Michelangelo Bastiani, Italian artist from Florence. Photography © M. Bastiani

1.In your opinion what is the role of a museum?

A museum should be a social gathering point, a cultural reference for the community. The interconnections between people and social networks are failing, they are only an approximation of reality.

As positive examples I could cite the entrance on free offer of the Metropolitan Museum, the young people of the academy who draw and study the great masters of art history, the students sitting on the floor following the lesson in the midst of masterpieces of rare beauty, I don’t remember anything like it in Italy.

2.What are your favorite museums in the world? Why?

Surely the Uffizi Galleries in Italy and the Louvre Museum in France, but I would like to dispel the myth that Italy has a third of the world’s artistic heritage is not so.

The museum that impressed me most architecturally is the Getty Museum in Los Angeles because it is innovative in everything.

3.How important are social networks in your business? And which platform do you prefer and why.

In my business, social media are currently important but not fundamental, as for all of us, but we tend to create false needs. Instagram is what I use most but it is only a megaphone: the works are mainly seen and purchased, and I hope for a long time, in international galleries and art fairs.

4.In particular, due to the coronavirus emergency, how have you changed your business on social networks?

Social networks during the coronavirus have become the reference point for the dissemination of the works and I could not ignore them, in fact I tried to produce a greater amount of documentation on my work, although I can do more.

During the quarantine, the coronavirus forced me to readjust my works and become not only the author but also the actor of my holograms, not having the possibility to use other subjects.

5.To create greater engagement among museums, artists and professionals, do you have any advice for cultural projects such as #MuseumWeek?

The #MuseumWeek is an example to follow which shows that quality culture can also be made on the web. I would recommend encouraging virtual and real visits to artists’ studios, people love watching others work.

I consider it important to analyze the process of creating the work, above all to understand contemporary art and today’s technological means allow it.

Interview by Fabio Pariante, journalist

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Michelangelo Bastiani on social networks: Instagram − Facebook − Vimeo

Michelangelo Bastiani (Bibbiena, 1979) is an Italian artist from Florence and begins his artistic career inspired by his father, painter and professor with a degree in Architecture.

After studying Painting and Photography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence and at the Art Students League of the Newington-Cropsey Foundation in New York, the artist for some years worked as curator of exhibitions related mostly to American Realism in Europe.

His works tell nature like clouds, water and fire in a play of lights and mirrors in the form of holograms, in which the human being sometimes completes the work. Bastiani lives and works between Florence and Capri.