After a splendid stage at the head of Es Baluard de Palma, which she has directed for the last four years, Imma Prieto (Vilafranca del Penedès, 1976) returns to Barcelona to direct the Fundació Tàpies, after winning the international competition to fill a position that was previously vacancies since the departure of Carles Guerra in 2020. Energetic, enthusiastic and full of ideas (in the last year she programmed eight exhibitions in the Mallorcan center, premiered a theatrical action by Robert Willson, launched the Laboratori d'Art i training program Pensament and hosted the international congress of Cimam, which brings together the most important museums of contemporary art), is aware that it comes to a center at a low time. But her character prevents her from being intimidated by challenges.
His appointment coincides with a generational change in positions of responsibility in museums. What should we expect from those born in the seventies?
It is true, right now, at the Spanish level, there are many of us born between 1974 and 1977. There is Gilberto González at the TEA, Elvira Dyangani Ose at the Macba, Manuel Segade now at the Reina Sofía, Bea Herráez at Artium... We have broken up a threshold. But my experience tells me that worth has nothing to do with age or gender. Obviously, we all have to have the opportunity to get there, but not because we are white, because we are a woman, because we are pink, because we are black or because we are forty years old... We share our age, but each one has their interests. The big difference with the previous generation is that they grew up without museums and we have grown up with and in museums. That is important. I remember going to the Fundació Tàpies at the age of 20 and hallucinating, and the same in the early years of Macba. That has formed us.
Will we hallucinate again in the Tàpies?
I don't like slogans. We are not going to hallucinate, we are going to work. Those kinds of phrases, Elvira's "Let's fly" at the Macba, I'm not saying they're wrong, but they don't make me feel comfortable due to a question of character. Now I have to land and meet the team, although my goal is clear: to provide the institution with an identity, which right now is very blurred. Will Tàpies be present? Definitely. Now, I don't think you have to interpret Tàpies, what you have to do is reinterpret him, free him from the labels in which he has pigeonholed, based on new readings from the present. Why is Goya contemporary? You take one of his engravings and a photograph of Guantánamo and there is not much difference. We have to rethink Tàpies from the present day, and the truth is that he makes it very easy for us. And, of course, putting it back on the map of history, also of local history, where it is very blurred.
How did this situation come to be?
I think we have limited ourselves to repeating exhibitions by Tàpies... Cards, drawings, I don't know what... You can be more imaginative. In the world of art, from the curating point of view, there are no secrets or geniuses. It's called work and imagination, but you have to work. You have to be purposeful, create cracks where there are none, because that in turn opens up new possibilities, new narratives. To put, as has been done, an artist like Goshka Macuga with a work by Tàpies is to force meanings. What does Tàpies paint there? On the other hand, there are works by Ibrahim Mahama, for example, that at different times talk about the same thing, about the reuse of materials, about recycling... There are many contemporary perspectives that help us to look at it, even from a queer vision.
And as for the Fundació, what place should it occupy in the system of Spanish museums?
It has to go back to being one of the leading exhibition centers in programming, to go back to being a place that you have to visit. For me, there are two essential concepts: internationalization and excellence. And when I say internationalization it's not just bringing in foreign artists, that's another deception. It is going out, creating co-productions, moving... Tàpies is also outside the international scene. It will be difficult, little by little.
He plans to join in October, two months before the start of the Tàpies Year, in whose programming he has not participated. Does it surprise you?
Everything is very closed, although all I know is what was said at the press conference that is posted on the web. I highly respect what Judith Barnés and Núria Homs have done, but I have to sit down with them, see from what conceptual framework programming has been generated, because it cannot be created like mushrooms, and from there, know what it can be My contribution. I have ideas.
Why did you show up?
I have been in Es Baluard for four years, which have given a lot of themselves, and one of the motivations was to return to my city. For me life is three values: the personal, the professional and the economic. In Palma I have the professional. Returning to Barcelona I recover the personal, I maintain the professional and improve the economic. And, of course, the illusion of directing an institution in which I have grown up. I remember great exhibitions, especially during the Manolo Borja-Villel period, although it is true that at that time there was nothing else in Barcelona. He is one of the best directors we have ever had and he has shown it wherever he has been: here, at the Macba and at the Reina.
How do you interpret the campaign of harassment and demolition of which you have been the object?
Behind there is a very ill-intentioned conservative sector. There is no right! You can be a great director who one day puts on an exhibition that you don't like or that is a mistake. That happens every day and counts on it. Just like a mayor, a mother or the head of a company, that's how it is. But after fifteen marvelous years, what remains is this disastrous and mediocre mess... Outside of Spain, no one has understood anything. I can only think that it was due to jealousy, mediocrity and because we are in a country where when someone stands out they get stepped on. A horror. People surround themselves with those who do not shadow them. Well look, if they have to shade me, let it be a good tree. You learn a lot.
