Biennale Arte, Buttafuoco challenges Brussels: “Let’s not pander to the drumbeats of politics”

Buttfire he did not hide his bitterness for the European choice, defining the suspension of the contribution as the exit of a “fellow traveler” from a shared path, but wanted to reiterate that the Biennale will not change its mission for political reasons. “We are called here to carry out research at an international level in the field of the arts, to obey their wishes. Otherwise we would fail to respect the principles of autonomy and freedom of expression and research, of imagination, of imagination which have been typical of this institution for 131 years”.

The president of the Biennale spoke during the press conference to present the 83rd International Film Festival, scheduled at the Lido of Venice from 2 to 12 September, transforming the occasion into a moment of public clarification on the institution’s position following the decision taken by the European Commission. Brussels justified the choice by recalling the principle according to which cultural events supported with Union funds must respect European democratic values, open dialogue, diversity and freedom of expression. For Buttafuoco, however, the central point is not economic, but concerns the principle of cultural autonomy. His complaint concerns above all the method followed by the European Commission and the absence, in his opinion, of sufficient legal reasons: “Three letters from the European Commission. Here is the companion who has failed. Three letters had three detailed answers. They repeated the same questions as if there had never been specific answers. But everything is written”.

In reconstructing the confrontation with Brussels, Buttafuoco he chose a literary metaphor, recalling the fable of the wolf and the lamb: “With Phaedrus it could be said ‘lupus in fabula: superior stabat lupus'”. An expression which for Buttafuoco also has a particular meaning: ‘Lupus in fabula’ is in fact the title of the Rai Radio 1 radio program dedicated to literature which he hosted until a few weeks ago. An appointment that, from next autumn, will not return to the station’s morning programming, as that space will be entrusted to a new program. A detail that adds a further symbolic element to the words spoken by the president of the Biennale, who chose to recount the clash with the European Commission through literature.

Buttafuoco’s reference is to the story of the wolf who accuses the lamb of dirtying the water of the stream, despite the evidence demonstrating the impossibility of the accusation. A parable that the president of the Biennale used to represent what he considers a disproportionate relationship between a cultural institution and a political authority. “In a certain sense it is the European Commission, that is, the wolf that sends a first letter. The European Union takes away the 2 million from the Biennale and, I quote a very effective headline, I imagine written by Mattia Feltri in his newspaper ‘HuffPost’: ‘The EU takes away the 2 million from the Biennale and gives 6 billion in six months to Putin’. That’s where the water gets cloudy. And it is certainly not here, but ‘superior stabat lupus'”. A passage that focuses Buttafuoco’s political criticism: according to the president of the Biennale, the economic sanction against the Venetian institution appears inconsistent with other choices made at an international level in relations with Russia.

The metaphor of the wolf and the lamb also returns in the reconstruction of the subsequent protests: “In a second letter the wolf accuses the lamb of having spoken badly of him on a very specific date. The lamb was not born at the time the wolf claims to have been insulted
and in the third letter then the wolf cuts it short and eats it. If it wasn’t you, it means it must have been your father. ‘Lupus in fabula’, you will agree. But it’s all there.”

The president of the Biennale he therefore insists on the distinction between the political and the juridical level: “Because if in point of law, in the absence of reasons against Biennale Arte, the European Commission decides to punish Biennale Cinema…”. The European decision, in fact, concerns funding linked to the Biennale Cinema and not directly the artistic exhibition. An aspect that Buttafuoco interprets as a transfer of the protest from one area to another. “It is very clear that cinema activities will naturally continue. The solidity of the institution allows it and we will continue to do so.” No downsizing, therefore, for the Biennale’s film programming. The Foundation, the president assured, will continue its work thanks to its structure and history. “We will find a judge in Berlin”, added Buttafuoco, recalling the famous motto on the possibility of obtaining justice even in the face of power. A sentence that announces the Biennale’s desire to contest the European decision in the competent bodies and which closes the circle of a battle which, in the words of the president, does not just concern funding, but the very role of cultural institutions. “Why do we consider this creative space of vital necessity? Because its objective is concrete help to young people, therefore concrete help for the future and it is the encouragement of their dreams”.

And in the finale Buttafuoco entrusts the ultimate meaning of his defense of the Biennale to literature: “Always to build that city, I say it in the thick silence that is the city of poets, certainly not that of the European Commission. I say it to deface the silence with Ezra Pound’s verse: it is the city of poets, the city that has terraces the color of the stars.” (by Paolo Martini)