More than talk, shoot ideas. Ristretto coffee gives you even more speed. Manuel Borja-Villel (Burriana, Castellón, 1957) is one of the most intelligent types of the contemporary art galaxy. He has directed the Reina Sofía National Art Center for 11 years. Almost never happy most, but he has preferred to work his way, without losing sight of the margins. In January, he publishes with the Arcadia publishing house a book of several and challenging theses: The magnetic fields. He has three years left in front of Reina Sofía. Then he doesn't know. Maybe.

His book questions the museum, the institution, from its institutional character. How does the museum make sense today as we know it? In this era where everything is mixed and it is more difficult to decide what is not art than what it is, we need a space where there is freedom. The museum maintains the role of the Greek tragedy: the place where the best and the worst of human beings are questioned. The art museum is an anachronistic institution. Show things that are still done with your hands. And it also has something theatrical. But like every weapon of war, it can be a strong tool of the State; however, mass exhibitions tend to be the friendliest ... In a time of spectacle, the great exhibitions for all are the ones that attract. Although it is possible to do them while maintaining the enigma, density and mystery that we demand from the best art. But there are more things.Cuáles.The museum has to be a radically democratic space. And there is no democracy without respect for minorities. The work that has been done in Reina Sofía, where we have exposed Dalí, Picasso and where Mondrian will now come, always tries to maintain plurality. Not eclecticism, which is a neoliberal proposal, but plurality, which is a symptom of progress. I understand the museum as a city, without fear of tension or antagonism. Are these great exhibitions "cultural industry"? The concept of "cultural industry" tends to profit, money, rather than art and poetry. The important thing is a cultural policy where culture is understood as an ecosystem of differences. Now there is a tendency for everything to be the same, to avoid the difference. The tragedy of some museums is that they look too much. On the Mile of the Museums of Madrid it is wonderful that the Prado is, but it would be very interesting if it lived alongside a self-managed space such as La Ingobernable (center occupied by social groups). That ecosystem would be ideal. When he directed the Macba, a politician admonished him for "exceeding the limits of what a museum is." What limits? Limits are a political and social construction. The History of Art, like that of Humanity, is made from defeats, from failures. The incredible thing about a work of art is that it makes you question the limits, whatever they are. The limits, in addition, are in constant mutation. When a religious group denounces a museum for an exhibition of contemporary art that they consider inappropriate, I wonder if these people enter the Prado, the Louvre or the Metropolitan. Classical art is full of rapes, heresies, violence ... And nobody is shocked. So there are no limits, just as there were no in the Greek tragedy. We know that everything is a representation and we are aware of the affective pact between the one who looks and the one who makes the museum as a political space? The museum is political. There is an economy, it is in a neighborhood, in a city, in a country. In the case of Reina Sofía, she represents a State. And it is political also because it intervenes, because you question essential concepts such as democracy or individual. But at the same time there is a poetic element inseparable from the above. At what time did the museum as an institution cease to be a place of challenges? There are several questions around that question. But by focusing on one, it all starts when the museum is required to be profitable, almost like a company. That does not mean that we should not be financially responsible, and sustainable, and accessible. But we enter an era of consensus engineering where you don't want to be different. Or it is only accepted to be aesthetically different, not in a real way. We are seeing it live in a time, the current one, where xenophobia, racism, post-truth and other drifts are installed in the speech. It is at this time when the museum as an institution loses. And if you add an economic crisis in a country like Spain, discard research and reflection institutions, we have a serious problem. We saw in the eighteenth century a revolutionary bourgeoisie that in the nineteenth century became reactionary. The ability to generate light and shadow that art has is always necessary. Does this book challenge its own condition as director of a national museum? Perhaps, but it is also a very enthusiastic book about the idea of ​​culture and the need for art. It is what we tried from Queen Sofia, to question and question ... There is a legend that runs around and that is to the ministers (except in the case of the current head of Culture, José Guirao, who has been director of this museum ) they like the Prado more than Reina Sofía.And that? Because the artists of the Prado are dead and do not generate conflict.In 'The magnetic fields' refers to a world without past or future, this one, where the History. It’s like that. But at the same time, paradoxically, the system itself favors memorialism. For me, as an art historian, history is essential. Look at the fifteenth century and see how many things still remain ... When we talk about crisis we do it as something extraordinary, but capitalism has always lived in crisis. The situation that we live, beset by induced fears of all kinds to the other, to the different, to the immigrant, is a favorable breeding ground for the return of the extreme right. What does the reality of this country look like from here? Victim of something very worrisome: a strong deficit in education. From that problem come many of the inconveniences we have as a society. The good thing about a museum is that it offers an unregulated education, here you can see another perspective of History. That museums were able to help in this educational element would be very favorable. We continue to understand culture as leisure, as something complementary instead of central. It is typical of globalization, but I think there is an alternative to this neoliberal globalization that is obviously failing. And knowing that is a reason for hope. Nationalisms, meanwhile, revives its narrow ideology ... It seems that the reaction to globalization has been nationalism. But I have the impression that they are two sides of the same coin. It depends on the moment, the system is more interested in promoting one or the other. And people are the losers, always. It says in the book that "culture is dominated by competition and the search for success". Culture and society. The entrepreneur was the model of the neoliberal man, but from 2007 or 2008, when the crisis, that became his nemesis: the loser. In our reality all relationships are not beneficial, think of parents and children, or lovers ... The Romans distinguished between private, public and common. The latter we have been losing. The common thing is the enemy to bring down capitalism. Did the museum know how to spot that before? I think that from the museum, from working with artists and audiences, Queen Sofia has been quick to understand what was happening on the street , what was beginning to worry. When you look back I think we were the first to talk about things that matter today. In the book refers to Trump, Bolsonaro, Salvini, Brexit ... He says they are symptoms of a social emergency situation, but also of intellectual and political impotence. We are used to obsolete intellectual language. Trump and others are the mirror of a not true. People able to say one thing and the opposite. How can you refute that? The world of culture has instruments that can be favorable for that struggle. We must bet on an intellectual ecosystem that does not accept a precarious social space. Is it more disillusioned? I still have more morality than the Alcoyan, but we have entered a very complicated reactionary era. The world is something worse.

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