Miguel López-Remiro, new director of the Picasso Museum Málaga

2023-12-29 16:29:24

The Picasso Málaga Museum ends the year with two good news. On the one hand, the V Collective Agreement of museum workers, after a year and three months of meetings and mobilizations. In addition, it already has a new director. With three days left until the end of the year, it has been made public that Miguel López-Remiro Forked He will replace José Lebrero at the head of the museum in the next five years. According to a statement, “he has been chosen due to his suitability to assume this key role in the institution and based on the bases of the international competition called.”

With an outstanding career in the artistic, cultural and educational fields, Miguel López-Remiro (Pamplona, ​​1977), has a degree in Economics, and a Doctor in Philosophy and Letters, Aesthetics and Theory of Art from the University of Navarra, he is also an Executive MBA from IESE and graduated from the Getty Leadership Institute at Claremont University in Los Angeles. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, San Diego and is editor of the first anthology of Mark Rothko’s texts with Yale University Press and Flammarion. Doctor Professor at the European University of Madrid in the School of Architecture, Engineering and Design and its new Creative Campus, he has been deputy curatorial director of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbaor, founding director of the University of Navarra Museum, and curator at institutions such as the Sorigué Foundation or the Otazu Foundation. López-Remiro officially assumes his responsibilities as artistic director of the Picasso Museum Málaga as of January 1, 2024.

As ABC published a week ago, the change in the artistic direction of the Picasso Museum Málaga it had become complicated. In March, the international competition was launched to find José Lebrero’s replacement. The nomination period closed on July 27. A management committee, made up of Salomón Castiel, Álvaro Díaz, Paloma Alarcó and José María Rodríguez-Ponga, was responsible for supervising the pre-selection of the candidates to verify that there were no formal errors.

From then on, a selection committee, formed by Laurent Le Bon, president of the Pompidou Center in Paris; Samuel Keller, director of the Beyeler Foundation in Basel; Karole Vail, director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice; Lola Jiménez-Blanco, former general director of Fine Arts, and Eugenio Carmona, professor of Art History, selected their candidates, whom he interviewed: each one chose their own shortlist. According to the rules of the contest, “no later than October 17, the Selection Committee will choose the three best candidates, reasoning its decision, and will submit them through the Management Commission to the Executive Council and the Executive Council will convene a session of the Board of Trustees, which will be held on November 17.

It was rumored that they had shown up a dozen candidatess, more than to direct the Reina Sofía (only 9). And, as ABC has learned, the shortlist chosen by the committee was made up of un spanish and two foreigners (A Man and a Woman). Sources consulted by this newspaper assured that a name had already been designated, but that finally I had not accepted the position. Information that has not been confirmed by the museum. The highest valued candidacy was that of the Mexican Magali Arriola, director of the Tamayo Museum of Contemporary Art in Mexico City, who also entered the competition to direct the Reina Sofía Museum. Of course, the salary It shouldn’t have been the problem. The new director will earn 80,000 euros gross per year, an allowance of up to 35,000 euros per year for housing, and up to 5,000 euros per year for private trips.