Last Thursday, May 9, the Círculo Ecuestre held the colloquium The Public-Private Relationship in the Cultural Sector.
Following the presentation by the club's president, Enrique Lacalle, Ainhoa Grandes, president of the MACBA Foundation; Carlos Durán, founder of the SENDA gallery and co-director of LOOP; Xavier Marcé, Councilor for Culture and Creative Industries at Barcelona City Council; and Juan Manuel Sevillano, Managing Director of Stoneweg Plazas & Experiences, the group hosted an interesting discussion on the cultural sector and its relationship with public and private companies, moderated by Xavier Ayén, editor-in-chief of the Culture section of La Vanguardia.
In her opening remarks, Ainhoa Grandes defended MACBA's public-private model as an example of effective and long-standing collaboration: "MACBA is a consortium with four partners: three public administrations—the City Council, the Generalitat (Catalan Government), and the Government of Spain—and a private foundation". Along these lines, she recalled how the project was born in the context of the Olympic bid and how a group of businesspeople opted to create the museum before it even existed: “Leopoldo Rodés said: ‘Barcelona needs a museum of contemporary art. Why don't we invent a public-private model?’”
The president of the MACBA Foundation wanted to inform the public about the entity's role and its evolution to support not only the acquisition of works but also educational and social programming, becoming a more stable pillar in the face of political ups and downs: “If we want a quality culture, we have to understand that administrations have a limit”. “We can all be patrons at all levels”, she added.
Juan Manuel Sevillano, with 25 years of experience at the Dalí Foundation and Managing Director of Stoneweg Plazas & Experiences, also shared his strategic vision during the discussion held at the club. “The private sector can manage cultural infrastructure with the support of the administration. Without that support, it's impossible”.
A proponent of a model where cultural investment is not only philanthropic but also a development strategy, he announced the completion of the purchase of the Comedia building to build the Carmen Thyssen Museum: “The Thyssen is one of the first tangible examples of what the private sector can do in collaboration with the public sector to contribute to the cultural fabric and first-rate infrastructure of this city.” “It's a private investment to carry out a relevant project that makes sense, that fills a need, and that complements what we already have. And without the enthusiasm and support of Barcelona City Council, the project would not be working”, he added. “Barcelona can indeed turn culture into a tremendous vector for development and international competitiveness. But we have to repeat this experience and begin to internalize at the citizen level what that means”, he concluded.
In his speech, Carlos Durán defended the private sector's ability to transform the urban cultural landscape: "Barcelona is not a city that penalizes initiative. When you work with City Hall, they understand you and become involved".
From his dual role as gallery owner and co-director of LOOP, he explained how this video art fair came to be and how it managed to attract more than 80 cultural institutions: "We broke down absolutely insurmountable barriers. In culture, there is no competition, there is concurrence. If you manage it well, you expand the market for everyone".
Finally, he called for the consolidation of local cultural structures: "Often it's not about survival, but about consolidating genuine structures. Galleries are places. And with current taxes, many struggle to survive".
Finally, Xavier Marcé, Barcelona City Councilor for Culture and Creative Industries, firmly defended the need to recognize that culture is also an economy: “Either we grow as a cultural market or we are creating a bottleneck. The public sector isn't there to make money, it's there to spend it well, but it needs the private sector to grow”.
Based on this premise, Marcé proposed five strategic lines for Barcelona's cultural development: increasing audiences, hybridizing culture and industry, internationalizing, decentralizing, and transforming large venues. He emphasized the following: “Culture has a foundational aspect, a business aspect, and a conflict aspect. But without collaboration, development is not possible”. He concluded by warning that the economic context demands urgent changes: “Cultural budgets are going to suffer. We need fiscal imagination, alliances, and combining the best of the continental model with the agility of the Anglo-Saxon world”.
The discussion concluded on a constructive and consensual note, exemplified by the words of moderator Xavier Ayén, who praised the collaborative spirit between government agencies and private stakeholders: "What's happening here is very unusual: the private sector is lavishing praise on the public sector. That speaks to a mature and visionary institutional culture".