Eastern focus

Tadashi Kawamata's Tree Hut - a flimsy desert island beach shack jerry-rigged from driftwood - perches precariously on the imposing stone facade of the Palazzo Strozzi, high above the heads of visitors entering the 524-year-old landmark in the historic heart of Florence.

The Japanese artist's creation - part of a series of wooden structures he's built as art installations around the world - heralds the arrival of a new exhibition aptly titled "Unstable Territory".

Shortly before the show was due to open earlier this month, a gathering political storm looked set to topple yet another government in Rome, some 90 minutes by high-speed train to the southeast. Italy has had 14 governments since 1992.

Former prime minister and convicted tax fraudster Silvio Berlusconi ordered ministers loyal to his People of Freedom party to withdraw from the ruling coalition, threatening the stability that's needed to steer the country out of its longest recession since the war.

"Politics is very tightly bound to most Italian cultural institutions," says James Bradburne, the British-Canadian director-general of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi. "A very Italian weakness is the link between the political cycles of decision-making and the exhibition cycles and the cultural cycles."

A history of political instability and the sovereign debt crisis in the 17-nation Eurozone are just some of the challenges of running a cultural venue in a country which, by one estimate, is home to half the world's great art treasures.