Interview with Maria Fratelli

Interview by Margherita Pincioni

Can you tell us about your path and the choices that brought you where you are today?

I was born in a town in the province of Bergamo, but I lived more in Milan when I arrived at 18. I am an art historian, an area that fascinated me from art school to post-graduate specialization school in archeology and the history of medieval and modern art. I studied art, and working for and with art became my goal. I recognize a great potential in this discipline which has an aesthetic, historical and ethical value. In Milan, over the years, I have taken care of many institutes and I also consider Casa della Memoria a museum, albeit a "special" one, precisely because of the value I attribute to this definition. I worked as a curator at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna and as director of the Casa Museo Boschi Di Stefano and in other Milanese institutes. I studied Management at Politecnico di Milano.

When I was appointed executive in charge of Casa della Memoria, I wondered what my contribution could be for this place so important for the city, far from my competences at the time. Casa della Memoria was established not only to celebrate April 25, a historic day for Milan and our country, but also to promote the value of democracy: I fully recognize myself in this, so being here is a great honor for me.

Casa della Memoria recalls the birth of a country that is finally free and democratic, retracing the many difficult days in which the country had to renew and reaffirm this choice. In fact, there have been moments of high tension in Italy, times in which freedom has been called into question by reactionary forces, times in which the country has been crossed by massacres and terrorism.

Casa della Memoria aims to reaffirm the principles of the Constitution every day through the action of the associations that have signed the agreement with the Comune di Milano - ANED (Associazione Nazionale Ex deportati nei Campi Nazisti), AIVITER (Associazione Italiana Vittime del Terrorismo e dell'eversione contro l'ordinamento dello Stato), ANPI (Associazione Nazionale Partigiani d'Italia), Associazione Piazza Fontana 12 dicembre 1969 e Istituto Nazionale Ferruccio Parri - of the Management Committee which also includes Municipality 9 and Professor Alberto Martinelli, as president designated by the Mayor, of the Special Projects Unit and Fabbrica del Vapore with dedicated staff.

How could I put my skills at the service of these institutes? I certainly couldn't improvise what I wasn't, I had to start from what I did best, from me being an art historian. Art is part of history and has been an instrument of power: in the past works of art were not bought, artists were hired directly and when in the nineteenth century artists became fully self-employed, their works became objects of the market.

However, art always maintains a different degree of freedom from that imposed by the client or by the rules of the art system. It is a vehicle of contents and opinions and today more than ever it is a tool for sharing critical sense.

Thinking about this freedom of art and its ability to transmit and attract interest in themes and issues that are distant from time or still too burning, explained and made evident with the emotionally engaging language of art, was the experimentation conducted in these years at Casa della Memoria. I think of the latest exhibition by Mustafa Sabbagh, a well-known photographer in the world of fashion, who brought us the "Product F" project, an exhibition dedicated to young people, to that children's product that today has so little voice in the world that adults have built for them: a world of inequalities and emergencies. In addition to the photographic series, a video approached two extreme situations of contact between bodies in a rave party and in a boat packed with migrants. The constriction of the massed bodies of fleeing boys, with very different principles and objectives obviously, produced the same effect of absurdity in the spectator.

My contribution is to try to make the story available an unusual tool and a working method, apparently unsettling, but with the ability to bring the public closer to the great themes by moving and involving them. I have a lot of respect for the architects of Studio Baukuh because with their choice they indicated a way: they created an extraordinary work, a building that is a museum in its ability to communicate its role from the outside. They too proved to be artists and not simply architects, because they "compensate" the ignominy with beauty.

The historical research exhibitions organized and curated by the associations and the Municipality are alternated with contemporary art exhibitions with the intent to present history and the present starting from the emotions and thoughts that contemporary artists know how to arouse in visitors, touching key points of their sensitivity or working on empathy. Works of art from the past have also been proposed which in the same way represent their time with a critical historical gaze and interpretative and poetic ability.

Casa della Memoria has a highly symbolic content. What a museum should be today?

We have long debated whether Casa della Memoria should be called a museum or not. I believe it is, because it is a place that tells history through exhibition events and, like all museums, it is therefore a space where objects and words meet. The building with the wall surface made with brick backgrounds of different colors, representing citizens involved in historical moments of the city, is in itself the first work of the collection. The pictograms that distinguish it on the entire wall are highly symbolic and significant for Milan: they do not depict heroes, but ordinary people who make history. Casa della Memoria is a museum because it belongs to places that build communities, that still want to make people aware, talk about choices and fundamental issues for society.

On the third floor of the house, the archive of Istituto Parri will soon be transferred and preserved, a huge historical heritage consisting of the documents of the Resistance and the Liberation. Permanently exhibited in the museum there are also a few refined works of contemporary art, they are ceramics and neon by Fabrizio Dusi exhibited in the large room on the ground floor (dedicated to Gianfranco Maris). On the walls there are phrases by Italo Calvino and Liliana Segre, but also a warning created by the artist starting from the ten commandments, the first of which is fundamental: "Don't Kill". It is written in red neon in the large glass walls and stands out in the dark. Even at night the signal/message of Casa della Memoria warns passers-by, the insomniacs, the nocturnal people, remaining an operational center that never interrupts its message.

What can a museum do? Why this project?

When I proposed to the management committee of Casa della Memoria to use contemporary art, I imagined it would be difficult to be supported with enthusiasm; instead, this possibility has made its way. Giuliano Banfi, president of ANED, historicized this operational possibility, reminding all the representatives of the associations how the choice had been made after World War II with the Auschwitz memorial. In the barrack of the Italians in Poland, Italian intellectuals and artists created a memorial in memory of the victims of deportations that was in fact a large multidisciplinary work of art designed by architects Lodovico and Alberico Belgiojoso and by director Nelo Risi, painted by Pupino Samonà and soundtracked by Luigi Nono who jointly produced one of the first multimedia installations in the world.

The work is now in Florence because it was removed by the Polish government as it is rich in symbols and citations that were no longer aligned with the present history of that country. Designed by Primo Levi, it is for us Italians a precious historical document, born from the experience of those who, like him, had experienced the horror on their own skin. It is a universal work, where painting, music and poetry met in an extraordinary redesign of the architectural space that transformed a place of death into a space of hope and redemption. The Baracca degli Italiani told of the country's entry into the dark space of Nazi-fascism; the Liberation that emerged at the end of this path of pain as a radiant light was represented by the great sun of the future. The visitor could walk inside this spiral of figures, signs, sounds and colors and make a journey that plunged into the darkness of reason and then brought back the light of awareness and knowledge.

It was removed without understanding that in that path a story was represented that could not be forgotten or adapted to the conveniences of the present, because it had been dramatically true.

This reminds us that a museum is not afraid of anything, it shouldn't be intimidated by anything. A museum can and must preserve history in its entirety because it has the critical capacity to rethink it. Museums are capable of taking on the weight of history. It is a weight that becomes awareness and that sometimes stops the recurrence of evil, the museum must know in order to change the world and build new international relations and peace. In short, museums trigger a moment of collective awareness that allows you to choose a new path of civilization and peace.

It is not easy to manage and maintain a balance between the historical perspective and the actuality.

It is very complex, but that is the purpose of museums. They are not places of the past, museums are disapproved or not very frequented places precisely because they are intimidating, because they are seen as containers of past times. Museums are doors to cross, to preserve the past, but to be open to the future with the awareness that we are thus entering the contemporary world, making use of contemporary art. Museums are the places of the present time, too often the citizen is a spectator who believes they do not count for anything, while the visitor is the protagonist of the museum as much as of history. They are places to go to understand, think, contemplate, ask questions and listen, which does not mean listening to follow or to be "educated," but to learn to ask, to take part in the debate. They are places where it is possible to share beauty, talk about fashion as an important piece of the cultural system. Precisely because we are talking to you, I am well aware of how much art is also fashion.

Attending schools as a teacher, I notice the difficulty of bringing art to the young people. What relationship do you have with younger generations?

When I teach, I am often invited to talk about museums, about museology. I like students who provoke with their questions. I am aware of the cultural operator from the assumption that one cannot expose someone to art, music and culture without having educated them from an early age. For example, listening to Mozart already in the womb has been shown to have positive effects on unborn children. I think that all great pleasures therefore arise from knowledge and experience. You learn these excellences: flavors, colors, tastes, you learn the emotion of music and the magic of theater. So the problem with our younger generations is that when we try to bring them closer to art, they are often already teenagers and we have to perform a "miracle", teach everything they should have learned as children.

This is why we cannot always think of chasing young people with our knowledge. We are faced with intelligences that must be exposed to beauty and knowledge, and this also happens in museums where they have to find teachings. We try to work on awe, wonder and curiosity. When amazement arises, when a feeling is triggered, it will no longer be lost. Once the reader has found the book that captures them, they will never stop reading; they will take another book, they might change the author, but they will continue to search for new stories and new thoughts to relive that pleasure. So we should invite all those who have to do with childhood to realize that they should not only worry about material goods to offer to young people, but provide them with tools and languages, such as music and art for example.

Do you think this obsession that we have today with novelty also affects museums, that is, always keeping up with new things on different levels?

I always say that now we have to wake up and decide which algorithm we have to escape. The story of the lion and the gazelle that at dawn must run stronger than the other are now expressed by the algorithms in front of which we must run harder in order not to be captured. Unfortunately there is an obsession with the product. The new self is associated with the idea of ​​possessing a new object. We never think enough about another heritage that culture offers us, about the ability to think.

This is a revolution that must be made by all competent supply chains, from fashion to art. We have to rethink culture as production, which is another thing from the product, production is always renewed and is a virtuous circle; it's a process. Therefore, if museums understood that they are the engines of a process, they would have less “performance anxiety”. As museums are increasingly retreating, museum halls give way to exhibitions and museums become smaller and smaller and useless, because they have to give way to the exhibition event, to the product to be sold. In my opinion, this is where we should reverse the trend, go back to being a vehicle of knowledge, places that contribute to training not for the public, but for people.

We are all talking about sustainability now, but that too is a word that shouldn't be overused. Knowledge and awareness are the only sustainable assets. We cannot lower our eyes, the economy moves the world, but it is the citizens who must dictate its principles, those who can trigger virtuous principles even in the world of production. The ethical principle must come before any need for profit.

And what do you think about art on social networks? I'll give you an example, on Instagram there is a profile that I find interesting, which is that of Fondazione Sandretto. It’s quite particular, very ironic, with memes. In short, it focuses a lot on irony. What do you think? Can it be a good vehicle?

I know Fondazione Sandretto, even if I don't follow various Instagram accounts consistently due to the limited time off work. I can tell you that they are working very well. They have a school of curators which seems to me a very virtuous way of doing their job as trainers. Knowing how to curate art exhibitions and do it with aesthetic and ethical intentions is important. Artists know how to say what others often don't want to hear, they do it with sharpness and irony.

I have not yet talked about irony, but it is something that I consider fundamental because irony is directly proportional to intelligence. Knowing how to make fun of yourself, never taking yourself too seriously is the best way to move things forward. Those who are not ironic are rigid and therefore do not belong to the process in a critical way, they do not have the ability to renew themselves, to change, to go back, to question themselves.

Social networks are considered the new tool for museums, but this is a paradox because in reality social networks are born in the hands of creatives, therefore in the hands of new artists. I would not like Casa delle Memoria to have to settle for an algorithm; I would like it to intercept the future without chasing a past that has already run ahead.

What do you wish for the future in Milan?

I wish two things for Milan. Precisely because Milan is the Italian city that is most capable of being a city in the world: capable of intertwining relationships, of changing and of wanting to become a city of the future, I wish it to maintain awareness of its uniqueness. Because when we globalize, we flatten. I believe that the identity of Milan is made up of its ancient history and its architecture that has been a school in the twentieth century. Milan was able to give life to everything that was emblematic of modernity, Futurism was born here (and also Fascism, unfortunately).

In preserving its own peculiarities, Milan must pay attention to the novelties of the world, but above all to enhance and export the excellence that it is still capable of creating today.

It cannot become just a showcase, it must maintain its role as an artistic center capable of seeing in two directions: to the past to be preserved and to the future to be designed by improving the present.