“The challenges are daily: to be more ecological, more inclusive, to get involved with the problems with which artists work”
Manuel Segade is the new director of the museum Queen Sofia of Madrid, which specializes in 20th century and contemporary art. He was born 46 years ago, was a student of the Salesians and studied, after completing the first cycle of Journalism, History of Art in Santiago. He also spent a year at the University of Leeds. “I was lucky to be a student there of Griselda Pollock, a revolutionary from the 70s who changed the canon of the history of art vindicating the name of women in the history of art & rdquor ;, extols. She accedes to the position after winning first place in a selection process in which another from A Coruña was among the applicants, Chus Martínez, head of the Basel Academy of Art and Design. Segade, who this Wednesday gave a dozen interviews in the morning before going to the culture Ministryconceives museums as spaces for citizens to have access and to integrate and participate in society’s problems.
The present places him in the Reina Sofía. Do you remember his first job in a museum?
If I remember correctly, they were some cards I made for a collection in a museum that unfortunately no longer exists, the Unión Fenosa Museum in A Coruña. And then, as a curator, an exhibition at the Luis Seoane Foundation, in 2002 or 2003.
So did you imagine that a museum of the entity of the Reina Sofía could be waiting for you one day?
Not at all. The mantra that we are told as children and adolescents is that working in the field of art or culture we will never make a living from this. I’m happy to prove it’s a lie.
And you have lived for some time.
I think that since 2005, when I did a job with Metrònom, a private foundation for a collector in Barcelona, and from then on, better or worse because there are always precarious moments in the sector, I have not stopped living from art.
From your previous experiences, including the current management of the Museo Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo in Móstoles, what concepts or ideas can be put into practice in a giant like the Reina Sofía?
Working with the art of the present and thinking that there need to be spaces for experimentation for contemporary art, where we don’t know what kind of art is going to be done in the future and what kind of things artists are going to create, is a innovation process that is fundamental today to turn these museums into a kind of laboratory. We need places where artists have the right to be wrong. Museums have daily challenges: they must be more ecological, more inclusive, that comply with gender equality, involved with the themes and problems that artists work with, which are the problems and concerns of today’s society. Above all, we need museums that guarantee access to culture, with education systems so that anyone can access, not only the space but all the activities they organize.
Has that subject not yet been fully approved?
Let’s say that access to art and culture is a fundamental right proclaimed by the Spanish Constitution, but we know that sometimes, as is the case with contemporary art museums, we have the risk of having difficulty reaching the general public, with which it seems that there is a gap. The example of the Móstoles museum, in an impoverished area in the south of Madrid with a large migrant population, shows that we have managed to have an impact, that people are interested in the museum as a place of intellectual leisure. With which, I believe that there are many ways of working with the public and what matters is that we generate that situation in which people can encounter art and the wide range of utilities that museums offer.
That gap to which you allude, how should it be covered?
Listening to what is happening on the street and in society, what the public asks of us, and negotiating those needs with contemporary art. Consensus is achieved through working with people and negotiation. This is very basic, elemental. The public museum is a democratic space that must generate opportunities for its audiences to participate.
Has the general public of museums been transformed, does it expect something different, does it have new demands, and therefore should museums be transformed to a different extent?
Museums dedicated to the art of the present are more prepared than other cultural institutions to adapt to society. What contemporary artists propose to us is always based on a radical imaginative work that allows us to think about things in another way, outside of the conventional way of thinking. That is where contemporary art and its institutions can contribute something very strong, not only what the artists exhibit but also the use of their own methodologies. The radical way of thinking is essential, even applicable, with its already established laws, to the administration of truth.
Are these types of museums in good health today?
They are in a very good moment. They have managed to form part of the citizen’s agenda, and that is great news. The proof is that the Reina Sofía is the most visited museum in Spain. Its weight is very great, you just have to see it in the number of people who have called me today [por ayer] to do an interview [risas].
What do you want to do in charge of the Reina Sofía?
I have not yet been able to share projects with the museum itself or with the Ministry of Culture. The Reina Sofía is one of the most important museums in the West, very well regarded from outside our borders, and I think we need a moment of consolidation. The most important thing is knowing how to share the very strong symbolic capital that the museum has with the general scene of Spanish art, in order to make all Spanish art more visible abroad. That is the basic objective, and it is also the great challenge.
Personal file
Manuel Segade (A Coruña, 1977) he received his doctorate in Art History in Santiago. He has been chief commissioner of the Galician Center of Contemporary Art of Santiago and director of the Dos de Mayo Museum in Móstoles. In front of the Queen Sofia, will succeed Manuel Borja-Villel, who has held the post since 2008. The magazine Forbes this year included Segade in the top 25 of the most influential personalities of the Spanish artistic sector