Pepe Serra: "The MNAC permanently rethinks the country, also for visitors"

In one of Barcelona's most majestic spaces, at the top of the Palau Nacional, Pepe Serra speaks from his office with a mix of enthusiasm and prudence about the current moment of the National Art Museum of Catalonia. The expansion, the role of tourism and the communication of the facility, the new narrative, and the revision of the role of museums in contemporary society form a crossroads that, far from being merely architectural, is also conceptual, political, and cultural. Serra defends a collective, ambitious, and rooted project for the country, which aims to turn the museum into a living space where the past dialogues with the present and appeals to both local and international visitors.

—Following the expansion, it seems the museum is in a particularly favorable moment. Where exactly are we?

— I think it can be said that it is a critical moment, in the good sense of the word. It is an uncomfortable moment, because the projects are highly complex, but it is true that this is where we would always have wanted to be, as a museum and as a country. This museum, for historical reasons (it was founded two years before the war, suffered through Francoism, suffered a split…), is an incomplete museum. Its foundational idea has never been fully realized: to normally represent the country's artists, without time or genre limitations. Now we are faced with the possibility of completing it, rather than simply expanding it.

— What do you mean?

— In this context of new narratives, of this transformation of museums, it is important to emphasize their social dimension, the museum's capacity to be of the present, to speak about topics relevant to society today. More than ever, that from the country and from the MNAC, a unique narrative can be created looking at the world. It is a very interesting moment, to which everyone has contributed greatly: civil society, all the cultural and social muscle around the museum, and the museum itself. That is why I insist so much on this collective and collaborative idea of the project, because in the end everyone wins.

— It's not about growing for the sake of growing, then.

— No, this is very important, and I really like that you ask it. I understand the critical view, it should always be maintained, but if there's one thing this operation is not, it's growth for growth's sake. It's something different: it's that the museum is unfinished. An expansion is being made without constructing a single new meter, as a disused, pre-existing heritage building is being utilized. But furthermore, facilities are being expanded everywhere. Here we could shoot ourselves in the foot if we question the expansion of a museum that has 50,000 square meters and only uses between 11,000 and 12,000 for exhibition.

"It's a critical moment, in the good sense of the word"

— Exactly, and that means that from the 1930s onwards (I'm not talking about the present anymore) there is an immensity of artists, facts, stories, and genealogies specific to the country that are hidden and denied, and they must be here. A 30-year-old person who comes to the museum today cannot understand how we got here. It's about having space to fulfill missions, not about making the house bigger in an empty sense. This is a public service institution: people, education, social dimension, construction of collective and individual memory, community building… We cannot deny this to citizens, who deserve, like all European countries, a normal museum.

— This expansion allows us to go beyond our avant-gardes, then.

— Yes, that's a very good question. There are two issues here: we must fulfill that mission, that at least the second half of the 20th century is represented; but at the same time, the context in which this operation takes place is favorable for rethinking the encyclopedic museum. Both facts coincide.

— What do you mean?

— It cannot be that the sixties, conceptual art, political art, early feminisms, photography… cannot be seen. But at the same time, since museums have been transforming for more than twenty years, we can do it differently. A museum like this cannot completely avoid a chronological scheme, but many of the axes will not be only chronological. We are working on the narrative with people from outside, external curators, young and not so young, in a very collaborative process. The operation is complex, it progresses calmly, and the narrative must be done with tranquility.

"Specificity is what can make us good"

— It's something very particular. Analogies sometimes don't help at all. To begin with, one must be careful with that tendency to pose big global themes and explain things that can be explained in Frankfurt or anywhere else. The vision should not be localist, but it must be rooted here and, from here, look at the world. The Catalan system is particular, and that specificity is what can make us good: doing what only we can do. And it is that here we have a very singular case: Pablo Picasso creates a museum here, Joan Miró does the same, Salvador Dalí also has one an hour away, Antoni Tàpies has his own… And then there is a great national museum with unique collections. This singularity is what places us on the world map. The model applied in Catalonia, and let me not be misunderstood, would be like adding the scope of the Reina Sofía and the Prado. Why do international experts come to see this museum? For its singularity, its singular collections. Catalans who, at the beginning of the 20th century, had to tear off their paintings so they wouldn't be taken away (as Folch i Torres said), and they also identify with that Romanesque art. And that genealogy of the Romanesque reaches Tàpies, reaches Miró, reaches Picasso, reaches Duchamp, reaches Joan Casellas, today. We have a very beautiful story to tell, very powerful, very dense, and very plural. And let it not be closed, let it be open.

— And how is the new content built? Collection, storage, loans, purchases…?

— The museum has the collections it has, but the country is more plural. That's why I speak of a collaborative and cooperative project. What we are doing is weaving agreements with large private collections, making long-term deposits, so that ownership has a residual value for the citizen, and what matters is being able to display the works. Civil society has played a fundamental role in the process, and must continue to do so. Here there are people who have done an enormous job of substituting institutions: I speak of Cambó, of Vila Casas, of Suñol, of Bassat, of the La Caixa Foundation… These people have done immense work. The families themselves have sustained the artists' inheritances. The narrative corresponds more to the museum and the curators, but the construction of the collection must be plural. We say that we are "choosing and braiding": with meaning, with logic, with coherence, without arbitrariness. And in this narrative we will have to speak (taking Perejaume's terminology) of the countryside, of the city, and of the nation.

— The mayor says that the new Thyssen Museum, in the old Comèdia cinema, "fills a void" in an artistic era that was missing in the city. But the MNAC has as one of its jewels the collection of modernist art, doesn't it?

— I have to say I don't know it. Joan Manel Sevillano is a very good friend, and we have arranged to learn about the project. One thing is the Thyssen, the collection in Madrid, which belongs to the State; but here we are talking about works by a private person, a collector, Carmen, who has a very good relationship with the museum. I don't know the project yet, it's a very laudable private initiative. But it is true that, in terms of the narrative, that modernity in early 20th century Barcelona is very well represented in the museum. Which does not mean that a new narrative cannot be built from the perspective of a private collector.

— Does the museum also question itself?

— Yes. The museum has a bourgeois, patriarchal bias, for historical reasons. We have an unbeatable Romanesque collection, an unbeatable photography collection; with Gaudí, a great agreement was made with the Sagrada Familia, and with other lenders, and with La Pedrera itself, and the most important collection of Gaudí objects in Barcelona… We must strengthen these strong points and build a new narrative, more complex, more diverse, more sophisticated. We must ask ourselves who decides what is seen and what is not, with what criteria. Who has a voice. The traditional model (someone who builds a closed narrative) is outdated. Now it's about proposing questions, situations, and leaving space for the visitor to complete the experience. The time when someone wrote a text, took the works, put them at the service of their idea and presented that idea in a room for those of us who came to consume it is over. I think it should be more complex. We should have less control over the result. The result of the visits, of the museum experience, cannot be foreseen: it must be more sophisticated.

"It's about fulfilling missions, not making the house bigger"

We must find more real participation mechanisms. There are groups that, for example, perhaps do not have the capacity to contribute economically or do not have purchasing power, but are very relevant voices. The communities close to the museum, the educational ones, the artistic ones, the social ones… I believe that, in this, administrations must reflect. Many of the recent crises in museums are related to the governance structures built in the 80s, which are now very saturated. We need governance structures that are publicly legitimate, transparent, and properly audited. Now the museum applies this to itself, and talks with teachers, with collectors, with neighbors… but perhaps little by little, without confusing a museum with an assembly, it is an opportunity.

— In Catalonia, however little you move if you work in culture, you enter political territory.

— Museums are not neutral, it’s impossible: there is no neutrality. Every decision you make is to bet on one thing and discard another, with all that that implies. And when you explain some things, you stop explaining others. The museum has a political dimension, it is undeniable. What is ideal for me? That this political dimension and the heritage dimension mix as little as possible.

— But you have an "N" in the name.

— It is a national institution, it represents the nation, and I, when I travel, am the National Museum of Catalonia. I have obligations, and I work with the Vall d'Àneu and with a small town in Miravet, and in all places where it is necessary, because we have this mission for the country. This structuring of the country is important. And at the same time, we must be able to work coordinately with a certain freedom. This is difficult. The pity of the Sijena conflict is that it is so extremely politicized that it has been moved to the judicial headquarters. At a table with the best experts in the world, without any judge, we would have a capacity for expression that is impossible under a Supreme Court ruling. But I believe the museum has achieved balance.

— A very fragile balance.

— There are very strong country genealogies, the country is in here. We carry the name of the nation instead of the city, to make it clear where we are from: because otherwise, it is not clear. We must manage to represent this complexity, this plurality that Catalonia has, Barcelona and, above all, Catalonia.

— I ask you directly: is the Sijena debate technical, legal, political, museographic…?

— The condemned is the museum, and I am the general director. There are people who express opinions from social media, as if there were no governance. I have governors to whom I must respond, and they are three different administrations and a series of people. You cannot ignore the context. The context is important. You cannot talk about Sijena in a vacuum. Let's be clear: this is a salvage operation.

— A salvage operation?

— It is a salvage in wartime. And, moreover, it is a model salvage. There is a legal issue, there is a judgment, as a result of a claim by a museum that holds all the paintings of the Pyrenees and is located in these valleys. Agreed. However: we cannot find anyone capable of writing on paper that they know how to do it without damaging the work. In the legal sphere, therefore, an absolute decision to comply with the judgment because there is no other option. But…

— But there is the avenue of the incident of impossibility of execution.

— For now, that's where we are. It is a situation of great complexity, legally. And then, politically, the issue has acquired a symbolic value that is a bit turbulent for the museum. Because the museum is very focused on positioning itself at the international forefront. In fact, the most important organization in the world for restoration and conservation, which is ICROM, an organization for which you cannot commission a report even by paying, has of its own accord made a report and technically pronounced on the matter. This report has not been paid for, it cannot be paid for. Furthermore, you cannot decide who comes from ICROM. ICROM sends whoever it wants, whenever it wants, for as long as it wants. And that report says that there is such a large volume of risks to the work here that either those risks are eliminated, or this work cannot be removed.

— The president of Aragon has just said that they will do it.

— In the political sphere, some things have been said that, frankly, I do not want to respond to. This is a leading international museum, with leading professionals, who love the works, all the works. We have thousands and thousands of international works. We are dedicated to this. So, it hurts to hear some of the things that are said.

"We are not a museum Starbucks"

— The city is changing, but this is a museum with a still very significant volume of local public. Depending on the time of year, it reaches 40%, 50%... Now, in summer, tourism grows so much that the local public decreases... Not in number, but in percentage. In the end, if we are able to do something from here, that is, something unique, that only you can do (even if we are not the center of anything), newcomers see a narrative they don't know and find interesting. They don't find a museum Starbucks, so to speak. And those from here feel challenged: because it is a museum where the country constantly rethinks itself.

— For example?

— Globalization can make us all talk about only four topics, four clichés, in an absurd way. For example, this famous topic of decolonization, in MNAC terms, means something completely different than in the Museum of America in Madrid. Or Romanesque art, that paradox so cruel and so beautiful at the same time, another salvation: what I told you about Folch i Torres, who said that here we steal from ourselves to prevent others from stealing from us.

— And we continue here?

— And we continue here. There is a strength, this museum, the country, the city, the citizens of Catalonia deserve that the museum can deploy all this.

— And the expansion seeks that result.

— We are going to a pavilion that was already an exhibition space. Industrial, the first building with cement in Barcelona... a box from which we will use every last meter, with 15 meters of height. Where I believe that for the first time in Barcelona we will have a space very little architecturally connoted. Perhaps we will have the opportunity to have a place where for the first time the works shine with a certain tranquility.

— And the part of the narrative that is assigned to the expansion is not yet decided?

— Yes, it is. The structuring layers are diverse. First, the macro: when you have a museum with such immense collections, already in 2004 Eduard Carbonell raised whether we can move the entire collection or not. The macro decision is that the medieval and baroque enclosure collections remain in the upper palace, while in the cut of modernity up to a certain contemporaneity we will go rather downstairs. It does not mean that downstairs we cannot create a space with a kind of laboratory, more critical, which perhaps also allows access to historical collections.

— What do you mean?

— I always give the example of a fantastic photo from the collection, when in the 50s Marcel Duchamp (with all that he represents from the point of view of questioning the idea of art, the found object…) comes and is photographed among the Romanesque angels of the Burgal. And who takes the photo? Oriol Maspons. And who uses the photo to do a performance? Joan Casellas, a living artist. This is a summary of the MNAC. Therefore, in the lower part we can combine contemporary with ancient works (without moving altarpieces or apses).

— In temporary exhibitions, will you go more for the cutting edge?

— Already in 2012 we reached an agreement with MACBA (which permanently dialogues with contemporaneity) in which it was clear that the MNAC has national obligations. That said, since we have collections and program freely, we also produce contemporary art: Francesc Torres, Laia Estruch, Eugènia Balcells, Jordi Bernadó, who have opened new readings of the collection. If we want to talk about war (commercial, military, political…), a Gothic altarpiece and a work from this year or a photo by Centelles will do. Now we have three curators working with us (Íngrid Guardiola, Albert Mercadé, Maria Garganté, none from Barcelona) and in a second phase Altaió and others will join, to do this type of exercise.

— Rankings are made by the devil, but what would the MNAC need to get closer to higher positions?

— We should not want to be the Prado (with which we have a very good relationship). They have royal collections, with 30 or 40 thousand works, and we started with a coin from Empúries and ended with Perejaume (and we have 450,000 works). We have demanded a lot from the Generalitat to strengthen the heritage system, and especially the purchasing system: we must acquire non-stop, we must have. We must collect. That is why I defend the expansion so much: the narrative we will build is important, but above all the new status. We have a great library, great archives, a great laboratory and great collections and we must stay on top. As soon as this goes down or stagnates, we are exposed. We are not growing only in infrastructure or meters, as some journalists who have been in Barcelona for 20 years and do not speak Catalan say. It is a tricky idea, which seeks to undermine our growth and especially our "N". The minimum cost of opening this museum is five times below what it should really be worth, and when we expand the same will happen. We do much more than we should with our budget. Yes, now it will be more expensive to open: well, give us resources, tools, and we will manage to make it economically worthwhile too. But stop shooting ourselves in the foot.

— And the State?

The problem is that if the Generalitat increases, the State must increase. But to begin with, the State should invest much more: for example, all State purchases always go to the same city. If you buy a Miró or a Picasso… please, right? But it is the government of the Generalitat that must have first-level international projection capacity.

— Would an MNAC advertisement be needed at the airport? Should the tourist who lands always see the Moco or other private initiatives?

We have undertaken many initiatives (the social, scientific, heritage, and national outreach aspects, etc.) but the scarcity of resources has led us not to spend as much on communication. We must approach it with pride and sophistication. Furthermore, a public television program about art would also benefit us. The Prado advertises everywhere; at Vienna airport, the first thing you see are the museums. And yes, it makes no sense that, for example, in this airport arrival area, all institutions cannot make an effort and project there both the MNAC and the Miró Foundation, the Picasso, design, theater, etc. We must reach an agreement.