Nuria Enguita named director

The Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (IVAM) has appointed Nuria Enguita as the institution’s new director, after an international selection process.

Enguita has been brought on board to conduct a major internationalisation project at the institution whose core will focus in a detailed work on the museum collections, the importance of research and participation along with an enhancement on the public-private collaboration and the educational activities undertaken by the Valencian institution.

All this within the context of a pandemic that, according to the new director, should be used to rethink the museum’s mission; “in this context, I think the IVAM, as an institution, must strengthen its relationship with society. We must make it more porous, to let the knowledge held outside enter inside and vice versa. We must work more than ever with face-to-face and virtual programmes, on projects that allow direct access to different audiences, but also develop other relationships with a plurality of references. Because the weight of a cultural institution such as this one also has to do with what it represents, means and can evoke.”

The project ahead for Nuria Enguita
The main objectives for the new director at the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (IVAM) include establishing the museum within the global context and increasing collaboration with international institutions, as well as consolidating the centre as one of the most important amongst its peers.

For the exhibition programme, Enguita seeks to continue on giving prominence to the IVAM’s collection (one of the most important in Spain in terms of the avant-garde) including large historical exhibitions along with others on lesser known artists with a focus on works created by women and other groups not usually present in museum institutions.

The project also includes the development of a centre of archival studies that will be at the core of the museum’s activities, and whose contents will be at the disposal of different audiences. In addition, there is a plan to develop a programme of artistic, social and community outreach formed by seminars and conferences in collaboration with universities and other educational institutions, an art observatory linked to visual arts associations, workshops with artists and a parallel programme of performing arts.

Bio
Nuria Enguita (Madrid, 1967) holds a degree in History and Art Theory from the Autonomous University of Madrid. Her professional experience has focused on the live work undertaken in various modern and contemporary art institutions relating to their works and collections and the social contexts in which they are generated.

She has extensive experience in the organisation and management of cultural institutions. She was the curator at the IVAM - Institut Valencià d’Art Modern between 1991 and 1998, and she was artistic director of the Antoni Tàpies Foundation in Barcelona between 1998 and 2008. She launched and directed the Bombas Gens Centre d’Art in València (2015-2020).

Nuria has worked as a member of the teams responsible for major events on the international art scene, including the 31st Biennial in São Paulo in 2014, MDE11 in Medellin in 2011 and Manifesta 4 in Frankfurt in 2002. She has also worked as a curator in various national and international institutions, including the Reina Sofía Museum (Madrid), the Serralves Museum (Porto) and the MACBA (Barcelona).

She has an extensive editorial and advisory background. She was part of the management team on the “arteypensamiento” programme of the International University of Andalusia between 2000 and 2014, she was co-editor of the magazine Afterall between 2007 and 2014 and she has been co-editor of the magazine Concreta since 2011. She has participated in forums and conferences in Europe and Latin America on art theory, artistic management and educational activities in museum contexts.