Logo of the Italian Culture Ministry
Reading yesterday’s Wall Street Journal article on Mario Resca, Italy’s entrepreneurial cultural advisor (and former McDonald’s executive), inspired me to surf over to the Italian Culture Ministry’s website, and lo and behold, Big Mac has just been traveling all over the U.S., sitting down to Happy Meals with American museum directors and curators to discuss exchanges of objects, collaboration on exhibitions and (who knows?) maybe even a few tasty rent-a-shows.
According to the ministry’s press release (in Italian), Resca (along with ministry advisors Alain Elkann and Angelo Crespi) was dispatched here by Culture Minister Sandro Bondi and has met with the following: Katherine Getchell, deputy director, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, David Alan Brown, curator of Italian Renaissance painting, National Gallery; Malcolm Warner, acting director, Kimbell Art Museum; Heather Macdonald, associate curator of European art, Dallas Museum; an official (unidentified in the press release) of the Timkin Museum, San Diego; and David Walker, executive director, Nevada Museum, Reno.
The Italian trio also paid “unofficial visits” to the Metropolitan Museum, the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, and the Nasher Sculpture Center and Rachofsky House, both in Dallas.
Did I mention that the three also dropped in on Michael Brand, director of the Getty Museum? “Several plans involving exhibitions and loans are in the works, and will be realized in the coming months,” according to Italy’s press release. The Getty discussed possible loans of photographs and manuscripts to Italy.
We can only hope that Brand is getting close to announcing which ancient objects will come to the Getty on long-term loan, under the terms of the Los Angeles museum’s agreement to relinquish 40 antiquities to Italy. Remember, Michael, you once vowed to me that when you were ready to announce the Italian loans, “you’ll be the first person I’ll tell.” (Could that have been tongue-in-cheek?)
Resca also met in New York with Michael Conforti, president of the Association of Art Museum Directors and director of the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, and Maxwell Anderson, director of the Indianapolis Museum, to discuss far-reaching Italy-United States collaborations on exhibitions and other cultural activities.
CORRECTION: James Ganz, curator at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, informed me that the Leonardo drawings exhibition that has just closed at his museum is NOT traveling to Reno, as the Italian press release had seemed to indicate. I have deleted that part of this post.