Former Culture Councilors on Sijena: "The ruling is unenforceable."
Nine former cultural ministers sign a manifesto calling for the paintings to remain at the MNAC.
BarcelonaNine former Culture Councilors have decided to take a further step in advocating for the Sijena paintings to remain at the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC). Àngels Ponsa, Mariángela Villalonga, Laura Borràs, Lluís Puig, Santi Vila, Juan Manuel Tresserras, Ferran Mascarell, Catalina Mieras, and Joan Guitart have signed a manifesto asking that they not be moved. "All of us at this table have had the Sijena headache at some point," Ponsa asserted. "If there are former councilors who haven't signed it, it's for strictly personal reasons; there are no fundamental disagreements," Tresseras affirmed.
On May 29, and after a long and tortuous political and legal process, the final fate of the paintings in the chapter house of the Sijena Monastery was decided. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Aragonese side in the appeals for cassation and procedural violation filed by the MNAC in October 2020. The verdict ratified the 2016 ruling that upheld the claim of the Government of Aragon and ordered the MNAC to return the paintings. A200002. In addition, the President of the Generalitat (Catalan government), Salvador Illa, already stated that he respected the ruling and would not obstruct its implementation, which he left in the hands of the MNAC, whose board of trustees includes the Regional Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Culture, and the Barcelona City Council.
Declare objectors
"This ruling is unenforceable," Vilallonga asserted. For her part, Borràs explained that it is a ruling that "consciously" harms a work of art: "When I was a councilor, I said I would practice artistic objectivity because they can't force us to do something contrary to what our profession demands of us, which is to preserve art." However, the former councilors did not specify what actions they would take, other than to side with the MNAC. "We have no direct responsibility; we cannot be prescribers of radicalism in others. We can only stand by and serve those who have the ultimate responsibility in this regard," Tresserras said.
The former councilors argue that the mural paintings should not return to Aragon. "The Supreme Court's ruling fails to take into account historical, technical, or scientific criteria, and has ignored the Catalan side's arguments for legitimacy. The MNAC has played a decisive role in their rescue and has guaranteed their preservation for decades: they have been preserved with the utmost guarantees and have been made accessible to all citizens. They were comparable. The risks of their transfer make any attempt to move them from their current location extremely dangerous., they detail in the manifesto. "The Aragonese government has implied that there was plunder, and that is false. There is no hint of plunder," Tresseras stated.
The former councilors affirm that the fundamental principle is the preservation of the work over ownership or ownership, which has been subject to fluctuations. Furthermore, they argue that the incorporation into the heritage collection under Catalan custody of pieces from the territory under Aragonese administration long predates the political segregation of part of the bishopric of Lleida, within which the works were originally located. Finally, they maintain that the agreements with the titular religious order were entirely legitimate and aimed at preserving the works. Mascarell, in fact, emphasized the need to combat the narrative of the events being presented from Aragon. "We are facing a political issue, the objective of which is to delegitimize Catalan identity. Can you imagine the same thing happening with a work from the Prado?" he asserted. Borràs echoed this sentiment: "It is a form of institutional Catalanophobia and an artistic attack."
The former councilors have insisted that they support the MNAC and the Catalan administrations in defending the preservation of the paintings in the museum before the courts and international institutions. "We ask the institutions to take up this demand and help us file this collective lawsuit," Ponsa said.
