Should I Stay or Should I Go? Italy’s Foreign-Born Museum Directors Get Caught Up in a Political Whiplash

In 2017, Eike Schmidt, the German-born director of the
Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, was tapped to become the new
head of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, a post he was due
to take up this coming November 1.

Schmidt made his decision to move to Austria after Italy’s
nativist government followed through on efforts to purge its
cultural institutions of foreign leaders. At the time, Schmidt
was one of seven foreign-born museum directors appointed after
a series of series of
reforms were passed in 2015 that opened leadership
positions to non-Italians for the first time.

But now, after the sudden collapse of the political block that
tried to chase Schmidt and his colleagues out of Italy, a new
coalition has emerged and reaffirmed its support of
the international directors running its leading art museums—and
Schmidt has reversed course, deciding to stay at the Uffizi, which
had always been his goal.

“My dream is to remain at the Uffizi,” he told La Stampa last
fall. “Florence is my home.”

The Austrian government, which had appointed Schmidt as the
director of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, is not pleased.
Alexander Schallenberg, the Austrian foreign minister, told
the Standard that
Schmidt’s decision not to come to Vienna was “highly unprofessional
and unprecedented.” The museum’s current director, Sabine Haag, has
been asked to stay on in an interim capacity during the search for
a new successor.

The Dispute in the Background

In recent months, under the leadership of the right-wing
nationalist League, Italian culture minister Alberto Bonisoli made
clear that he preferred native Italians
in top museum posts, prompting Schmidt and other foreign
directors to line up jobs abroad following the end of their
contracts in October 2019.

Cause for concern mounted in August, when Italy passed new
legislation rolling back reforms
and increasing government authority over museums. Among the changes
was the decision to make the Galleria Dell’Accademia in Florence a
subsidiary of the Uffizi, which led to the abrupt firing of
Accademia director Cecile Hollberg, a German national.

Then, just as suddenly, the coalition
government collapsed, opening space for Dario
Franceschini, the center-left politician who spearheaded the
reforms that led to the hiring of foreign-born museum heads, to be
reinstated as the country’s culture minister.

In the wake of these changes, James Bradburne, a Canadian, has
accepted an extension on his contract as director of the
Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan.

“I had decided over the summer to refuse an extension even if it
were to be offered by the former government, but when Franceschini
returned as Minister of Culture, I could not very well say no,
could I?” he told artnet News in an email.

But for some foreign directors, the change came too late.

Peter Assmann, director of the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua, had
already lined up a new post as head of the Austrian National
Museum. This weekend, Assmann will open his last show in Mantua, an
exhibition of works by Raphael pupil Giulio Romano, featuring more than 70 works
from the Louvre in Paris.

“It’s the highlight of my four years in Italy,” he told artnet
News.

“I made my decision based on the facts at the time,” Assmann
said. “I try to be very professional in every step I take, so I had
not the faintest idea of even thinking about staying here in
Mantua.”

He went on to criticize Schmidt’s reversal. “Eike made some kind
of poker game out of the situation,” Assmann said. “If you make the
decision, you follow the decision. In our job, we have to deal in
years, and not just in months.”

Of all the foreign directors tapped to lead Italian
institutions, only three have confirmed plans to remain in their
posts: Schmidt, Bradburne, and German scholar Gabriel Zuchtriegel,
who is staying on at the Paestum Archaeology Park. Austrian
museum head Peter Aufreiter is poised to leave the Galleria
Nazionale delle Marche in Urbino to lead the Technical Museum
in Vienna.

As of yet, it is unclear how the change in government will
effect leadership positions at the Accademia.

“We know nothing officially,” Assmann said, noting that, “among
the directors, we all expect Cecile will be returning to her office
and that the Uffizi will remain as a autonomous museum—although
autonomy in Italy doesn’t mean very much. We’re very dependent on
the bureaucracy. The power of the state goes into every corner of
your work.”

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Museum Directors Get Caught Up in a Political Whiplash appeared
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