Everything gets trimmed, even fingernails, to clean the garlic.
(Translation of an ancient Ligurian proverb)

Life is made of relationships. Or at least, that’s what I believe. I’ve asked myself this question both as a researcher and as a man for over forty years. Life is relationship—it is perhaps the most evident among all things it can be, in every aspect, every dimension, every magnification of its components and every behavior of the actors within this phenomenon. From the way molecules form to how we start wars (a field in which our species has long excelled), everything is relationship.

The issue is defining what a relationship truly is—and why this topic came to mind for my monthly dispatch, as though the annual theme weren’t enough: What does it mean to have an intelligent museum?

Speaking of that theme: what does the concept of relationship have to do with that of intelligence, especially within the museum system?

Let me explain by recalling an event from about ten years ago. I was visiting a painting gallery in northern Italy during a contemporary art exhibition—the kind that exhausts your interpretive goodwill, despite industrial quantities of effort. I, possibly in a state of post-exhibition depression or lost in a haze of curatorial narcissism, made the unfortunate decision to approach a gallery assistant to ask her opinion of the works on display. I was unable to fully articulate my intent before she interrupted me with a stern demeanor—borderline impolite and certainly lacking courtesy—and declared, as if she were a ceremonial guard outside a state palace, that she was not allowed to speak. I left. That is, I interrupted my attempt to initiate a relationship.

Whether or not communication between staff and visitors is permitted in the workplace—except in rare cases of security—it is a practice I find deeply questionable. The unpleasant episode still echoes in my memory, and serves to fuel a reflection on the connections between life, museums, relationships, and intelligence.

That response, offered by the assistant, could be interpreted as a formal and institutionalized rejection of the museum’s willingness to create a relationship with its visitors (I hesitate to use the word “frequenters,” given the circumstances). Even if the assistant’s sole function was to guard the artwork, that did not exempt her from delivering her silence with civility. Perhaps a ticket desk notice would have avoided the entire encounter.

To deny every form of relationship or communication between visitor and institution is to deny the very etymology of the word “intelligence.” To interrupt that subtle impulse to seek clarity through another’s perspective—someone who presumably holds sharper insight in the context—is to abort any chance of relational contact with the public.

Consider the implications: must I rely on electronic mechanisms or expensive printed matter to arrive at even a simple understanding, however ridiculous or personal or ignorant? Must I remain trapped in that limbo between appearance and understanding? I’ve never read a catalog with such empathic critique, nor heard an audio guide that truly listens.

The assistant had no way to know the purpose of my interaction—her duty kept us both silent, forbidden from speaking in that deserted gallery. The suspicion of my intellectual inadequacy has lingered ever since, and now stands among the few certainties I can claim.

Allowing such behaviors without attempting to understand them is not intelligent—it is, in fact, a slow death for the museum itself. Severing relationships, ignoring them, refusing to organize and be guided by them during an institution’s growth is tantamount to dissolving its very existence.

That romantic notion offered by some authors who claim to “only speak through their art” springs to mind. Then what shall we do with those who cannot see, hear, or comprehend well—the multitude of fools (myself included), which the world is not lacking? Believing that the artwork alone can teach is, at best, an overconfident assumption. It would be like dismissing the value of education systems altogether. Or museums themselves.

That simple impulse to connect, that longing for relationship, could only have found its answer in another human being, aware of the topic. It was an attempt to understand if I—given my struggle to comprehend what was being exhibited—was the only idiot, or if someone could save me from my self-doubt with a reply such as: “Don’t worry, you’re not the only one. Others have struggled too, but I’ll direct you to a colleague who might help.”

On the INFOGESTIONE website, recently redesigned and brightened (in color, no less!), I am pleased to indicate that the research section includes protocols exploring artificial intelligence (and human natural common sense) to improve the relationship between institutions and their audiences—from websites onward.

Paraphrasing the words of a Roman pontiff dear to me, it’s time for the “museum on the move.” The ability to offer a channel for human contact—where visitors can begin a relationship—is part of what defines a responsive institution. As Archimedes’ lever is to intelligence, so too is relationship-building to cultural evolution.

This is one of the fundamental transformations of the museum’s purpose—often obscured by Vasarian fog and institutional narcissism: to be an entity capable of detecting the cultural needs of individuals and responding not merely with didactic services, but with anything that can support the adjustment and existential awareness of every single person.

Once, one started a job and retired decades later. The system was relatively simple. Now variables multiply exponentially in every aspect of existence. Who you are at 25 may be entirely transformed ten years later. Schooling, university, and the rare case of professional retraining aside, perhaps museums remain the only allies to lives called to change, evolve, and seek existential meaning again and again.

This is the unsustainable gravity of maintaining an adiabatic and self-serving cultural system. This is the blindness of failing to properly define one of the few strategic resources available to humanity: culture—not as a credential or salon flourish, but as the capacity to adopt survival strategies which, when shared, become cultural identity.

In closing, one final thought. As the months pass, choosing “museum intelligence” as a theme appears less eccentric. The etymology of the word itself reveals a kinship with life itself. Forms and contents are nothing but the expression of a singular essence—life—manifesting and transmitting through its epiphanies. Or better yet, generating them.

Pascal and Dirac would perhaps approve.