May 14, 2024, by Roberto Pomi
Viterbo a city “not of art” and culture: fifty years without structural investments for a contemporary art scene
Home page – VITERBO – Not a single euro is spent to cultivate talent and expressive ability in young people. But there is a lot of complaining about social degradation. Laments that do not produce the shred of a thought out and grounded reaction.
TOFont Size+-
Press
VITERBO – This art is unknown, in the capital of Tuscia it has been fifty years since a single penny has been invested in a structural way to support the birth of a scene of contemporary artists nor in the diffusion, promotion and education of the population in this world that has made the fortune of the city and has contributed to the urban redevelopment of many centers and suburbs in many Western cities.
To date, the capital does not have an organized and functioning space to host artists’ exhibitions. There is not a cent of the municipal budget invested in supporting artistic activity. Not a single euro is spent to cultivate talent and expressive ability in young people. But there is a lot of complaining about social degradation. Laments that do not produce the shred of a thought out and grounded reaction. Viterbo, a city “not of art” and of culture, could be summarized.
There is spontaneity, abandoned to itself, and left without support and means. There are some who are willing but can’t get anywhere. There are artists from Viterbo who flee to other places to look for space. Sin, or rather mortal sin.
The topic is so far from the mentality and vision of things of the politicians who took turns, without ever changing anything, in the seats of Palazzo dei Priori, that even today there is no trace of alternative reasoning. Surely this lack of vision and sensitivity is also at the origin of a certain poverty that characterizes the historic center and the city in general.
But the city of popes has done much more over time. It was the year 1996 when the Almadians were affected by the action of artists of international caliber. Sol Lewitt created one of his works inside the former church. An installation by Daniel Buren, another big name on the contemporary art scene, had been created on the bell tower. Everything was removed, plastered over, swept away by the blind and ignorant fury of the dwarves who administered Palazzo dei Priori. An action that is uncommentable almost thirty years later but a sign of a mentality that has remained stable and has continued to cultivate the city’s cultural desert with the salt of nothingness.
Thinking about the city’s candidacy for European Capital of Culture in the face of a general situation like this makes you smile a little at the unawareness and shamelessness demonstrated. Unless the current administration wants to reverse its attitude and invest, but we will see this only during the budget approval phase, in making Viterbo a city of art. We would basically need a space where exhibitions can be held, but which is a serious space. We would need someone to take care of planning the initiatives. Money would be needed to support the operation of laboratories to introduce young people to art. Yet much money has been spent on youth policies over the decades. We don’t understand, forgive us but we struggle to understand what they were spent on given that there is nothing left: neither for the city nor for individuals. The hope is that the capital can strike a blow in the name of discontinuity and address the issue, at least before Tessennano arrives to do so (with due respect).
