Split as a tourist destination has various activities to offer to its visitors. From being conveniently located close to the natural wonders and islands to having its UNESCO protected city centre, Split has plenty of cultural heritage to explore. This doesn’t only cover well known sights like Diocletian’s palace but also various museums and art galleries. This entire heritage is not only here for tourists but for locals too. One of the most visited places in Split is definitely the Gallery of Fine Arts. The Gallery has been in Split for years and was founded in 1931. The permanent collection covers more than 2500 works of art made in period from the fourteenth century to more recent art, and at the same time it hosts various exhibitions and cultural events. The Gallery is also well known for art workshops for adults and kids often visited by locals. The café and museum shop is an essential part of Gallery offer and one of the reasons to visit too.
This article brings you overview of the Gallery of Fine Arts through a short interview with the director, Branko Franceschi. Topics covered are the current situation in the Gallery of Fine Arts, future plans and the Gallery's contribution to cultural offer of Split.
How would you present the role of the Art Gallery in the daily life of locals?
The Gallery of Fine Arts Split is the head museum institution dedicated to the visual arts in Split and Dalmatia and one of the leading cultural institutions in Croatia, and has been successfully doing this for years. At this point, our strategy is to open all the museum resources towards the local public and visitors in Split with a dynamic qualitative and quantitative exhibition program, its internationalization, cooperation with educational institutions, the organization of workshops for the public. This will be presented to the public with the help of modern communication channels, such as websites and social networks and our own radio show in cooperation with Jadranski radio and longer working hours during the season. Despite the fact that these tasks are beyond available human and financial resources, with careful planning and activation of internal resources we manage to realize them. I think dynamical program activities resulted in an increased number of visitors and revenues. In this way we create revenue to self-finance our primary role of creation and distribution of knowledge and improvement of visual culture in our environment. This way we build awareness of Split as an international artistic centre. I will persist in doing this while I’m the Gallery director.
Split as a tourist destination has various events to offer, what about art events – how does the Gallery of Fine Arts contribute to the artistic offer in Split?
If there was more understanding, financial support and cooperation from different institutions, we could do much more in terms of the attractiveness of the exhibition program during the summer months. By attractiveness I mean programs featuring well known artists which would draw the audience into the museum, and thereby would enable the increased dissemination of knowledge about our art. In this respect, the administration of different events during summer should redefine their policies and offer to the audience a blockbuster exhibition. Visual art in our society is still treated as an irrelevant, poor sister to theatre and film. It is not taken into account that during the summer months the exhibition can reach a bigger number of people than those attending plays or musical performances, and that visual art can with much less resources realize the hosting of internationally relevant artists. But despite all the obstacles and inconsistencies of our local "partners", although lacking well-known, currently recognizable names, we are able to conceive and organize high-profile art programs. This has a clearly defined price. I’m hoping and I will work on bringing better understanding and cooperation in the future. Of course, in the summer months, we have extended the opening hours of the museum, despite the increased financial and organizational stress such a decision brings.
The Art Gallery often hosts a variety of internationally recognized authors - what are the reactions of artists when their exhibitions are presented in Split?
Artists are delighted with the city, reception and organizational skills of the museum. This is a fact that we can use better and which on many levels returns to Split as a positive feedback. We must be aware that holding an exhibition in Split, while the Gallery of Fine Arts still has not built an internationally relevant position, is not really that important in the artistic biographies – we are constantly working to change that. The artists want to come in Split and Croatia as they are all now aware of our historical, cultural and natural heritage. It is our task to create awareness of relevance of our contemporary culture.
A good example of Split as an interesting destination to the visiting artists was a past exhibition of Marko Pogacnik - world famous conceptual artist and geomantic, who after the exhibition “The model of human existence on Earth” in 2015 at the Gallery of Fine Arts, visited Split and its surroundings once again as part of its esoteric action and considers our area extremely important for the energy flows relevant to the whole Europe. I believe the energy of our practices of the interaction and synergy with the local community will contribute to the qualitative changes that all we desire.
Do you think that this region deserves more events related to art?
Let us not forget that Dalmatia is the cradle of Croatian culture. This is a support and target level of our activity. My curator colleagues and artists who visited Split are surprised by the level of wealth and visual creativity. Colleagues of which I speak come from the big art centres and populated countries, therefore they know what they're saying. My attitude has always been that the visual arts are one of our few internationally competitive products. If the interaction with the international scene with the mediation and initiative of the Gallery of Fine Arts becomes more dynamic, it will have good feedback in the creativity of our artists, who often feel limited by the local framework. If we open enough space, our creativity will only strengthen.
Does Split has the potential to become the artistic centre of Dalmatia?
Split is already the artistic centre of Dalmatia and Croatia. Our ambition should be make Split as one of the leading art centres in the Mediterranean for which there are absolutely all the preconditions, but the vision and the political will is not yet strong enough.
Do you have information about the thoughts and comments of foreign visitors on the permanent collection and special exhibitions?
Our museum guards are our eyes and ears. This often neglected segment of museum activity provides us with valuable insight into the reactions of our visitors. They are satisfied and surprised with local variations of recognizable artistic periods and styles. They like the museum and the collection. The museum has achieved a lot with the introduction of English at all levels of museum communication. Strong evidence for guests’ interest are positive financial results which we invested in new works to add into the collection.
How do the Gallery of Fine Arts and cafe within the buildings cooperate for the different events?
The museum and the museum cafe, as well as the museum store, are inevitable factors of modern museum practice. It is certain that all or most of the visitors will visit the museum cafe, but unfortunately the reverse event is usually not the case and we work to improve this ratio. We have just created a new contract with the cafe and we are planning to strengthen the mutual benefit. On the other hand, the museum shop is a different story. We gradually increase and enrich the museum store offer. Unfortunately, we are not able to get into higher production projects with local product designers and artists, but we are taking small steps towards this.
For more info about the Gallery and current exhibitions visit their official website and Facebook.
