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For more than a year and a half, the Fondazione Quadriennale di Roma has been promoting the Inter-University Network project, which is designed to foster exchanges between the academic world and the contemporary art scene. The project considers professors, researchers and students as its privileged interlocutors, and it already has a diverse record of activities. These include the grants offered for studies on issues related to twenty-first century Italian art and digital art; the gathering of synopses of ongoing PhD research projects; and conferences and seminars on specific aspects of present-day art. One such example was the recent doctoral workshop La fine e altri inizi II: Oltre la catastrofe, held by the University of Bologna and La Sapienza in Rome (14-15 September 2023), which was dedicated to the relationship between art and the climate crisis. The workshop involved the participation of numerous young scholars from Italian and European universities, as well as artist collectives and independent researchers. Within this same framework, a prize will soon be awarded for the best doctoral thesis on twenty-first century Italian art.[1] The Network in fact stems from the conviction that, in the current scenario, it is crucial for an institution like La Quadriennale to foster synergetic and not merely episodic relations between those working in the field of scholarly research and those working in the contemporary art scene. Italian universities, engaged in the diverse but interconnected fields of teaching, research and the “third mission”, are in fact centres of cultural elaboration and development that are essential to understanding current phenomena — and not only, of course, the ones taking place in the realm of art history. The wealth of ideas, experiences, and methodologies developed within the framework of scholarly research and teaching in the various phases of university education are a valuable resource for critically analysing today’s artistic panorama, and hopefully they will increasingly be so. Rather than again reflecting on the lack of attention that academia has paid to the study of twenty-first century art,[2] I believe it more useful to consider some of the challenges that the university, or rather the universities, are called upon to face today. In this regard it is also necessary to consider many differences that mark Italy’s universities, from their enrolment numbers to their geographical location, their socio-economic context of reference, their architectural structures, etc. The university system faces challenges that are new in many respects, which are being addressed with targeted projects and strategic plans. More than ten years after the Gelmini Law (L. 240/2010) came into force, there are still many problems, and in some respects they seem to have worsened. Even before the reform, the Italian university was underfunded; OECD data saw our country at the bottom of the list in terms of the total amount of public funding for universities. The contradictions linked to the increase in the bonus quota under the Fondo di Finanziamento Ordinario (which ties a share of funding to universities’ “merit”) have been highlighted from several quarters,[3] as have the critical issues related to the rise of a self-referential system of citations, the recruitment system, “brain drain”, and the precarious conditions which teaching staff face. According to the estimates reported by Alberto Baccini, in 2010 there were about 58,000 permanent professors and researchers and 13,000 research fellows working in Italy’s universities. In 2020, the overall total is unchanged, but the number of permanent staff has fallen to 46,000, whereas now there are approximately 10,000 fixed-term researchers and 15,500 research fellows: “The share of precarious workers in the university has thus risen from 18% to 35% of staff”.[4]
Despite the many critical issues faced, Italian universities have in recent years taken various steps to strengthen the internationalisation of research and teaching, to promote interdisciplinarity, inclusiveness, and relations with local territories and professional realities. These actions have had positive repercussions for the advancement of studies in the various disciplinary fields, including that of contemporary art history, and hopefully this will be even truer in coming years. If we want to promote an understanding of the present, it is, in fact, essential to build on best practices that act simultaneously on multiple levels. Indeed, if we want to respond adequately to the broadening of the perimeter of contemporary art — with the breaking down of the boundaries between different media and languages; the opening up to non-Western geographic spaces and cultures; and technological developments — then we need to take measures to foster innovation in the fields of research, education and the dissemination of knowledge in civil society. We should not forget that one of universities’ missions is to contribute to the cultural growth not only of students, but also of citizens in general. Italian universities’ attention toward internationalisation processes, for example, is surely a positive factor. Attracting scholars from abroad and increasing the number of visiting professors in fact represent essential strategies for broadening the range of research and teaching methodologies and for diversifying the educational offer. In the medium and long term, this process can have positive effects via the broadening of research perspectives in relation to the study of contemporary art, and through the strengthening of exchanges between the Italian and international art scene. The mobility of students, PhD candidates and lecturers both into and out of Italy, which was slowed by the COVID-19 crisis, can now become a motor for spreading the knowledge of the art scene in Italy beyond this country’s national borders. Moreover, when international scholars with different cultural and professional backgrounds engage with the study of the artistic experimentation produced in Italy, this can foster the development of innovative critical readings, which start from a different perspective. The attention that universities devote to improving the quality of teaching and active exchanges with professional realities and cultural institutions operating in the sector is also a key factor in strengthening the study of contemporary art: internships and external collaborations, pursued from the start of one’s education, are, in fact, valuable opportunities in the journeysthatfuture art historians will undertake. Many colleagues see dialogue with the outside world as a strong point of their teaching activities.[5] It is on this level, in particular, that the Quadriennale can play an important role: The hope is that, also in the future, the Fondazione will be able to continue along the path it has already started, and continue to invest energy and resources in relationships with Italian universities.
[1] On the Network’s activities, see the Quadriennale website: <https://quadriennalediroma.org/tag/universita/> (24 September 2023).
[2] On this aspect, see the articles published in issues 3 and 6 of this journal.
[3] A. Baccini, ll falso miracolo dell’università italiana dopo un quindicennio di riforme, in ‘Critica Marxista’, 1, 2023, available online at: <https://www.roars.it/il-falso-miracolo-delluniversita-italiana-dopo-un-quindicennio-di-riforme/> (18 September 2023).
[4] Ibid.
[5] Please see the contributions by Roberto Pinto (University of Bologna), Giorgio Bacci (University of Florence) and Antonella Sbrilli (La Sapienza University of Rome), published in issue 6 of this journal.
