In May, the New York Times reported on the growing trend of commercial galleries contributing six-figure sums to help fund US museum shows in the face of dwindling public arts funding. A similar dynamic has found its way to Florence, where museums are joining forces with international blue-chip galleries to present contemporary art shows in a bid to boost attendance and increase interest in older treasures.
Paintings by the US artist John Currin are interspersed throughout the Museo Stefano Bardini, the eclectic collection of a 19th-century antiquarian, until 2 October. The artist’s first solo show in an Italian institution was co-organised by Mus.e, the in-house events producer for the Florence city council, and Currin’s dealer, Gagosian Gallery. The curators selected the works, none of which is for sale, but the gallery provided logistical and financial support, says the director of Gagosian’s Rome branch, Pepi Marchetti Franchi. Such collaborations can “shine a light on Italy’s lesser-known treasures” while “offering artists a unique opportunity to rethink their own work” in relation to art history, she says.
Dealers are “generous and necessary partners” in a city with prestigious venues but no budget for contemporary art exhibitions, says Sergio Risaliti, Mus.e’s artistic director. He has developed a funding model for the programme that is “almost 99%” private, backed by galleries, collectors, local businesses and foundations. Dealers tend to cover logistical costs “beyond the remit” of curators, Risaliti says, including insuring and transporting works and producing a catalogue.
Galleries are contributing in kind as well as cash. David Zwirner arranged the loan of two sculptures by Jeff Koons from private collections to the Palazzo Vecchio last autumn. (The installation, which divided residents and critics, was primarily funded by another dealer, the Florence-based Old Master specialist Fabrizio Moretti.) Meanwhile, Galleria Continua and the White Cube gallery helped to finance Antony Gormley’s ambitious show of more than 100 life-sized figures at the old Medici fortress, Forte di Belvedere, last summer.
Some have questioned whether gallery support might compromise curators’ independence. Risaliti says the solution works “as long as it remains a ‘virtuous’ relationship, in which curatorial research takes precedence over commercial concerns”. Organising such exhibitions, many of them with free entry, “would be impossible” without private sponsorship, he says.