Latest news with #SimoneVerde
Boston Globe
a day ago
- Boston Globe
A photo gone wrong in the Uffizi fuels selfie worries in Europe's museums
Advertisement 'The problem of visitors who come to museums to make memes or take selfies for social media is rampant,' Simone Verde, the Uffizi's director, said in a statement. Europe's museums are struggling to cope with the problematic side of their large-scale appeal and protect their collections from summer visitors who flock to their galleries to make social media content and cool down in rare continental air conditioning, whether or not they gain a deeper knowledge of art and culture. The recent episodes, at the start of the high tourist season, have called attention to a long-standing problem: too many tourists toting too many phones. Museums have not been able to find a foolproof compromise, despite their best efforts. 'This problem, with tourists damaging artwork, is something that is increasingly happening,' said Marina Novelli, director of the Sustainable Travel and Tourism Advanced Research Center at Nottingham University in England. Advertisement Previously, Novelli said, tourists might have had paintings that they wanted to see in person. Now, she said, they come with a 'selfie bucket list' of paintings or places they want to photograph — or be photographed in front of — essentially creating personalized postcards from the trip. 'It's more about sharing, not necessarily the experience, but the fact that 'I was there,'' she said. It is not just museums that are straining under the weight of their own appeal. European cities are also trying to find a balance between welcoming visitors and protecting residents in the age of mass tourism. Museums face competing goals. Part of their mission is to allow the public to see art that for generations was hidden away from view in the homes of aristocrats and other elites. They want visitors and often need ticket revenue to survive. But museums also have a duty to protect their art and preserve it for the future. Cellphones are a major part of the challenge as tourists crowd, climb and stunt for the camera. The devices can distract parents from their curious children, who have also damaged art in recent months, and turn museums into protest theaters. Climate demonstrators have targeted pieces with paint, glue or soup to raise awareness about the dangers of unchecked carbon emissions, and then used their phones to document the protests on social media. 'Museums walk a very fine line between accessibility and preservation,' Novelli said. She suggested that institutions should approach the problem with a range of measures, like 'subtle but effective' physical barriers, selfie zones, warning alarms and better signage. Advertisement In Verona, museum officials released a video from closed-circuit television cameras showing the sparkling chair as it collapsed under the tourist's weight, hoping to identify those behind the destruction and encourage better behavior. They also said they planned to protect the chair with plexiglass. Verde of the Uffizi pledged to 'set very precise limits' and move toward 'preventing' such behavior. The gallery did not share footage of the episode with The New York Times and declined to specify what limits, if any, it might impose on tourists in the future. For now, the episode has marred what was supposed to have been a festive month for the Uffizi, which just celebrated the dismantling of an unsightly crane that had loomed over it for nearly two decades. But the painting is expected to survive. The museum said the work had been 'lightly damaged' and would need to be restored. The Uffizi said the artwork would soon take its place again in an exhibition about the 18th century, which has been temporarily closed since earlier this month. This article originally appeared in
News.com.au
3 days ago
- News.com.au
Tourist posing for pictures rips through priceless masterpiece painting
A clumsy tourist fell through a priceless 300-year-old painting while posing for a picture. Security footage from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, shows the unidentified visitor posing for a photo in front of a 1712 artwork by Anton Domenico Gabbiani. As he tries to mimic the pose in the painting, the tourist suddenly loses balance and falls back against the canvas — tearing a hole near the bottom where the subject's foot is. The painting, which is normally kept at Palazzo Pitti, a separate art gallery, was only temporarily in the Uffizi for an exhibition when disaster struck on Saturday, Corriere Fiorentino reported. The bumbling tourist tripped over a step installed specifically to keep visitors at a safe distance. The tourist was quickly apprehended and formally reported to police, management at the Uffizi told Italian media. He faced charges of damaging cultural heritage, according to the Wanted in Rome outlet. The painting — of Ferdinando de' Medici, the grand prince of Tuscany — has been removed for repairs, a museum spokesperson said. A new crackdown on badly behaved tourists at the world-famous art gallery is being imposed in the wake of the stunt. 'We will set very precise limits, preventing behaviour that is not compatible with the sense of our institutions and respect for cultural heritage,' Uffizi director Simone Verde said in a statement following the incident. 'The problem of visitors who come to museums to make memes or take selfies for social media is rampant,' he added. Saturday's incident is the latest in a recent string of examples of tourists damaging priceless artworks in Italy, causing many in the country to accuse visitors of disrespecting their heritage. Earlier this month, an idiot tourist was filmed damaging a precious work of art after he sat on it to take a picture. The tourist had sat on the delicate chair, adorned with thousands of Swarovski crystals, causing it to crumble beneath his weight. Both the man and his female companion fled, leaving the 'van Gogh' chair art piece by artist Nicola Bolla warped and mangled. 'They ignored every rule of respect for art and cultural heritage,' management at Verona's Palazzo Maffei said on social media, noting that the visitors waited for security to leave the room before the ill-fated photo op. The pair were branded 'superficial' and 'disrespectful' by the museum.
New York Times
4 days ago
- New York Times
A Photo Gone Wrong in the Uffizi Worries Europe's Museums
It's another summer of European selfie snafus. On Saturday, a visitor to the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, Italy, stepped backward into a painting while trying to pose like its subject, Ferdinando de' Medici, a 17th-century grand prince and patron of the arts. For the Uffizi's director, that was the last straw, and he isn't alone in his frustration. This spring, in the Palazzo Maffei in Verona, Italy, a visitor broke a chair covered in Swarovski crystals. This, too, was the result of a snapshot gone wrong: A man apparently waited for the guards to leave before posing, in an ill-fated attempt at squatting. And this month, the staff at the Louvre Museum in Paris went on an unauthorized strike to protest, in part, overcrowding and the headaches caused by selfie-taking tourists. 'The problem of visitors who come to museums to make memes or take selfies for social media is rampant,' Simone Verde, the Uffizi's director, said in a statement. Europe's museums are struggling to cope with the problematic side of their large-scale appeal and protect their collections from summer visitors who flock to their galleries to make social media content and cool down in rare continental air-conditioning, whether or not they gain a deeper knowledge of art and culture. The recent episodes, at the start of the high tourist season, have called attention to a longstanding problem: too many tourists toting too many phones. Museums have not been able to find a foolproof compromise, despite their best efforts. 'This problem, with tourists damaging artwork, is something that is increasingly happening,' said Marina Novelli, the director of the Sustainable Travel and Tourism Advanced Research Center at Nottingham University in England. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
300-year-old painting in the Uffizi damaged after visitor trips while trying to ‘make a meme'
A 300-year-old painting in Florence's Uffizi Gallery has allegedly been damaged after a visitor tripped while posing for a photo with the artwork. The Uffizi said the painting, a portrait of Tuscan prince Ferdinando de' Medici painted by Anton Domenico Gabbiani in 1712, was damaged after a visitor fell backwards while attempting to 'make a meme' in front of it. Security camera footage circulated by Italian media over the weekend showed a visitor leaning back and falling into the painting, with a closeup revealing a tear in the canvas. The Uffizi told the BBC that the individual had been identified by the police and reported to judicial authorities. Sign up for our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning The painting has been removed for repair, and the exhibition it was part of – featuring about 150 18th century masterpieces by artists including Goya, Tiepolo and Canaletto – has been closed until 2 July, after which it is expected to reopen with the painting back on display. The museum's director, Simone Verde, said in a statement: 'The problem of visitors coming to museums to make memes or take selfies for social media is rampant.' He said the Uffizi was considering imposing restrictions on visitor behaviour: 'We will set very precise limits, preventing behaviour that is not compatible with the sense of our institutions and respect for cultural heritage.' In a similar incident earlier this month, tourists damaged an artwork at the Palazzo Maffei in Verona while attempting to pose for a photo with it. The artwork – a crystal-encrusted chair by artist Nicola Bolla – 'shattered before their eyes', the museum said in a statement. 'It would be ridiculous – if it hadn't actually happened. A museum's worst nightmare,' the museum's director, Vanessa Carlon, said at the time. 'Sometimes we lose our brains to take a picture, and we don't think about the consequences.'
The Independent
6 days ago
- The Independent
Florence gallery slams selfie-taking tourists after historic painting damaged
The director of an art gallery in Florence has criticised a tourist for ripping the canvas of a historic painting while taking a selfie and has vowed to crack down on visitors posing next to artwork. Simone Verde, the director of the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, said the tourist will be prosecuted after damaging a portrait of Ferdinando de' Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany. The over 300-year-old artwork, on display in the ground-floor rooms hosting the Florence and Europe: Arts of the 18th Century exhibition, now has a hole torn in the bottom of the canvas where the prince's right boot is painted. The visitor to the gallery was trying to assume the same pose as the subject while posing for a photograph, but stepped backwards and appeared to have lost his balance. The incident occurred when he was visiting on Saturday 21 June, with a video from the day showing the man posing before appearing to lean his hand on the painting while his toes went into the air. The painting has been removed for repair, with experts stating that the damage was relatively minor; however, the visitor was identified by the museum and reported to the police for causing culpable damage. Mr Verde said that the damage to the painting is part of a wider issue of visitors' dedication to taking photos for their social media, The Times reports. He added: 'The problem of visitors coming to museums to make memes or take selfies for social media is rampant: we will set very precise limits, preventing behaviour that is not compatible with the sense of our institutions and respect for cultural heritage. 'The tourist, who was immediately identified, will be prosecuted.' A trade union representing museum workers said that the tourist had in fact tripped on a low platform intended to keep visitors at a distance from the painting. It said it had previously highlighted to the museum that the platforms posed a risk after another visitor had tripped, but did not cause any damage. 'Visitors are looking at the paintings, not at the ground. Those platforms are unsuitable and too dark,' said Silvia Barlacchi, a staff representative. The incident comes a week after a tourist in Verona shattered a chair covered in Swarovski crystals after sitting on the art piece. CCTV footage showed a man and a woman inside the Palazzo Maffei art museum in Verona, posing for pictures by the piece by Nicola Bolla, with the woman pretending to sit on the chair. The man then sits on it before the artwork collapses, and the pair leave the room. 'An irresponsible gesture caused serious damage to Nicola Bolla's 'Van Gogh' chair, a very delicate work,' the museum said, later adding that the chair was able to be repaired.
