pepe serra

The relocation of murals in the MNAC museum back to Aragon temporarily blocked by a Huesca judge due to their “fragility”

The National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC) reviewed what its 2016 exhibitions would consist of, although the showings unofficially begun in December of 2015. The star exhibition of the season will be ´Picasso and Romanesque Art´, a joint venture with the Picasso Museum in Paris. Besides this, other exhibition centred onLuis “el Divino” Morales, Renaissance painting, 20^th century photography and features on several Catalan artists, such as Lluïsa Vidal and Ismael Smith, will complete the MNAC’s agenda for 2016. The MNAC’s director, Pepe Serra, celebrated that the museum is finally “starting to have a normal planning rhythm for a museum of its size” which will allow the MNAC’s calendar to synchronise with “other international museums”.

The Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (Catalonia’s National Museum of Art) is considering changing its name to include ‘Barcelona’. The Museum Director, Pepe Serra, wants to better explain the Museum to a global audience and considers using the “Barcelona brand” as a superior way of raising the gallery’s status. Also he believes the collections of Romanesque art, which are considered exceptional, have not been sufficiently exploited on an international level. The Museum Director also announced that despite the crisis, they will open up “many more areas for free”.

MNAC’s new Director and its new President presented their plan to foster the identity and singularity of a museum known for hosting, among others, the most important collections of Romanesque art in the world. More space, more contemporary artwork and more visitors are the three keywords that will guide the museum’s new stage. Furthermore, the MNAC wants to vindicate its position as Catalonia’s top museum and within the museum’s first division at international level.