A art museum director in Naples, Italy, has destroyed a painting in a protest over lack of funding and vowed to incinerate one artwork every day until his demands are met
Antonio Manfredi of the Casoria Contemporary Art Museum (Cam) in the mafia-infested hinterland of Naples said the privately sponsored institution risked closure unless it received cash from the regional, national or European authorities.
“There’s no money for upkeep. We were flooded recently. And there are tons of garbage mounting up outside,” Mr Manfredi said.
Yesterday evening, he began what he termed “an art war to prevent the destruction of culture” by setting light to a painting by a French artist, Séverine Bourguignon, worth up to €10,000. “This is a war. This is a revolution,” Mr Manfredi said. “And in a revolution, there are winners and losers.”
Mr Manfredi has vowed to continue destroying works from the permanent collection at the rate of one a day until someone takes notice of the institution's plight. “There are about 1,000 works, so this could go on for years,” he said.
The artworks are being sacrificed with the agreement of their creators, and Ms Bourguignon followed the destruction of her work, Promenade, on a Skype link from Paris.
“I feel as if I am in mourning,” she said. “It is very sad that they burned my painting. We hoped until the very last minute that someone would step in. “And now I have to fix in my mind that I will never see that work again. But I hope it’ll be worthwhile. At least people heard about what is happening in Italy and to culture everywhere. It’s been useful.”
Mr Manfredi was preparing destroy a work by an Italian painter and sculptor, Rosaria Matarese. He said Matarese would herself put a match to one of her works. “I tell you, it’s not nice setting light to works of art. It’s terrible. Each one has its own story,” he said.
The Cam, which houses works by European, African and Chinese artists, is in the area outside Naples that provided the setting for Roberto Saviano’s nonfiction book Gomorrah, a global bestseller that was made into a film.
Mr Manfredi said he had run into financial difficulties after putting on an exhibition aimed at the local mafia, the Camorra. “You can’t do that and then go and ask for money from companies in the area that are in the grip of the Camorra,” he said. “Some pay [the mobsters] protection money. Others are actually controlled by them.”
Mr Manfredi said he wanted not just public money but official support “because in this area, if you don’t have backing from the authorities, you’re in serious danger”.
Himself an artist, the director said that a month ago he had set fire to one of his own works and then sent photocopies of the works in Cam’s collection to the chair of the European parliament’s culture and education commission, the culture minister in Rome and the regional governor in Naples, warning them of what he intended to do. But none had replied.
“My fear is that they’ll let me go ahead and burn the lot,” he said.
Guardian News Service