Elvira Dyangani Ose, director of MACBA, will step down at the start of April, forward of her contract’s authentic expiration date in late July. The transfer concludes a tense dialogue with the MACBA Consortium, which had dominated that her appointment as director of the forthcoming Abu Dhabi Public Artwork Biennial conflicted along with her duties on the Barcelona museum.
Dyangani Ose succeeded Ferran Barenblit as director in 2021, changing into the primary lady and the primary individual of coloration to guide the up to date artwork establishment. Born in Córdoba in 1974 to a household from Equatorial Guinea, she skilled as an artwork historian on the Autonomous College of Barcelona and Cornell College in New York.
She held tenures on the Atlantic Middle of Fashionable Artwork in Las Palmas (CAAM) and the Andalusian Middle of Modern Artwork (CAAC) earlier than becoming a member of the Tate Fashionable in 2011, the place she labored with the African Acquisitions Committee. Her departure from MACBA coincides with the museum’s thirtieth anniversary and the closing of the exhibition “Projecting a Black Planet: The Artwork and Tradition of Pan-Africa,” which she curated. She is going to assume her new position in Abu Dhabi in October.
In response to El País, Dyangani Ose despatched a letter on Monday to the MACBA employees informing them of her early resignation and the occasions that led to it. She reportedly advised the governing physique that she wouldn’t take part within the public seek for the museum’s subsequent creative director, whereas asserting her job provide on the Abu Dhabi Artwork Biennial. Dyangani Ose stated she meant to finish her time period and requested to steadiness each duties, a request that was reportedly denied.
Chatting with MACBA employees, Dyangani Ose cited a “dedication to transparency concerning the selections made in latest months and following yesterday’s sudden article”—a reference to a report within the Spanish-language publication La Vanguardia asserting the Consortium’s resolution.
She acknowledged that “it has been an honor and an excellent accountability to guide the MACBA, though not all the time simple,” and thanked the roughly 100-person museum crew, in addition to everybody who had “made it attainable to develop a challenge dedicated to artwork, crucial considering, and up to date points.”
ARTnews has contacted MACBA for remark.
