ELVIRA DYANGANI OSE, NEW DIRECTOR OF MACBA
16 July, 2021 – The General Council of the Consortium of the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona has appointed Elvira Dyangani Ose as the new Director of MACBA. The Council has endorsed the proposal of the committee of experts, which especially valued the winning candidate’s desire to provide ‘an innovative approach to the role of the Museum on the local and international stage, while incorporating a clear desire to connect with contemporary debates on the role of art at the beginning of this century, without shying away from a firm commitment to the social issues surrounding cultural institutions’.
The jury was made up of representatives of the institutions and members with a recognised career in the international and local artistic sector: Joan Subirats, Deputy Mayor for Culture of Barcelona City Council; Elsa Ibar, Director General of Cultural Heritage of the Generalitat de Catalunya; Ainhoa Grandes, President of the Fundació MACBA; María Dolores Jiménez-Blanco Carrillo de Albornoz, Director General of Fine Arts of the Ministry of Culture; Chris Dercon, President of the Association of French national Museums, Grand Palais, Paris, and member of the MACBA Advisory Committee; João Fernandes, Artistic Director of the Instituto Moreira Salles in Rio de Janeiro; Ann-Sofi Noring, Chief Curator of the Moderna Museet, Vice- Chancellor of the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts and chair of the Swedish Arts Grants Committee; and a representative of the Museum’s employees.
The General Council gave a very positive assessment to the proposal and the work conducted by the committee of experts. The latter wants to acknowledge the high level of presentations by some of the candidates and has submitted the proposal of the current candidate to the General Council of MACBA taking into account that the candidate meets all the requirements of the open call. Moreover, in terms of the merits to be considered, she has obtained the best rating in relation to maintaining the prestige of the Museum as an institution of international reference, developing a policy of exhibitions, activities and academic publications of excellence, and continuing to strengthen the MACBA Collection.
Elvira Dyangani Ose replaces Ferran Barenblit, who has been Director of MACBA for the past six years. Her contract at senior management level is for a period of five years, renewable with the explicit agreement of the General Council.
Dyangani’s appointment coincides with an extremely important stage in MACBA’s history, with a programme of expansion underway by the Catalan-Swiss team of HArquitectes and Christ & Gantenbein that will consolidate MACBA as an integrative museum and also as a public meeting point. This project will help to strengthen its aim of strongly representing contemporary art scene, placing it solidly in an international context, while strengthening its vocation as a public museum that is habitat, diverse, integrative, close, accessible and transcendent.
BIOGRAPHICAL DATA
Born in Córdoba, Spain, in 1974, Elvira Dyangani Ose has a degree in Art History from the Universitat Autònoma, Barcelona; a Diploma in Advanced Studies in Architecture; History and Theory of Architecture at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya; PhD candidate in the Department of Art History and Visual Studies at Cornell University, New York; and Master in Arts, Sage Scholarship. She is expected to defend her doctoral thesis in the summer of 2021.
Since 2018 she has been Director and Chief Curator of The Showroom, London, as well as Lecturer in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London, since 2014, and a member of the Thought Council, Fondazione Prada. She has previously been Curator of the Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art; Curator of International Art at Tate Modern, London; Artistic Director of Rencontres Picha – Lubumbashi Biennial, Democratic Republic of the Congo; Curator of Contemporary Art at the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo (CAAC), Senior Curator a Creative Time at New York, Seville; and curator of Contemporary Art at the Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno (CAAM) in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria.
*Source: MACBA Press Release, 16 July, 2021, https://www.macba.cat/
*Elvira Dyangani Ose. Photo Credit: MACBA.
