|
During the last three centuries, it has
gradually been asserted in the cultural politics of modern
society a need to give life to exhibit venues for the
artistic heritage of previous aristocratic generations and a
need for the beautification of places of
worship.
Immediately, in these first "museums", a
multiplicity of goals, meanings and values were intertwined,
relating to the protection of works of art or historical
traditions undermined by political-ideological disruption
(suffice it to think of the expropriations put in place by the
Revolution of '89). The ideological intent of "democratically"
sharing the knowledge of "beauty" up until then only
for the eyes of the world of aristocracy of blood and money,
as well as to devotion and faith; or for educational
purposes to teach the common citizen the aesthetic enjoyment and
the awareness of belonging to a community which was built
over time according to a specific civic dimension.
Modalities
that go beyond tradition, of humanistic value - the
Renaissance, the "chambers of wonders" which, between
the 500s and 600s, was a testimony of the will of the "new"
man acknowledging himself in creation, to reconfirm his own
presence after centuries of the individual's subjection to the
higher providential will.
Museums were intended in the first
place for showing the excellence of artistic productions of
humanity, gradually expanding to the collection of examples
of the results of scientific and technological progress, a
witness to the particular work attitudes of a community, or
of a collectors' ambitions relating to the most varied objects,
those perhaps for everyday uses, representations of an era or a
society.
To follow along the path of time, the museum world
has been enriched with venues meant for recreating the
memory of an era, memorable events, historical paths.
|
|
|
And this happened at a time when we realized
that this memory was clouding and we hoped to keep it the scope
of museums.
This is almost a contradiction in terms: the
impossible dream to stop the flow of the past, our sentiments,
our hopes in the exhibition of objects belonging to the
situations evoked. This is what happened for example for the
Risorgimento, the Resistance, the Sixties, and is
now happening with photography, for example, an art now
intended for all and no longer entrusted to the wise use of
the instrument combined with the sensitivity of the artist.
The
expansion of the concept of museum, to the point of rendering
meaningless the use of the term referring to too many "tasks" not
always univocal and identified to a reality now tied to the
past, with vanished worlds that we strive to bring to life, or
with the repetitiveness of references to the evocative power of
certain works of art. Always those which people are "compelled"
to admire.
Meanwhile, the explosive capacity of virtuality
has taken its place. With its suggestions of unexpected
connections between people and objects, between concrete glances
and volatile sensibility. Everything is being carried forward
towards a new life.
But it certainly does not appear in any
way sufficient, to give current meaning to the very idea of the
museum, to revitalize the traditional and various functions,
strengthening them, with the input of more or less massive doses
of "virtuality", capable of modernizing the sense of
enjoyment.
|
Rather,
it is necessary to consider the idea, as happened in past
centuries, of placing the museum within the concrete requirements
of the actual society.
And these are expressed mainly through
the continuous flow of a communication network, where knowledge,
feelings, life projects continuously pass from person to person
in an indistinct complexity of relationships
present at a time
on
a sort of unique platform.
So then perhaps we must
think about intangible forms of museums, why not? Tangible,
where the various cultural treasures inherited from the past and
which none of us (even the "Internet" man!) intend to
deny the foundational component of our own individual and
collective nature, interacting with each other with references
and cross-references made possible by new technologies. Books and
paintings, sculptures and scientific equipment, paper documents
and image projections and all of the cultural wealth that we
possess and that can be presented to people today with a
willingness to break traditional barriers between the various
forms of expression and repositories (libraries, museums) no
longer separable into a dimension of a global culture, becoming a
continuous component of community life and not only a specific
moment of solitary dialogue between the individual and one of the
many forms of artistic, literary, scientific and
human creative expressions.
|