Cultural cooperation

The cultural relations between Italy and Great Britain have thrived in the past few years.  

In London concerts, festivals and exhibitions concerning Italian artists frequently take place and attract an increasingly inquisitive public, interested in discovering new aspects of Italy’s unmatched historical and cultural heritage.

Worthy of mention are the exhibition “Earth and Fire, Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova”, held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2002,  the Italian contemporary design exhibition “Milan in a Van” and  the fashion exhibition “Versace at the V&A” also held in 2002.

More recently the exhibition “Caravaggio: The final Years” was held at the prestigious National Gallery in London where two previous exhibitions, dedicated to Tiziano and Raffaello, respectively held in 2003 and 2004, had been extremely successful.

Such a concentration of events did not go unnoticed in the British press, which talks of “London with an Italian heart”.

The strategy of the Italian Cultural Institute is aimed at strengthening the dialogue between the two cultures, also outside the tradition and the “passion” that already exist. In particular, in the past few years attention has been focusing on “contemporary Italy”, by staging exhibitions of artists belonging to Arte Povera, Informale and, in the visual art, Trasavanguardia.

Notable were the retrospective exhibition on Gino de Dominicis in 2003, the exhibition on Jannis Kounellis (Oxford 2005) and the numerous exhibitions organised by at the  “Estorick Collection” (the latest one devoted to aeropainting), a niche gallery  whose aim is to promote Italian modern art in this country,  receiving positive reviews in the national press.

Very successful have been the debates between Italian and British contemporary writers at the Italian Cultural Institute. The “Italia Fantastica” series continues with the “Dialoghi” series, spanning from literature to science, from anthropology to philosophy. Authors like Dacia Maraini, Alessandro Baricco, Niccolo Ammaniti, Marta Morazzoni, Enrico Palandri e Roberto Calasso have met distinguished British writers such as Ian Mc Ewan, P.D. James, Alan Sillitoe, Michael Roberts.These encounters have provided the opportunity for a most interesting and fruitful exchange of ideas, which has attracted large audiences, so much so that it is becoming increasingly difficult to accommodate them in the Institute’s conference hall.

The Italian Film Festival, Italian fashion and design - the latter word could be described as “an English word with an Italian accent” – continue to capture the attention and interest of the British public. Institutions such as the British Fashion Council and the Fashion Awareness Direct actively cooperate with our Institute to organize events dedicated to young Italian fashion designers.

As for Italian cinema, in addition to events devoted to directors like Visconti, Germi, Antonioni and Pasolini, we have tried to acquaint the British public with the young and emerging talents of the Italian Cinema: Crialese, Castellitto, Iodice, De Plano and many others. Thanks to the support of the Italian authorities, movies by contemporary Italian filmmakers are finally being shown in British cinemas.

In the field of music, in addition to the Institute’s support and cooperation to the various festivals, such as the London Jazz Festival, it is worth mentioning the interest of the British public for Italian conductors, such as Riccardo Muti, or younger talents such as Ludovico Einaudi and Noseda, Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester.

As for the promotion of the Italian language, the traditional October event “The Italian Language Week”  provides an opportunity to all teachers of Italian in England and Wales to meet. The past edition (2004) was very successful. The public particularly enjoyed the “seminars/workshops” and the meetings with authors and publishers of books devoted to the teaching of the Italian language.  The one-week class entitled “Italian in film” provided the participants with the opportunity to meet Italian directors Simona Izzo and Ricky Tognazzi.

The Institute also play an important role in the field of “incentives to British publishers”, grants scholarships, organizes exams and teachers courses and language classes. 

On the occasion of the State Visit to the United Kingdom of the President of the Italian Republic (15-17 March, 2005), at the invitation of Her Majesty The Queen, all the major museums in London staged Italian cultural events.

The exhibition on the “Spinario”, opened at The British Museum, in the presence of the President of the Italian Republic, accompanied by the Duke of York, is devoted to the famous statue of the classical roman period kept in the Capitoline Museums, which had left Rome only when Napoleon had stolen it to take it to Paris. The Italian Minister for Culture, Giuliano Urbani and the Director of the Capitoline Museums, Mrs. Sommella,  illustrated the importance of this unique initiative which was made possible thanks to the generous contribution of Banca Intesa.

The Tate Modern, with the support of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has put on an exhibition dedicated to Fontana, Burri and Manzoni, which has been very successful and will last until 2006.

During the State visit the National Gallery was still displaying the exhibition devoted to Caravaggio’s final years, organized with the support of Italian Museums. In Oxford too, the presence of the Head of State was honoured by the Ashmolean Museum which, at the suggestion of the Italian Embassy in London, organized an exhibition of the main Tuscan Renaissance drawings kept in the Museum which boasts an extraordinary collection of Italian works of art.

 Links

Italian Cultural Institute - London
Italian Cultural Institute - Edinburgh
Italian language lecturers
Guidelines for Filming in Italy

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