PAOLO GIULIERINI
Director, MANN Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli
Il MANN e la sua comunità
In this lecture, Director of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (MANN) Paolo Giulerini introduces one of the world's great collections of ancient art, and describes the museum’s work to redefine its role as a center of cultural encounter and debate within a broad community of visitors from Naples and around the world.
A museum of international reputation, MANN’s history and identity are intimately connected with the history of the city of Naples. Founded in the eighteenth century by the Bourbon kings of Naples, the museum brings together masterpieces from the Farnese collection of antiquities and treasures discovered during Bourbon-sponsored excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Today, MANN boasts a unique collection of sculptures, mosaics, frescoes, coins and gems, as well as ancient tools and objects of everyday life.
When Giulierini took up his appointment as Director of MANN in 2015, his task was to transform a venerable institution with a long history into a cutting-edge museum, to broaden its international reach, and to build its audience and financial resources. In response, the museum’s strategy centers on the idea of community: to connect the museum’s cultural heritage with a community of visitors, citizens, and local and international partners, and conversely, to connect the internal community of MANN—its staff and scholars—with the museum’s many audiences.
To broaden the reach of the museum’s reputation and increase knowledge of its collections, MANN organizes traveling exhibitions both in Italy and abroad, drawing especially on objects usually kept in storage. With revenue generated from these exhibitions, MANN has been able to reopen galleries in the museum that have long remained closed, including the newly reinstalled Egyptian and Magna Grecia sections. The museum has also built or renovated spaces including the conservation studio, auditorium, restaurant and cafeteria, and courtyard gardens.
MANN is not only a museum, but also a center for artistic and cultural programming. The museum has developed a program of festivals for literature, music, photography, and film, and organizes lectures on cultural heritage and exchange between cultures. In these programs, increasing emphasis is given to the cultures of Africa, Asia, and the Americas, in order to position the Greco-Roman world as one of many ancient cultures of the past.
To strengthen the relationship of the museum with its local audiences, MANN has developed programs especially for schools, neighborhood children, prisoners, and communities of non-Italian Neapolitans. These programs are dedicated to opening MANN to groups who do not usually visit museums. To connect the ancient imaginary with the present one, MANN has also organized programs around characters from Star Wars and The Avengers, as well as Neapolitan soccer players, reinterpreted in light of ancient heroes, gods, and goddesses. In these projects, MANN uses multiple modes of communication including digital and virtual technologies, well-known cultural figures like writers and athletes, exhibitions on comics and street art, and even a video game.
MANN is dedicated to creating a global community. Works from the collection travel around the world as “ambassadors” to places including China, Japan, and Russia. These initiatives are opportunities for cultural exchange between the city of Naples and the broader world.
Learn more about MANN at www.museoarcheologiconapoli.it/en
This lecture is a part of the series Il golfo di Napoli e oltre: arte e cultura dall'antichità ai giorni nostri / The bay of Naples and beyond: art and culture from antiquity to the present, a summer lecture series presented digitally by the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History and the Centro per la Storia dell'Arte e dell'Architettura delle Città Portuali / La Capraia.
