Daniel Soutif (born in 1946) arrived in Tuscany from Paris, where he had directed the Département du développement culturel at the Centre Pompidou from 1993 to 2001. He was commissioned to curate the historical survey Continuity: Art in Tuscany 1968–1989 at the Museo di Palazzo Fabroni in Pistoia in 2002, a project that paved the way for his subsequent appointment as Artistic Director of the Centro per l’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci in Prato in 2003.
Still remembered is the resonance of his inaugural exhibition in Prato, dedicated to Wim Delvoye and the Cloaca Turbo, followed by major retrospectives of Domenico Gnoli and Francesco Lo Savio, and important solo shows by Bertrand Lavier, Massimo Vitali, and Robert Morris.
It was Soutif’s idea to also give space to individual artist projects by Massimo Bartolini, Letizia Cariello, Kinkaleri, Flavio Favelli, Luca Vitone, among others. Among his lasting contributions are the internal reorganization of the Pecci Centre—structured for the first time into dedicated departments (exhibitions, collection, library, education, events)—and the initiation of a virtuous process that would lead to the expansion of the museum’s premises at the end of his brief but incisive tenure in 2006.
He was also responsible for the agreement establishing the first donation to the Pecci Centre from Carlo Palli’s private collection, which stimulated the growth of the museum’s holdings, as well as for fostering a fundamental interest in the Tuscan neo-avant-garde movements such as Visual Poetry, Radical Architecture, the musical experiments of Chiari and Bussotti, and the collective experiences of Schema and Zona—elements that today define the Pecci Centre’s collection and archives.