Pepe Serra: "The MNAC is not a toy for conducting experiments or outlandish things"

BarcelonaThe director of the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC), Pepe Serra, can now speak about the museum's long-awaited expansion, months after the Supreme Court ruling that obliges the institution to return the murals from the chapter house of the Sijena Monastery became a full-time job. In this interview with ARA, in addition to the museum's growth, he addresses for the first time the appointment of Manuel Borja-Villel by the Department of Culture, initially to serve as an advisor on the expansion. The museum will close the first floor dedicated to modern and contemporary art for the expansion starting in 2027, while it hopes to keep the ground floor, which houses Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance art, open.

To what extent does the museum bear technical responsibility for the return of the Sijena murals to Aragon?

— The museum bears full responsibility for preserving the artwork and making it accessible to everyone. In a legal context, and with a Supreme Court ruling, the museum must comply and implement the order. Now, in the process of enforcing the ruling, the museum has presented a very solid argument regarding the risks of the intervention—risks that are both high and probable—supported by a report from the most relevant international body, ICCROM, which is entirely independent. For decades, heritage management practices have been based on risk analysis, not on the capacity to carry out the work. The question is not whether it can be done or not, but whether it should be done or not.

Are there any red lines in this case?

— More than a red line, we haven't entered into any political issues, nor will we. I'm a technician, and my political opinion is irrelevant here. The second point is that we're awaiting the judge's decision regarding all that information, while other technical visits are taking place. The museum has prepared tender documents for this operation because it has already clearly stated that it lacks the capacity to undertake it without a very high risk of damaging the artworks. This artifact, as even the technicians from Aragon have stated, must be divided into a vast number of pieces. We're not talking about vibrations, but about sawing operations. It has been determined that the Gernica It cannot be moved due to the risk of damage, and here we have 130 square meters of burnt paint, a canvas, and a casein applied a century ago. We are very calm and firm in this position and will do what is necessary.

Have you ever considered resigning before returning the murals?

— No. First, because we're at a very important moment for the museum, with the expansion entering its final four years, and it's a very exciting time. And in this challenging or complex situation, I believe the director's responsibility is to be there for the team, and that has greatly strengthened the team's cohesion. Now the team is very collaborative, very horizontal, and I'm very comfortable and feel very supported. Resigning would be very strange; I've never even considered it.

What do you think of those who say that the Department of Culture has acted against the interests of the MNAC?

— There's a misunderstanding I don't grasp. There's a technical issue, a narrative one, and a legal one. What people need to understand is that everything the museum felt should be done has been done. Not a single thing the museum requested has been done, and it has all been done exactly as the museum specified. I wrote the texts, and the board of trustees, comprised of three different administrations and highly influential individuals, has explicitly and unanimously defended and supported all these decisions from day one.

So, what would you highlight about the work done by the Department of Culture?

— The councilor has done an enormous amount of political work to maintain this cohesion in a scenario where the museum isn't involved, because that's not our responsibility. I haven't interfered in any way, because I wouldn't have tolerated it. The councilor's alignment with the museum is absolute, and she has given us confidence. For me, the important thing is that we don't conflate all the dimensions of the museum: the political, the symbolic, the heritage, the artistic, the scientific, the educational. What we've done very well is that we haven't mixed them, and sometimes there are attempts to do so. It would be very strange if that were to happen, because that's something I simply cannot allow. I am accountable to my administration.

Albert Velasco, art historian and former curator of the Lleida Museum, has publicly stated that the Secretary General of Culture, Josep Maria Carreté, met in Zaragoza with the Aragonese authorities to reassure them.

— I don't know, and I haven't spoken to him, I'm serious. It's also true that I don't talk much to the secretary general; I talk more to the councilor.

The report from the Spanish Cultural Heritage Institute is missing.

— They are my colleagues. They are the authors of the report. Gernica, of Just two years ago. Regarding the Sijena mural paintings, no one can deny the importance of having as much technical knowledge as possible to ensure well-informed decisions. From this perspective, while fully respecting everyone's expertise, I am the technical expert, and the decision should be made by the administration. There is an international report, another from the Generalitat (Catalan government), another from the City Council, and those from the museum, so it would be very beneficial if the national government also contributed, because their reports are excellent.

Is this a topic that will be on the table at the next board meeting?

— This is again in a sphere that isn't really mine, but rather that of the administration. I try not to enter that territory because it's not my place. They are my employers, it's my governance, and the last thing I can do is tell them what to do. Now, from our point of view, we would love to have it.

Regarding the museum expansion, the architectural competition was decided in March, and the project by the winning teams, Harquitectes and Christ & Gantenbein, has not yet been made public.

— The expansion is underway; it's essential, inevitable, and of paramount importance. It will be done, and it will be done well. There's a project in progress, and it's powerful and exciting, and it will be highly relevant for the country, for Catalan culture, and for the cultural system here, in Spain, and internationally. There's an administrative appeal against the competition, but it doesn't challenge the winner, and once it's resolved, we'll present the architectural project. We're four years away from opening it, and now the expansion is the museum's priority. This January will mark a turning point; we're declaring a moratorium. The museum will reduce its activities—recurring, specific, collaborative, loans, and major projects—and will focus on the expansion.

What exactly will it include?

— We cannot discuss this as if it were a project from scratch. It has a continuity, which is that of the country, of the country's museums, of the country's most important museum, and the construction of a cultural system and cultural institutions in that country. In the case of the MNAC, this expansion completes the museum. We must be somewhat serious; that is to say, what we cannot allow is the frivolity of discussing this as an exercise, an experiment, a temporary exhibition, or a biennial. This is something else entirely: we come from 1934, from Folch and Torres, from a national museum that was conceived from its inception with the idea of representing Catalan artistic creation up to the present day. Since 2013, we have revived this idea. This museum has no limits, neither of genre nor style, much less of chronology. The MNAC is the only museum with the mandatory mission of expressing it in whatever way it chooses. It is about resolving a cultural anomaly, as Perejaume says. In Catalonia, there are two and a half generations of artists, authors of significant works for the region since the 1940s, whose contributions have been denied and hidden. They have only been temporarily recognized in the local sphere because private foundations have done a phenomenal job of providing a substitute.

The expansion of the museum is part of the centenary of the 1929 Universal Exhibition, and the remodeling of the Fira.

— We're not commemorating anniversaries or centenaries here, but rather the centenary of the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition has made possible something that the pandemic, budget cuts, economic crises, political dissent, and conflict have prevented until now. It's long overdue. Imagine the Prado and the Reina Sofía without their extensions. What would they tell us? Again, we're not intimidated. We must do what is done everywhere else, out of common sense and automatically.

Where does the museum project stand?

— We work from the artworks and the artists, and from there we arrive at the ideas and themes. The project must speak of its location, Catalonia, because that's the only way to have a unique, singular, differentiated, and specific project. Because if we make a list of hashtags And as for the themes, what we're going to do is turn it into a Starbucks, and we can't allow that either. We are a culture with shortcomings, lacking the necessary instruments of a state to develop naturally. And here the MNAC's responsibility is immense; it's not a toy for conducting experiments or outlandish things.

How many people work in the museum field?

— The narrative will be pluralistic, collective, with people from outside the museum, intergenerational, and complex. An extensive consultation process has been carried out, involving more than 60 people. We have a narrative team working on it, with three people from within and three from outside: the three curators most consulted at the museum are the head of collections and curator of modern art, Eduard Vallès; the curator of contemporary art, Àlex Mitrani; and the curator of photography, Roser Cambray. And the three people from outside are Ingrid Guardiola [philosopher, former director of the Bòlit Museum in Girona], Maria Garganté [art historian specializing in Baroque art and professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona], and Albert Mercader [director of the Arranz Bravo Foundation].

Will the tour be chronological?

— It will be both linear and thematic. From the Baroque period to Miró, Jujol, and Perejaume. This undergrowth is crystal clear. And you can find this in the extension. This museum lacks a timeline.

How will the future museum reflect all the current challenges?

— We don't start with themes, but with rich, incredibly dense, and creative collections, and with the idea that we will generate value from art and culture—social value, the capacity to serve the public. We won't pontificate, we won't dictate what is and what should be thought; we are here to establish relationships and possibilities, trusting in the intelligence of the viewer. Our model is that the result is unpredictable. If I write down a thought, an idea, and what I do is take the artworks and use them to explore this idea, what does the viewer do? Learn the idea? Are we engaging in that kind of paternalism? Some revisionist approaches end up generating an ideologization or a reduction of the museum that is worse than the bias we want to change. Which is clearly there; the MNAC has built a canon, it has been a source of power, it has a bourgeois, patriarchal bias, like all major museums, but it has been changing that for years. Sometimes the revision is carried out in the worst sense of the word, politicized, or rather, partisan.

Will photography and architecture play a more prominent role in the expansion?

— Photography is very important. The authorities have decided against a National Photography Center, so the MNAC has been entrusted with the mission of also showcasing this collection, which we don't have separately. Narratives are constructed with everything. But we will need to develop a specific policy for photography. The country has incredible spaces like La Virreina and the KBR, so the MNAC's responsibility is different. The project must be built from the ground up, starting with working with the existing collections.

And the architecture? The MNAC has been entrusted with the management of the Casa Gomis.

— Architecture will necessarily appear in the narrative because it is inseparable from the collection and the story of art in that country. As for the Casa Gomis, its management has not yet been assigned, although the museum will certainly speak about it.

The museum currently has a budget of around 12 million euros. How much will its expansion need to operate?

— No, not at all. We're working on a business plan, and when the architectural project is further along, we'll present it to the board of trustees.

What percentages of public contributions and own income are we talking about?

— The MNAC is the repository of Catalan heritage; it costs what it costs, and we can't ask it to cost less. With the expansion, we'll be fortunate enough to carry out the museum's mission in a space that places us right next to the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, beside CaixaForum, within walking distance, in the heart of the city. Even the most pessimistic estimate will generate more visitor traffic and greater capacity. If we had a commercial entity and the ability to manage space rentals, along with a team freed from some extremely burdensome administrative tasks, the museum would be able to generate more revenue to fulfill its mission.

Will the expansion be completed?

— I have a contract until 2027. We are working through this historic crisis, with a project that will outlive me and those who govern it now. People need to understand this. And I'm sure the MNAC expansion isn't the PSC's project; to say otherwise is vulgar. It's a frivolous statement that sometimes pains me.

What do you think about Manuel Borja-Villel questioning the expansions of the MNAC and the MACBA with his project as museum advisor to the Generalitat? Furthermore, with the exhibition To imagine landscapes He proposed a "relational" museum instead of a national museum..

— You have to be honest when you're discussing things. The latest MoMA presentation is the perfect example of how a powerful, enormous, and heavily branded museum can change the way it presents its collections. I've worked on this directly with Glenn [Glenn Lowry, former director of MoMA], who just retired and will be here to speak.inhabited museum It's not a project that has enlightened us much, because, frankly, this has been discussed for decades, and half of the artists involved in this project have worked here before. I don't know how to put it: we're not comparing a hospital to a performance.

Manuel Borja-Villel returned to lead a temporary program to integrate the museum's expansion into the Catalan museum system. The museum's board approved your leadership of the expansion and his advice on how to broaden its impact, but then he says you refused to collaborate with him.

— There is There's a part I'm missing. This should be a question for the previous Catalan government. This is a political appointment, not a best practice. The hiring process is poorly worded. It's not his fault, but it's detrimental to him, and it comes with a poorly crafted explanation, mistakenly linked to the MNAC (National Art Museum of Catalonia). If it's my own administration that's commissioning him, perhaps what I should have done is distance myself from it; in other words, he works for those who govern me, and that's what a political commissar is. All of this has been very confusing and has created confusion within the team. But it's not a question of whether I want to collaborate with him or not: we collaborate with everyone and have loaned works to this exhibition. The staircase of To imagine landscapes In our volume, it's not particularly relevant to us. The exhibition, from a syntactic and arrangement standpoint, was very flawed. And from the perspective of the narratives, it's a list of accumulated and empty clichés. And some gestures are very, very formal or rhetorical. I insist, I'm very interested in him, I've learned a lot from him, but this particular project doesn't strike me as especially successful. This criticism isn't personal, because I've worked with him extensively, and I admire him and have a great deal of affection for him.

And what does he think, in general, of the program? inhabited museum?

— I find it one-sided, pontificating, and exclusionary. With a temporary exhibition, you can do whatever you want, but then we shouldn't ask the museum to do things it wasn't and never will be designed to do. This is about works of art and artists. If the museum is just a bunch of texts, let's leave it at that. What is the museum experience? It's about knowledge, enjoyment, and interpretation through images.

Have you received the final report that Borja-Villel has made of his project and that he must deliver to the MNAC?

— He's not handing it over to the MNAC, he's handing it over to the councilor. When this came up here, the other administrations said they didn't need to be informed about it: the City Council and the Ministry said they have their advisors, and I have mine too; the MNAC has nothing to do with it. The MNAC hasn't commissioned anything. This perversion is always there, and I've avoided the conflict.

I hadn't spoken about it until now.

— I haven't done it out of respect for Manolo and the project, and to let him work.

The Carmen Thyssen Museum project in the former Comedia cinema is moving forward. Will a museum of Catalan painting in such a central location draw visitors away from the MNAC?

— I've asked them to show me the project, and so far they haven't. Carmen and I have a very good relationship; there's a personal trust between us. We're the only ones who told her the truth when they promised her the pavilion, and we told her it wouldn't happen, that they wouldn't rent it to her. That said, and with all due respect to Carmen, the collection includes some Casas and Rusiñols works that would be in reserve here, except for two or three.