Bartomeu Mari nominated as new director of National Museum of Contemporary Art

Bartomeu Mari nominated as new director of National Museum of Contemporary Art. December. 03, 2015 09:12. sohn@donga.com.

The New National Museum of Contemporary Art, which was without a director for over one year, will have Bartomeu Mari (49, photo), former chairman of the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art, assume the position of director. Mari has been nominated on Wednesday.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has announced that Mari will take office on Dec. 14. He is the first foreign director in the 42 years of history of the national museum. Mari`s term will be three years.

Mari majored in Philosophy at the University of Barcelona, Spain. He worked as the director of the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in the Netherlands from 1996 to 2001 and also as the curator at the Spanish Pavilion for the Venice Biennale in Italy. He became the director at the Barcelona Museum of the Contemporary Art in 2008 and resigned this March. While Mari was at the Barcelona museum, he gave an order to remove a caricature of a former Spanish king and both the artist and the curator refused to do so. They have an argument and Mari announced the cancellation of the entire exhibition and later reversed the decision, inviting public criticism. The controversy continued and caused three directors from the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art to resign during the meeting last month stating, "the chairman has betrayed the morals of the art world."

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism explained their reasoning, saying: "During the interview Mari explained his role in the Barcelona museum case, `I took all the responsibilities and resigned in order to protect the museum,` and we have decided that he is qualified."

However, the controversy is likely to continue for awhile, as 800 Korean artists who are against the nomination of Mari said Wednesday that they would take a collective action. They submitted a statement last month that said, "We are concerned about the nomination of Mari as the new director when he is being criticized by the international art world due to the exhibition censorship issue."