In the silence of a summer afternoon in the city of the "Old Bridge" designed by Andrea Palladio and first land under Lombard, Frankish dominion of the Ezzelini family and then government of the Serenissima from 1404 until its fall, we meet the director of the prestigious museums civics: Clare Casarin.
When you get to Bassano del Grappa it is not difficult to grasp in it a stratification of history that coexists very well, almost as if to make it immobile and with that charm which, while hiding various conflicts, is now silent forever.
After passing the cloister of civic Museum Chiara Casarin, director of the Museums of the city and with it all the collections with works from Antonio Canova, Jacopo Bassano and sons, Giambattista Tiepolo, Giambattista Piazzetta up to Alessandro Magnasco, Guariento, Longhi and Artemisia Gentileschi. But it is only a part of what this important source of history and culture collects, preserves, protects and exhibits.
I have known Chiara for a long time and due to the informality that unites us, we first share a coffee from the machine and a few moments of memories in the internal garden and then go up to her studio where ancient and contemporary paintings and eighteenth-century furnishings act as custodians of this temple.
Before directing this museum two years ago, Chiara had a long and important experience but always with a very contemporary vision and approach that makes me call her the "youngest" director of civic museums.
Director, can you tell us a little about what are the fundamental elements that characterize your business?
My professional activity is always preceded by research and training. My interest in the museological and museographic fields relating to contemporary art and the publication of essays, articles and catalogs is fundamental to the activity I have been carrying out since I obtained my degree and research doctorate. It is my particular intention to continue investigating the ways in which the art of all times can be enhanced through the most recent languages, deepening the themes that relate the museum management in its many forms of conservation, protection and enhancement of the heritage, alongside it constantly updated on new technologies. My professional goal is not simply to give back to future generations the historical and artistic heritage as we have inherited it but to give it back better, enhanced and enriched with studies, updated and made accessible to the wider public because the museum is not a container but must be understood as a process of growth and constant cultural production.
What guidelines are you pursuing?
First of all, enhance the characteristics of the city museum, the collections, the archives and everything that makes it unique. Therefore, alongside programs that highlight heritages already exhibited in the permanent itineraries, next year we will present an exhibition dedicated to Albrecht Dürer and his engravings present in our Palazzo Sturm museum within the large and sensational Remondini collection. For the number of engravings by Albrecht Dürer that the Museum holds, a good 215, we are second only to the Albertina Museum in Vienna. Alongside the major exhibitions we have continuous programming in all our sites, from Palazzo Bonaguro to the Chiesetta dell'Angelo, but all of them have a very specific line. We host events from art to music, I like to give a significant role to the contemporary which I believe is useful for bringing the new generations closer.
Dream or reality, what is the thing that is closest to your heart today?
When I arrived here in 2016 and exactly on August 1st, a museum employee who had been working here for 40 years was about to retire and offered to show me around all the museum realities within the direction I was about to take. We went to Palazzo Bonaguro where I saw some unclosed wooden boxes, I was curious to know what had been put inside them, and so he told me that back in 1968, the then director of the museums, proposed to the ministerial bodies the 'disassembly' in pieces of a large chalk. But the original work, which can be seen from the documentation and photos was not a test of a trivial sculptor, it was instead a unique work by Antonio Canova. The news immediately seemed extraordinary to me and I decided to study it further in every historical and artistic detail. Having taken all the documentation (throughout Italy and abroad) and having confirmed that the work was by Canova, I found essays in which it was claimed that the plaster work was the preparatory model for a monument, intended for Ferdinando I for the Piazza del Plebiscito in Naples. Continuing my studies and refining the observation of the fragments, the thing did not convince me, the mane of the bronze horse attributed to Canova in the large square of the city was not the same, nor was the tail. This led us to continue the investigation, most likely it's another horse. We are just waiting for the latest specs then we would be able to decide. Now with the new technologies available to us and by drawing the different sizes of the plaster pieces from the scans, we will be able to reconstruct the large model in three-dimensional form and this will then allow us to create the monumental bronze (four and a half meters by five) and perhaps with the help of patrons who wish to participate in the project, place it in the city where his memories are kept.
Image credit: PhExit
