Conversation with Massimiliano Tonelli

If I had to pinpoint something that marked my life and future in the field where I have worked, and continue to work, for over 20 years, it would be a trip I took with my father in the late ’90s. At the time, I was a student, not of Art or related disciplines, but simply of Communication in Siena, a field that was quite trendy back then. I didn’t really know how to channel this concept within communication yet, but that trip to Belgium was decisive. We traveled by train, visiting beautiful cities like Bruges and Ghent, with the goal of seeing an important exhibition on Antoon Van Dyck in Antwerp, his hometown, where they were celebrating the 400th anniversary of the great painter’s birth. The trip lasted about a week. Visiting one museum per day, I took the opportunity to look at the exhibitions not only from a cultural perspective but also from a communication standpoint. I began to observe the captions, the graphics of the posters, the presentation, and even the very first websites.

Back in Italy, I started writing something about this world and the topics I had the chance to explore more deeply. I wasn’t yet writing for art-specific publications, although I had begun collaborating with some local cultural newspapers in the city of Siena. From that moment, I decided I was interested in deepening that subject from a journalistic point of view. So I started various collaborations around, began writing, moving from one paper to another. Over time, the passion turned into a full-fledged job. For years, it was an activity done for pleasure and passion that gradually became structured and transformed into a profession, which it still is today. I believe it was 1999, a different millennium. Twenty-one years have passed. If you asked me to pinpoint the moment when I found the key to everything I did afterward, it would probably be that moment. A trip, a determined visit to some museums, undertaken and approached exactly at the time when those themes perfectly aligned with what I was studying at university.

Looking back at 1999 from 2020, confined in the seclusion of this period, when paradoxically travel is impossible, one realizes that stimuli must be found in other ways without moving. For me, this has always been fundamental for any idea I’ve had or innovation I’ve tried to implement. The theme of travel and being decontextualized from a stable reality has always been crucial. This week, all of that has to be found in a much more virtualized way, as much as possible.