacons has, in fact, made it known that it has presented a complaint to the Court of Auditors, foreshadowing possible violations of the tender and financial damages. The request made by the Coordination of consumer protection associations aims to shed light on the costs incurred by the State for the implementation of the project, «For days at the center of controversy and protests», we read in a statement released to the media.
He had started to raise his voice, a few days before the presentation to the public, Vittorio Sgarbi who, as in his iconic style, had not spared melodramatic terms: «I will shortly make a complaint to the Court of Auditors for the public financing granted to the Italian Pavilion, which is a horror against humanity». This is what the art critic, president of the Ferrara Arte Foundation and of the Mart of Rovereto, mayor of the municipality of Arpino, just to mention some of his positions, expressed himself on the occasion of the presentation of the Ifis Art project, inviting the bank not to finance the Pavilion Italy which, as its main partner, had Tod’s and as donors, among others, Fondazione Sandretto, Palazzo Bentivoglio, Collezione Mauro De Iorio, Nicoletta Fiorucci, Silvia Fiorucci. «Having people queuing to see innocent pipes playing seems like a joke to me. It is an intervention by thugs who act against contemporary art” concluded Sgarbi, now on the list for Fratelli di Italia in the European elections of June 2024. In fact, Sgarbi had never liked the nomination of Bartolini and Cerizza, whose project had branded, already in unsuspecting times, as “Hardly comprehensible”.
And it thundered so much that, in the end, the complaint was presented by Codacons, no stranger to aggressive interventions in the world of contemporary art, as when, in 2020, it addressed the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Minister of the then Heritage cultural, Dario Franceschinifearing a case of blasphemy for the image of Chiara Ferragni taken from Francesco Vezzoli like the Madonna of Sassoferrato. However, this is the first time that the Consumer Coordination has taken a position against a Pavilion of the Biennale which, in this specific case, was chosen for the first time following a public tender.
The other candidates were Lorenzo Balbi, Ilaria Bonacossa, Lucrezia Cippitelli with Davide Quadrio, Jacopo Crivelli Visconti with Marcella Beccaria, Giovanni Carmine, Alfredo Cramerotti, Arturo Galansino, Ilaria Gianni, Luigia Lonardelli, Luca Lo Pinto, Matteo Lucchetti, Paola Nicolin. The commission that identified the shortlist, from which the trio to submit to the Minister’s judgment was chosen Gennaro Sangiulianowas composed of the General Secretary Avocante and Commissioner of the Italian Pavilion, with interim at the DGCC, Mario Turetta, with the functions of President; by the manager of Service II – Contemporary Art, Fabio De Chirico; by the Vice President of the Technical-Scientific Committee for Contemporary Art and Architecture, Francesca Canfora; from Angelo Lorenzo Crespi, President of the MA*GA Museum – “Silvio Zanella” Modern and Contemporary Art Gallery Foundation; and from Cherubino GambardellaArchitect and designer, Full Professor of Architectural Design, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”.
But according to Codacons, «Since its selection for the Biennale, doubts have been raised regarding the artistic value of the work and more than one criticism has also been leveled regarding the amount of funding granted to the project: they were disbursed, for the creation of the Italian Pavilion, 800 thousand euros from the Ministry of Culture and a further 400 thousand euros from Tod’s as a partner and Banca Ifis as a sponsor”.
«The financing granted by the Mic to the project Two Here/To Hear finds its source in the tender announced by the Ministry itself with Decree 98 of 04.27.2023 which, in art. 2, establishes the objectives, referring to the mission of describing the contemporaneity of our country in the field of visual arts”, writes Codacons in the complaint. «It cannot fail to be noted that Bartolini’s installation has characteristics that raise doubts about the correctness of the assessment made by the administration regarding the attribution of the financing. First of all, the work, characterized by the intertwining of innocent tubes, appears very similar, if not analogous, to the one exhibited by Bartolini himself as part of the exhibition at the Pecci in Prato in 2022. Not only that: the costs for the creation of the The work could have been very low, considering that the Nordic Pavilion is exhibiting The Altersea Opera, which also includes a huge structure with bamboo canes at almost zero cost.” But Codacons goes beyond purely aesthetic discussions and expressly cites weaknesses in the allocation of public funds, the procedure for which may have been «removed from those principles of transparency and neutrality which must characterize, in these cases, administrative action. Should it emerge, therefore, that the administration’s choice was made in a totally discretionary manner and on a fiduciary basis, it could only be considered as causing damage to the treasury”.
