Lucrezia De Domizio Durini on Joseph Beuys, Italian Museums, and the Financialization of Art

In a wide-ranging interview on Radio Radicale, collector and patron Lucrezia De Domizio Durini discusses Joseph Beuys's political affinities with Marco Pannella, his ecological philosophy, and the neglect of his legacy by Italian institutions. She criticizes the MAXXI museum for excluding Beuys from its exhibition 'La strada dove si crea il mondo,' calling it a distortion of art history. Durini recounts Beuys's hunger strike in 1980 for Jimmy Boyle, his founding of the German Green Party, and his 1971 Organization for Direct Democracy. She reveals that between 2008 and 2011, five Italian museums rejected donations of major Beuys works. She describes Beuys's 1984 warning about nature's intelligence and potential violence if humanity fails to cooperate, and his 1982 'Piantagione Paradise' in Bolognano, which anticipated his '7000 Eichen' project at Documenta 7. Durini contrasts Beuys's vision with Michelangelo Pistoletto's 'Terzo Paradiso,' which she deems a functionalist dilution. She laments the financialization of the art world, stating 'KAPITAL = KUNST,' and accuses contemporary museums of promoting compliant artists while erasing memory. The interview, conducted by Giorgio Kadmo Pagano, was broadcast in four parts.