"We are in a time of systemic crisis, ecological crisis, inequality, cultural wars, fake news that are repeated on social networks, creating subjectivities; culture and cultural institutions have a lot to say. And therefore, a "A challenge like that of the MNAC, which is not that it expands but that it refounds itself, going from being an encyclopedic museum to a social one, is not only an opportunity but an ethical and political duty." In his first public appearance, Manuel Borja-Villel He thus argued the reasons that led him to accept the position of advisor to the Department of Culture, in which the formulation of the “new” MNAC – its director, Pepe Serra, has eliminated the term “expansion”, too reductionist, from his vocabulary – will be the star project. But not the only one. In the short time he has been in his new office at the Palau Moja, just fifteen days, he has already started conversations with Arts Santa Mònica and the Fundació Tàpies to activate two initiatives.
The appointment for a period of three years of Borja-Villel as director of the Temporary Program for the development and fit into the art museum system of the project to expand and promote the National Museum of Art of Catalonia, advanced by La Vanguardia last March , had caused some confusion in the Catalan art world, due to the degree of influence that the new position could have on Serra's decisions and his involvement in the rest of the museums. Borja-Villel himself was in charge of clarifying doubts, ensuring that "I do not have executive functions, my job is of a different type: it consists of thinking, advising, questioning, finding cracks and moving between them," he said, ensuring that after deciding not to appear upon re-election to the position at Reina Sofía, he was clear that he did not want to lead another institution again.
Borja-Villel was accompanied by Pepe Serra himself, who took the opportunity to explain the keys to this new MNAC, whose process he launched with his team a long time ago and should culminate in 2029, and by Minister Natàlia Garriga, for whom Borja-Villel's return means “the opportunity to incorporate a voice as powerful as his” to the reflection process that is already taking place. “In Catalonia,” said Garriga, “we want to attract all the talent possible, be ambitious, add qualified perspectives and expand the debate,” in addition to helping the internationalization of Catalan art.
For Borja-Villel, this “return home” (he directed the Fundació Tàpies, between 1990 and 1998, before jumping to the Macba, under whose mandate he managed to place it among the leading European museums), is a “privilege” at this time of profound transformations of museum institutions. “The MNAC is not the Prado, which is a real collection; It is not the Reina Sofía, which is an art museum of the transition; It is not the British, which is an imperial museum. It's something else. And understanding that with this you start a network, relationships with other institutions, that there are gaps to go from an encyclopedic museum to a social one, was an opportunity that I should not and could not miss." How will his work materialize? He will not make reports, he clarifies, but will curate exhibitions or public programs, not only at the MNAC but in other museums.
Having just arrived from the São Paulo Biennial, of which he is one of its curators, Borja-Villel recalled that for him institutions “are not a place of representation but of negotiation,” that encyclopedic museums leave out the peripheries, “categorize , they tell us what we have to think, prioritize domination, power, profit, over life,” when it comes to getting a museum that “prioritizes life over power.” And he said that another important element has influenced his decision to return to Catalonia and that is that, in his opinion, “Catalonia has a tradition of dissenting without violence, dissenting from knowing that there may be tension, that there may be very strong disagreements but “There is always respect for the other.”
