David Barro: Es Baluard Museum’s New Director

Oct 4, 2024

- By

Blaire Dessent

David Barro: Es Baluard Museum’s New Director

Oct 4, 2024

Blaire Dessent

David Barro: Es Baluard Museum’s New Director

Oct 4, 2024

Blaire Dessent

David Barro: Es Baluard Museum’s New Director

Oct 4, 2024

- By

Blaire Dessent

David Barro: Es Baluard Museum’s New Director

Oct 4, 2024

- By

Blaire Dessent

David Barro: Es Baluard Museum’s New Director

Oct 4, 2024

- By

Blaire Dessent

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he Es Baluard Museum is having a notable year. The modern and contemporary art museum is not only celebrating its 20^th anniversary, which includes a year-long series of special exhibitions and events, but on April 15^th, it also welcomed a new director, David Barro, to help lead the museum into its next chapter.

Barro brings over 20-years experience working as curator for various private and public institutions. Prior to coming to Mallorca, he served as the Director for the DIDAC Foundation in Galicia, where he is from, and he has collaborated on numerous cultural events including serving as the Director of Art and Culture for MADBLUE. He has been regularly visiting the island since 2014, and has been engaged with the art scene in various ways, including curating an exhibition of Rafa Forteza at the Es Baluard in 2015/2016. Barro decided to apply to the open call for the director’s position after visiting a recent Nit del Art, when, he says, “I felt a real wave of energy and excitement around contemporary art in Palma, which is not the case in every city, and it seemed like a great moment to be on the island.”

View of the exhibition “Normopathies. Works from the Es Baluard Museu Collection”, Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani de Palma, 14.06.24-12.01.25. © Es Baluard Museu, 2024. Photograph: David Bonet

The museum's bookshop

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he Es Baluard Museum holds a unique position in Mallorca. It has steadily developed its reputation over the last two-decades, not only by establishing an important permanent collection and through its rigorous program of exhibitions and public events, but it has also served as an important platform around which the contemporary art scene on the island has grown and expanded. But the museum still remains relatively underappreciated and it has a lot of potential to be more. Barro understands this critical juncture that the museum is in and is ready to help bring it into its next phase. “For me, if we talk about the goals for Es Baluard, the main one is for it to be an indisputable reference for national and international contemporary art. We're talking about a museum, but also a cultural centre, which may be the most symbolically important institution on the island of Mallorca, or perhaps the Balearic Islands. This means thinking about projects from a broad enough perspective to cover all these facets.”

In this way, Barro’s vision for the 2025/26 season, which will be his first official season as Director, is a trilogy based around the idea of “Nachleben”, a German term for ‘afterlife’, which also reflects ideas around survival and persistence. He explains, “This trilogy has three parts: the first focuses on painting and the pictorial, using our collection and others, and narrating a story around painting, as well as major exhibitions featuring high-level international artists, including those from the Balearic Islands and abroad. The second part will have more to do with performative arts, with the intersection of spaces, the museum as a stage and the museum as a place where many things can happen. The third part is about the exhibition display, focusing on the three-dimensional and installations. This trilogy is important because we want to engage both visitors who know contemporary art and those who don’t. We want to attract more people and build loyalty through various artistic areas.”

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Art is a tool that can lead awareness towards sustainable development. Art, and culture as a whole, can help make the context in which we can talk about more sustainable tourism, where we can speak of culture as a driving force for change.

Exterior View of Es Baluard

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arro underscores the importance of giving space to local talent as well as bringing in international voices. One new initiative launching in 2025, invites five local up & coming curators to curate a 2-month exhibition in Space D of the museum. Barro also wants to develop co-productions with other institutions, including travelling exhibitions and off-site initiatives, as well as having the museum connect to larger cultural events, both for outside events or organising in-house programs in a wider scope, looking at related fields that relate to the island, such as sustainability, craft, design and even tourism. Es Baluard recently announced a new collaboration with Casa Planas to host activities linked to the Tourism Culture Observatory COSTA, which will include a program to study the eco-social transformation of tourism. This connection between culture and Mallorca is an important one for the museum to undertake, along with governmental support, to be a leader in how culture can have a viable economic impact in the island and help transform its position not only as a ‘beach destination’ but as a cultural destination. Barro notes, "I believe that the current government, the council, and the local municipality is decisively in favour of contemporary art, which makes me happy because I firmly believe that art is a tool for social transformation. Art is a tool that can lead awareness towards sustainable development. Art, and culture as a whole, can help make the context in which we can talk about more sustainable tourism, where we can speak of culture as a driving force for change. I believe that often it’s not just about seeing a piece of work when we attend an exhibition, but about being able to see the world through the work.”

From the Joan Miro Foundation to the Casal Solleric to the dozens of established and up & coming galleries across Palma, there is a tangible energy around the art community on the island. As Barro notes, “To me, at this moment, the cultural fabric of Palma and the Balearic Islands is exceptional.” This is no doubt thanks in part to the role of the Es Baluard Museum, and it will be exciting to see how that keeps developing with Barro as its new Director.

Es Baluard Museum

@esbaluardmuseu

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