The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid has appointed Manuel Segade as its new director. The 46-year-old art historian and curator has been running the Museo Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo in the Madrid municipality of Móstoles for 10 years. He was also curator of the Spanish pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017.
Although Segade told Artnet News it was too early to reveal much about specific projects he had in mind, he said the museum had recently “begun to understand contemporary art as a way to produce social transformation”, a mission he intends to pursue. This will require “listening to more voices,” especially those from younger audiences, and “softening the institutionality of the museum. To facilitate the participation of local communities in the program. Segade also plans to increase collaboration with other institutions to promote contemporary Spanish culture.
Segade has big shoes to fill in replacing 15-year-old former museum director Manuel Borja-Villel, whose tenure has seen visitor numbers rise steadily and who staged a famous rehang in 2021. Heresigned abruptly in Januaryafter becoming the target of right-wing Spanish media. Among other things, he has been criticized for his interest in political, conceptual and international art. More than 1,700 people signed an open letter supporting Borja-Villel and condemning “a hasty and manipulated ‘culture war'” that helped deport him.
Borja-Villel’s departure was also prompted by an accusation from the right-wing Spanish publicationABCthat when his contract was extended in 2013 and 2016, the museum violated its own internal policy that there must be competition whenever a leader is reappointed. The museum denied this, noting that both contracts had been approved by Spain’s culture ministry.
Signatories to the open letter in support of Broja-Villel included prominent museum officials such as Frances Morris of the Tate Modern in London and Mami Kataoka of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, as well as art historians such as Hal Foster and Rosalind Krauss. The ex-director’s next decision is to co-organize this year’s São Paulo Biennial.
So what, according to Segade, are the biggest challenges currently facing museum directors in Spain? “As in the rest of the western world, this moment is really complicated by conservative policies. We are in a risky moment for the freedom of the arts and the relationship between art and society,” he said. “There is a need for resistance.
“It is the biggest challenge because it affects the budget, the programs, the contracts of our workers,” he added. “How can we make structural decisions that can help resist these conservative policies?
The Reina Sofia is comfortably the most visited museum in Spain, providing Segade with a significant opportunity to reach a wider audience. What role should cultural institutions play in a society that feels increasingly culturally polarized? “We always think on a macro scale, the big issues. I think we have to think about the mic, the little gestures that can make an institution kinder,” he said.
“It may sound naïve,” Segade continued, “but from something really tiny, you can achieve big effects in the community. Like what kind of collection is needed to represent which minority or gender? I hope to start a discursive project that can affect the infrastructure of the museum itself.
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