Art and hot dogs

Italy's ministry of culture is to be endowed with a new super manager for museums whose main task will be to access new sources of money by commercially loaning out works of art. Dispensing with the usual bid invitation, Italian minister for culture Sandro Bondi nominated 62-year-old Mario Resca, who for 12 years has sat on the McDonald's Italy board of management, for the job. La Repubblica criticises his choice: "Make money, make profit, get out of the red - this is the maxim the ministry is pursuing with Mario Resca's appointment as super manager. He's an experienced technician who knows how to make money, just like McDonald's does. Hot dogs and Caravaggio - this is an easy irony, but one that is dangerous, too. We forget that our cultural heritage should not be exploited but protected, preserved and handed down to future generations. Museums are not companies ... There would have been a similar wave of protest if they had appointed an art historian as manager of McDonald's."

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