José Luis de Vicente: “Barcelona deserves more than a municipal Design Museum”
Two and a half years after his arrival, José Luis de Vicente (Granada, 1973) leaves the direction of the Museu del Disseny to, with absolute freedom, develop personal ideas and projects through FAST – a platform created together with the architect and researcher Eva Franch with whom he is currently participating in the Venice Architecture Biennale – and in June he will travel to New York to teach classes at Columbia University.
Limitations Does that mean I'm leaving angry, frustrated? No, not at all.In a field where directors tend to run multiple terms, it's unusual for someone to leave of their own volition. Is he leaving because he can't work, is he disenchanted, or has he found something better?
Throughout my career, I've been involved in very different structures and contexts, from large festivals to small independent initiatives. I've worked in cultural institutions in Barcelona and abroad, always trying to see what I could contribute to those spaces and what those spaces allowed me to explore the things that interested me. In these last two years, I've been able to develop a program that I'm incredibly happy with. But in parallel, other opportunities and possibilities have appeared. And when they arise, you have to choose.
And he chooses to leave.
I believe, and I hope this doesn't sound selfish, that I now have the opportunity to explore certain ideas, projects, and ways of doing things that wouldn't be possible within the extremely complex structure of the DHUB. Does that mean I'm leaving angry, frustrated? No, not at all.
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What prevented him from carrying them out?
The DHUB is made up of the Design Museum, a municipal museum, embedded in a much larger space: the Design Hub, which has its own program and its own reality, and is attached to the Creative Industries Directorate. In other words, my scope of work wasn't solely and exclusively that of the collections, the activities linked to them, or heritage conservation. When I was chosen to direct the museum, despite not exactly having the profile of a heritage museum director, it was clear that there was a desire for these two dimensions to intersect, for the projects to somehow speak on the same wavelength. But I'm not the director of the Design Hub. There is a director [Mireia Escobar], and I contribute to the programming with aligned projects, although I wasn't the only one who could determine it, nor could I define priorities other than those determined by the Icub, the Creative Industries Directorate, etc. This ultimately left me with a limited playing field, a small margin. I could have said, "Okay, I'll stay and do what I can." But I believe I have a greater chance of contributing, of launching initiatives, of reaching further, by being active in a thousand places, as I've always done, than by being confined to this context.
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And you didn't know that before accepting the position?
There's one thing I don't want to sound like a criticism, because it isn't, but it is a reality. I entered a municipal term [with Ada Colau as mayor], and six months later, there was a change in government with the arrival of Collboni. The new configuration didn't have to take on everything that was on the table. For example, the transition of the center as a municipal museum to another legal form, because due to its possibilities, the scale of its headquarters, the importance of design as a community in Barcelona, etc., it would require a potentially stronger institution. The formula of a consortium or a foundation would strengthen its foundations and allow for many more tools. Working for a municipal museum is working for the structure to which it is attached, in this case the Icub. And the Icub has the power to decide that any strategic project is attached to that space. That's the way it is. I think Barcelona deserves more than a municipal museum, legally speaking. A municipal museum is something very worthy, important, and with a mission. But an institution that operates on equal or similar terms to similar international institutions is a dream.
José Luis de Vicente
Miquel Gonzalez/ShootingWith you, a possibility of change that had been exciting for Barcelona also goes.
I hope the seeds we've planted continue to grow, because the center is very different from when I arrived two years ago. It's physically different; the center has expanded with new facilities and also in terms of visitor numbers. November 2024 was the month with the most visitors in the DHUB's history, and the L'Oceà Parla and Vinçon/Ikea exhibitions. 100 IKEA objects we would have liked to have in Vinçon were the most visited exhibitions of our own productions in the center's history. I believe it's already headed in a certain direction.
Opportunities I have a greater opportunity to contribute, to launch initiatives, to reach further, being outside.”These days, he's participating in the Venice Biennale's general exhibition with The Storm: Architectures of Vernacular Geoengineering, alongside Eva Franch. Could he have done this if he were still director of the Museu del Disseny? Is it compatible?
It's a film about the rocketry of the Ebro Delta, and in terms of compatibility, it's not very different from writing a creative work, just as it would have been writing a book or contributing to the press. It's the classic project done in one's free time; there wouldn't have been a problem. Another thing I'm doing in Venice is curating, along with Francesca Bria, the Archipelago Futures Symposium organized by the New European Bauhaus, with whom I've been collaborating for some time.
Read also'Matter Matters,' the ambitious presentation of the collection by Olga Subirós, raised a storm of controversy. Even the most hardline conservative camp hailed its release as a victory.
I'm absolutely convinced and happy about the project, which has had an exceptional reception. The worst thing that can happen to a project is to go unnoticed. We're treating something absolutely natural and normal as a kind of big scandal-drama: the cultural space is a place of friction between different positions, and that's not a problem but the very reason for the space's existence. That said, the design community has embraced it with absolute unanimity, and you only have to look at what happened on opening day—a huge celebration unlike any other in these two years. I'm incredibly proud.
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