by
Sandro Pintus
High technology, cultural events and European vision
at the Carrara Academy of Fine Arts
An interview with the principal, Prof. Carlo Bordoni.
Professor, while the Italian Academies of Fine Arts are waiting
for university level recognition, what initiatives has your Academy taken
in the past few years? The Decoration Course was opened in 1991 in
Decoration and the first students got their diplomas last year. Then of
course the Painting Course was first started in the sixties followed by
that on Stage Design in 1977. With the Tuscan Region, we have also organized
post diploma courses in Marble Design and Computer Graphics. We made immediate
use of the European "Erasmus" project which encourages student exchange
and we take part in it as a partner on a European level with other Universities
like Athens, Birmingham and Ghent.
Prof. Carlo Bordoni, principal of
the Carrara Academy (photo by Maurizio Berlincioni) |
How many students do you have at the Carrara Academy? We have
about 450 students and 150 of them come from abroad. These include six
students from Spain who have come to Carrara on the "Erasmus" exchange
project, now known as "Socrates". Moreover 15 of our students will be
making use of this project to go and study at the Academies of Seville,
Granada, Athens, Antwerp, Wimbledon, Maastricht and Dunkirk. This year
we have made a request for exchanges for 50 students and 20 teachers.
What has the Carrara Academy done in recent years from the cultural
point of view? We managed to persuade the Town Council and the Cassa
di Risparmio Bank of Carrara to help organize the Biennial of Sculpture
again. The Biennial was held inside the Academy with the partecipation
of about thirty artists and was a great success, bringing about 20.000
visitors to Carrara.
"The Earth" (1996) by Paolo Borghi,
one of the sculptures shown at the Biennial of Carrara (photo from
the exhibition catalogue) |
We also organized and hosted another important exhibition, "The Marbles
of the Zars", which was seen by 16.000 visitors from all over the world.
The show took a long time to prepare, 4 years in all, bringing 24 sculptures
to Carrara which were placed alongside plaster casts also carried out
by their authors, all ex students of the Academy. The sculptures included
those that Antonio Cybei, the first principal of the Carrara Academy,
carried out for the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. The last exhibition,
which closed in January 1997, was on Domenico Zaccagna, the geologist,
who left the Academy about 300 photos and various papers dating from between
the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This summer we are organizing
a student and teacher exhibition in collaboration with the "Friends of
the Academy" Association. Does your Academy have any high technology
laboratories? What are your plans for the future? Equipment is available
for studentswanting to carry out research in Internet. Another studio
has been set up with 10 computers for graphic work and we also have a
special room with a video projector for video conferences. As for the
near future, we are working on a project of collaboration with Korea to
organize a sculpture course. It will be a four year course, three years
in Seul under our teachers with the fourth year here at Carrara. See also:
The history of the Carrara Academy of Fine
Arts 
FAN-Florence ART News Email: csplanet@comune.firenze.it
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