The Foundation
The Fundación Museo Reina Sofía was founded in 2012 with a three-fold objective: to promote a network of partnerships – including museums and art centres, universities, study centres and other places in which thought is generated; to encourage greater participation by society in the Museum; and to modernise the Museum's management mechanisms , furthering the extent of self-financing.
Taking into account that ours is an era heavily marked by the economic crisis, a period of profound changes that have shaken even our deepest certainties, the formulation of models that will allow us to respond to today's challenges cannot be based on the parameters of a static world. What is needed instead is the mobilisation of intellectual and imaginative resources, and the pooling of a multitude of different intentions.
Institutions currently face two main challenges: how to respond to today's context of knowledge production and dissemination in the international sphere and how to acquire flexible and sustainable structures appropriate to the new global economy. Traditionally, museums have been motivated by the logic of conservation and by the perceived need to reaffirm identities conceived within the boundaries of a defined territory. Their institutional models and their operating structures reflect this mission and framework of action. At this point in time, however, culture is derived from a flow of ideas, values and affective factors that defy such models.
Reconceptualising the museum thus involves leaving behind the conventional, exclusivist notion of culture and setting up a new field of operations: communality. This term alludes to a myriad of singularities that do not fit into independent structures but rather are connected to one another by a network-type structure. In contrast with the self-enclosed museum, the idea is to develop an open fabric of institutions, groups and agents of various types that, being situated in and involved with the world, are in a position to share and circulate objects, knowledge and stories, with the awareness that, in today's world, culture is generated thanks to the work of this common fabric.
Museo Reina Sofía already operates in these terms to a large degree. The extent of its collaboration with institutions and collectives all over the world has increased exponentially in recent years and the Museum participates – actively and with its own, unique voice – in the most important contemporary culture forums.
The Foundation was created in response to the need to give the Museum a suitable structure and appropriate tools for turning this set of disperse collaborations and interventions into the framework of a new way of understanding the museum institution, an understanding more fitting with the demands and aspirations of today's society. The Foundation intends to serve as a platform from which to implement new action protocols, move towards a shared notion of material and immaterial heritage, preserve and activate memory beyond the dynamics of centre vs. periphery, and highlight the usefulness of poetic aptitudes and critical judgement as mechanisms for interpreting the world.
Director
Carolina González Castro
Coordinator
África RuIz Pino
Intern
Reynier Polanco Somohano
Contact information
info@fundacionmuseoreinasofia.es
Santa Isabel, 52
28012 Madrid
T. 91 774 10 64
Aims
The Fundación Museo Reina Sofía represents a broad, coherent and sustainable structure designed to promote and strengthen the project Red Museos del Sur.
The programs undertaken by the Foundation, all of which revolve around the aforementioned project, will give priority to the following areas of action:
- To create a shared heritage that views the transfer, donation, purchase and deposit of artworks to all be valid ways to move towards a common acquisition policy.
- To heighten the circulation of programs and exhibitions.
- To promote activities designed in a joint manner.
- To create a common archive; in this area, the work performed by the network Conceptualismos del Sur is of great value.
- To develop art research and creation programs in close relation with training programs, in collaboration with universities and academic communities.
- To contribute to reflection and debate and to propose new spaces for visibility.
- To create a digital platform through which the network and all of its components can increase their capacity to foment inquiry and knowledge dissemination. This platform is deemed a great archive of archives which makes it possible to connect the different narrations arising in relation to culture and modern and contemporary art.
Members
Ex-Officio Trustees
Ministry of Culture
Ernest Urtasun Domènech
Secretary of Culture
Ministry of Culture
Jordi Martí Grau
Deputy Secretary of Culture
Ministry of Culture
María del Carmen Páez Soria
President of the Board of Trustees of Fundación Museo Reina Sofía
President of the Royal Board of Trustees of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
Ángeles González-Sinde Reig
Deputy vice-president of Fundación Museo Reina Sofía
Director of Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
Manuel Segade Lodeiro
Trustees
Alberto Ferreiro Aparicio
Silvia Gold Turjanski
Aníbal Jozami
María Amalia León de Jorge
Pilar Lladó Arburúa – International Council President
Helga Müller de Alvear
José Lladó Fernández-Urrutia
Helga Müller de Alvear
Guillermo Penso Blanco
Jorge M. Pérez
Juan Antonio Pérez Simón
Vicente Quilis Moscardó
Betty Rudman
Hugo Sigman Pomerantz
Ricardo Steinbruch
Susana Steinbruch
Juan Carlos Verme - Vicepresident of the Board of Trustees
Mercedes Vilardell March
Honorary Trustees
Manuel Borja-Villel
Guillermo de la Dehesa
Soledad Lorenzo
Secretary
Carolina González Castro
Managing Director
International Council
Fernando Arriola
Julia Borja Papini
Sergio Butinof
Mario Cáder-Frech
Gabriel Calparsoro
Francisco Cantos Baquedano
Tanya Capriles López
Natalia Cobo de Bulgheroni
Alberto Cruz Acosta
María Antonia Escapa García
Víctor Levy
José Antonio Llorente Herrero
Diana López de Sifontes
Juan Carlos Maldonado
Catalina Márquez Zamarrón
Juan Mulder Panas
Paloma O’Shea Artíñano
Hilda Paliza de Gosselin
Paz Quijano Barroso
Marga Sánchez
Teresa Sapey
Teresa Táboas
Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza