A group of linked people to the art and the culture they have launched a signature collection campaign on the platform change.org, which has more than 1,300 supports in 24 hours, to rthrow out the “unjustifiable” investment of 16 million in the call rodin museum of Santa Cruz of Tenerife.
The opposition in Santa Cruz de Tenerife calls for the suspension of the Rodin Museum
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According to the promoters of the initiative, this operation “hides nothing more than the purchase of a series of reproductions of the French sculptor authorized by the museum that bears his name in Paris” and has been justified based on an economic study “exempt from rigor that offers estimates of the economic return of the museum so exaggerated as to be fanciful”.
Thus, they point out that “a more realistic estimate that is attentive to the sector will have to assume that it will be a non-refundable investment and that the resulting institution will require repeated investments to remain open.”
In addition, they continue, “since there is no relationship between Santa Cruz de Tenerife and the figure of Rodin, said investment will not contribute to the construction of a coherent tourist claim, thus understanding that there are no economic arguments that justify this operation.”
On the cultural level, they point out that a museum requires a “serious” museum plan that determines its patrimonial, research, educational function and, above all, its social function in relation to the context in which it is registered.
“Not only has there been no attempt by the City Council to develop a museum project in this case, but no specialist would justify the relevance of this museum for the city,” they comment.
Along these lines, they insist that the “very high” budget that is intended to be allocated to the purchase of these sculptures is “totally disproportionate” in relation to the annual budgets that the City Council has historically allocated to culture.
Undoubtedly, they detail, “at a time of global economic crisis, this enormous expense will have a negative effect on the cultural fabric of the city, not only going to the detriment of cultural institutions that are much more deeply rooted in it, but also preventing the appearance of new initiatives with more meaning and social significance”.
They also point out that the Rodin Museum in Paris has openly declared its intention to overcome the economic crisis caused by the covid by increasing the number of sculptures it puts up for sale and opening up to “emerging markets” in such a way that “the more reproductions and more ‘ Rodin’ museums circulate around the world, the lower their attractiveness and value will be”.
In this way, they understand that Santa Cruz de Tenerife “deserves something more than the provincial and ignorant gesture of trying to buy its cultural image with a franchise”, also pointing out that “the City Council demonstrates with this gesture its lack of respect for local culture in particular and contemporary artistic production in general, denigrating the image of both” to project the capital “as a city incapable of producing its own culture”.
They also point out that the Rodin Museum in Paris is currently embarking on a lawsuit that could force it to return the 3-d scans of the sculptures it houses in the public domain, “that is, it is possible that, if it loses the lawsuit, some sculptures for those that the Santa Cruz City Council intends to pay 16 million euros can be produced by anyone without having to pay for a license”.
All in all, they indicate that Santa Cruz de Tenerife deserves better cultural infrastructures “but the supposed Rodin museum is not such a thing, but a very expensive political whim that will irreparably damage both the ability to support the cultural fabric of the city and its cultural image in general.” the outside”.
“We believe that an investment like this cannot be imposed by the sole will of a mayor when public opposition is so loud and the arguments in its favor so flimsy. We demand the immediate stoppage of this crazy project”, concludes the proposal.
