The suffocating desolation that the pandemic had caused had also spread to museums. The laconism of those halls, which had previously been meticulously lit so that every corner could be admired by the hundreds of visitors that used to enliven them, had also frightened the works contained therein. The statues had looked around for someone’s glance to meet once again. The larger canvases no longer had anyone standing still, astonished and almost timid to look at them from below and, by then, the smaller ones had stopped competing with their neighbours to pique the curiosity of those who passed by.
Almost two years later, museums are breathing again. The immaculate smell of vacuums mingles with that of tourists, who conceal hours of walking around the city under their comfortable clothes. Whereas, loyal visitors, who almost out of respect choose the finest, freshly pressed outfit, give a personal flavour to some moments of the visit. Meanwhile, visible from the windows in the hallways, the rain keeps pouring. It further convinces everyone that sheltering in that safe haven was the best choice for the evening and even a spellbinding twist. The statues, rediscovering their interested bystanders, return to pose as if they were facing the artist who had originally sculpted them. Together with canvases, they all go back to eternalizing time. A time that flows outside and, for a moment, stops inside, but which would not continue to exist if visitors were not there to live it.
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The chatter of the noisy crowd has become the soundtrack of museum visits. Sometimes, amidst the total hubbub, the click of a camera or the notification of some visitors’ phone stand out. Only after a few seconds, now resigned to their new value, their new identity, the eyes of subjects represented in the portraits are noticed, while being intermittently covered by someone passing by obliviously.
The atmospheres that artists wanted to vividly show us, what the Latins had described as genii locorum, are now confronted with mountains of smartphones looking for the best perspective of a picture already seen somewhere. It is unthinkable to find any goosebumps on the observers’ arms; the excited looks of those who have brave moments of history right in front, or any other signs that would indicate their reaction to the beauty, the otherness of the work of art. What emerges is rather how ephemeral the experience of museums is.
The quick steps of those who go from one hall to the other mark the time of the dizzying orchestra of different voices, and their low heads would only tilt up to make sure if there is something Instagrammable that deserves to be digitally reproduced.
The rain outside hits the roof hard. It is felt heavy on the window panes in the hallways, and almost seen reflected on the walls inside. Their intense colours, engorged by the grandeur of such a building, seem to bleach, turning another museum into a dismal place that would look just like another shopping mall.