Maria Vittoria Baravelli, born in Ravenna, 30 years old, is art and photography curator. He shares on his Instagram profile @mariavittoriabaravelli exhibitions and installations. AND member of the Board of Directors of the Ravenna Art Museum and artistic director of Velabro Palace, the design hotel in Rome. It has just opened Stefano Rosselli. Ukraine, war reportage (until 7 January 2024 at the Shoah Memorial, in Milan). The photography exhibition will open on November 14th Mario De Biasi extraordinary editionat the Diocesan Museum of Milan, curated by Baravellli with Silvia De Biasi.
Maria Vittoria Baravelli (photo by Piero Gemelli).
6.30 am
“I wake up early. I love making my own American coffee. I turn on the computer and read the newspapers, but when I can I prefer to go to the newsstandespecially on Sundays, so next to The readingto I can take the special of New York Times. I love my job, putting the photographs in place, scattering them on the table or floor and looking for the red thread that binds them. Telling the stories and reliving those moments because I suffer from a comfortable nostalgia for times I never experienced. I always think about all the lives that aren’t mine, that I find in archives and books. In the meantime, the coffee is already cold.”
Baravelli chooses the photos for the exhibitions in preparation.
9 am
«I start answering the phone and I make a lot of calls to archives, to museums, to address the organizational issues preceding the exhibitions. I also often speak to Annamaria Maggi, director of the Fumagalli Gallery, with whom we are friends before being collaborators.”
1.30pm
«For lunch I eat something quick that doesn’t hurt, a salad or a ready-made soup. I am “a wandering curator and a horrifying cook”. I have not yet made my own the legacy of my grandmothers, from Romagna, with the cult of cooking and eating together, calmly.”
Why not go back to the cinema? First film seen: “The Dreamers” by Bertolucci (photo Alamy /Ipa).
2.30pm
«I plan the editorial plan of my Instagram account @mariavittoriabaravelli and that of my clients, I think about the photos and stories to post. I use my profile to spread the art and displays I like. Then I read the books to delve deeper into the themes that are close to my heart. Finally I return to address practical questions. When I work on an exhibition I like to take everything into account: from which frame to use, to the color of the walls, to the font type for the texts. Every choice is well calibrated because an exhibition is a world. Curating one, for me, as Italo Calvino said when speaking about poetry, means “putting the sea in a glass”. Being able to tell the ineffable.”
6pm
«I’m finally leaving the house. For business appointments with artists or photographers, which often translate into aperitifs or dinners. I love walking around the city. It’s a way to not always have my eyes glued to the screen and it’s also a transitory spell in which I can call my family, who are far away but always feel close to me. I would like to go to the cinema again. The first film I saw in the theater was The Dreamers by Bertolucci».
Podcasts, YouTube and the music of Michael Nyman fill the art curator’s evenings
10.30pm
«I go home, I call my father to say goodnight. I suffer from insomnia and listen to a current affairs podcast with headphones, like those of Chiara Tagliaferri. My favorite sport is going on YouTube to follow conferences by intellectuals who know how to talk about the world. I’m reading Chiara Valerio, Telmo Pievani, Leonardo Caffo and rereading Susan Sontag. But the discovery of the year is Byung-Chul Han, published by Nottetempo. I love music, one of them being Michael Nyman. Today, however, the one who steals my heart is Madame.”
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