Miguel Von Hafe Pérez, new Director of CGAC
On 2 November last Miguel von Hafe Pérez was appointed Director of the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Galician Government after being ratified by the board of the museum. The new director was chosen by a committee of experts who assessed the merits of the fifteen candidatures sent to the international competition to cover the vacancy.
This is the first time in the sixteen years’ existence of CGAC that its director is elected through an international competition.
The committee of experts was presided over by Manuel Borja-Villel, Director of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS), and made up of seven other professionals: Iñaki Martínez Antelo, Director of the Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo (MARCO), Simón Marchán Fiz, Professor of Aesthetics and Art Theory at the Faculty of Philosophy of the National University of Distance Education (UNED), Rosina Gómez-Baeza, Director of LABORAL, Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial in Gijón, João Fernandes, Director of the Fundação de Serralves in Porto, Chus Martínez, Chief Curator of the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Rafael Doctor, ex-Director of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (MUSAC) and Lourdes Fernández, Director of ARCO.
Miguel von Hafe Pérez, aged 42 and of Portuguese nationality, boasts a long career as a curator and a teacher of art and visual studies.
Having obtained a degree in History specialising in Art at the University of Porto, von Hafe Pérez began his professional career at the Fundação de Serralves in 1989. Apart from his substantial work as a curator he was Director of the Fundação Cupertino de Miranda in Vila Nova de Famalicão (1995-1998) and was Head of the Visual Arts and Architecture section of Porto 2001, European Capital of Culture (1999-2001). In this area he programmed over twenty exhibitions (including the project developed by Ute Meta Bauer entitled First Story – Women Building / New Narratives for the 21st Century) and co-curated the show Squatters/Ocupações alongside Bartomeu Marí, João Fernandes and Vicente Todolí, with whom he also worked on the installation of the sculptural ensemble Thirteen Laughing at Each Other by Juan Muñoz at the Jardim da Cordoaria in Porto. He has co-curated the Pontevedra Biennial on two occasions (in 1998 with Alberto González Alegre and in 2004 with David G. Torres). In 2002 von Hafe Pérez curated the Portuguese pavilion at the 25th edition of the São Paulo Biennial, introducing artist João Tabarra. From 2003 to 2005 he was a member of the curatorial table of the Centre d’Art Santa Mònica in Barcelona, where he endorsed projects by artists Graham Gussin, Maria Nordman, Helena Almeida, Runa Islam, Cabelo and Antoni Abad, among others. Between 2002 and 2009 he has worked on the web site and on the book of the project entitled www.anamnese.pt for the Fundação Ilídio Pinho, which assembles an extensive archive of the contemporary art scene in Portugal.
For more information or images please contact
CGAC. Prensa e comunicación
Rúa Ramón del Valle Inclán s/n
15704 Santiago de Compostela
981 546 632
cgac.prensa@xunta.es
www.cgac.org
