And the surprise jumped. This Tuesday afternoon, Manuel Borja-Villel, director of the Reina Sofía Museum for the last 15 years, announced through the Efe agency that he will not stand for re-election. A decision that he made public only two days before his contract expired (on Thursday, the 19th), and after the information published by ABC in the last three days. On Sunday, the newspaper revealed that Borja-Villel was in a compromised employment situation. A November 2012 contract prevented the application of the specific law of the Reina Sofía Museum in his appointment, but did take it into account to change the name of his position. In addition, the 2013 and 2018 contracts maintained the status of his first contract and prevented there being a public tender for his renewal. According to several lawyers and a report from the Court of Auditors, these breaches represented a “fraud of law” that could be used to challenge his merits and his presence in the competition to be re-elected as the new director. Something that the museum denied through two statements on Sunday late in the afternoon.
Just yesterday, nine Spanish creators were prosecuting in these same pages the management of his fifteen years at the helm of the Reina Sofía. Although there were those who valued his work positively, most of the artists reproached him for not paying enough attention to Spanish art or painting, for turning the museum into a personal collection paid for with public money, for being very sectarian (it was He has criticized him on many occasions for the excessive ideologization of his proposals, most of them leaning towards the more radical left), that history has been invented, that he could no longer give more of himself and that a replacement was necessary. ABC tried yesterday, without success, to speak with Borja-Villel. In statements to Efe, he warned that the Reina Sofía has become “a unique museum, with a very marked identity.” And he warned: «Watch out for the institutions; you have to take care of them, it has cost a lot to raise them ». He assured that he had made the decision “quite some time” ago: “Things are said when they touch and I had decided for a long time to say it at this moment.” It is surprising, because last November he commented in an interview with ABC that he was not going to reveal his decision: «I am not going to say it, as I did not say it the other time, when I came to the museum, for transparency, for not applying pressure. .. Go for many things». And he added: «Withdraw?, not at all; you’re welcome, go There is more life than this.” Response to the Galician: it could be valid for both options.
This Friday the artistic deputy director, Mabel Tapiaand the deputy managing director, Julian Gonzalez Cid (both will have a signature and the next three months are done almost in detail), until the contest is called on February 1 and there is a new director, who will be appointed, following the Code of Good Practices, by the Board of Trustees – chaired by the exministers Ángeles González-Sinde, with whom he is in great harmony-, with the advice of a committee of experts and professionals from the world of culture. The same steps that were taken in 2007, when Manuel Borja-Villel was unanimously elected to put an end to the worst crisis in the museum with Ana Martínez de Aguilar in front of it.
Tireless worker (even on vacation he doesn’t know what it’s like to disconnect), a professional of recognized prestige – he was director of the Tàpies Foundation in Barcelona from its inauguration, in June 1990, until July 1998; from that date until January 2008 he was director of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (Macba)-, he arrived ready to turn the museum inside out like a sock. And boy did he do it. He separated a good part of the previous team. He came up with his first statements as the new director of the museum: he wanted to turn the Reina Sofía into a new MoMA. Although he also recognized that he had more morals than the Alcoyano. He was followed by a shadow: did he intend to implant the MACBA model in the Reina Sofía? It would have been a mistake. He knew how to see it and took other paths in the early years. Those of us who have followed the museum’s information since its first day in office have witnessed some ideas that it has repeated like a mantra: museum on the Internet, Latin America, feminism, decolonization, interstices… In short, another look at the history of the museum. Art from the margins, from the South.
Lights and shadows
Manuel Borja-Villel (Burriana, Castellón, 1957) inherited an extension by Jean Nouvel, which cost 93 million euros and which has leaked on all sides; he saw how Richard Serra he had to clone his missing 38-ton sculpture; He had his pluses and minuses with the then director of the Prado, Miguel Zugaza, when he tried to snatch ‘Guernica’ from him… By the way, Borja-Villel did not dare to restore it: touching a 20th century icon is heavy. He launched the creation of the Fundación Museo Reina Sofía in 2012, to which he has attracted prominent Spanish and Ibero-American collectors, who donate and make deposits of works. A year earlier, in 2011, the Council of Ministers approved the museum’s regulatory bill, which provided it with its own legal framework. He has also managed to tie the purchase of the Lafuente Archive for almost 30 million euros, whose headquarters will be in Santander.
His latest adventure, reinstalling the entire permanent collection of the museum, divided into episodes, emulating ‘Star Wars’. A controversial comprehensive rereading of his collection, which included 2,000 works (70% unpublished) in 15,000 square meters. It recovered the 22 rooms of Plant A0 as an exhibition space and gave entry to the museum to 15-M and 8-M, gender identity, emigration, colonialism, ecology, indigenism, real estate speculation… Cinema and photography had already entered its rooms before. But the lack of personnel meant that a good part of all this was left in the dark: they closed up to 59 rooms.
As for the temporary exhibitions, of which Borja-Villel has been a curator on many occasions, he shunned displays of media coverage, with some exceptions, such as the Dalí retrospective that broke all records or the one that this year will be dedicated to ‘ Picasso 1906’. He bet on dense, brainy exhibitions, flooded with ‘showcases and little pieces of paper’. Married to Yolanda Romero, curator of the Banco de España collection, seems to be comfortable in Madrid. In the absence of knowing what his new professional adventure will be, his most imminent project will be the 35th Sao Paulo Biennial, of which he is one of his four curators.