A partnership for 10 exhibitions in five years in Shanghai with works from the collections of the Uffizi Galleries in Florence.
An agreement was presented today in China between the Uffizi Galleries and the Bund One Art Museum in Shanghai to organize the 10 exhibitions, from 2002 to 2027, and to organize cultural exchanges and study opportunities.
Contracts have already been signed for the construction of the first three exhibitions, which will bring some of the most celebrated masterpieces in art history to the Shanghai museum for the first time, including the works of Sandro Botticelli.
"This initiative has the strategic value of intensifying knowledge and appreciation for the Italian cultural heritage in a hub like Shanghai - comments the Minister of Culture Dario Franceschini - which, looking onto the great Chinese stage, offers Italian culture a global resonance". The first exhibition, which will open in the spring of 2022, will be "Botticelli and the Renaissance" with about 50 works. The second exhibition, between September 2022 and January 2023, will propose one of the most evocative collections of self-portraits in the world: "Self-portraits, masterpieces from the Uffizi", with the protagonists of cultural life from the 1500s to the 21st century. From March to July 2023 it will be the turn of "Masterpieces of the eighteenth century from the Uffizi", classic works and expressions of the variety of eighteenth-century schools.Compared to the first three exhibitions, the contribution that the Bund One Art museum pays to the Uffizi Galleries for the program is over 2 million euros, plus a variable amount depending on the ticket receipts.
According to Eike Schmidt, director of the Uffizi Galleries, "the continuous presence of the Uffizi in Shanghai over the next five years is strategic for the direct knowledge of our collections and of Italy itself in China. This is a mutually beneficial cooperation of global significance" . "The agreement that will bring the Uffizi to Shanghai is a historic milestone of Italian cultural diplomacy - underlines the mayor of Florence Dario Nardella -. A goal that I have tried to promote since 2015, my first year as mayor, is being achieved. Italia launches the most ambitious international cultural promotion plan towards Asia, it is also a 'friendly' response to the French project of the Louvre in Abu Dhabi.For Florence it is a great opportunity for tourism and cultural promotion "in China," the economic and political repercussions for the next few years in favor of Italy and the city are inestimable ".