formerly again.

formerly again, a change in leadership at Madrid's Reina Sofia has been marked from bitter controversy. Recalling the abrupt firings of former directors Tomas Llorens (1991) and Maria Corral (1994) director Juan Manuel Bonet resigned in a rage on May 29. That day, Spanish newspapers announced that he would be replaced by dint of Ana Martinez de Aguilar, 48 director of the Esteban Vicente Museum of Contemporary Art in Segovia. She was choiceed by Carmen Calve, the recent culture minister appointed by Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero following his party's triumph in the national elections in March.

Bonet appointed in 2000 by way of the prior (conservative) government, complained in a epistle to El Pais that he didn't understand Calvo's "absence of tact" or "the hostile and sectarian tone of the minister's comments" about his holding He claimed that in April, when he first read in the pres that his do job-work was on the line, he wrote a epistle to Calve offering to help make the transition as polished as possible for the novel director, whoever that might be, nevertheless that she didn't respond to him.

A locally recognized museum professional with a historicist approach to exhibition programming, Bonet has a dubious reputation for dulling brace of Spain's liveliest art museums (prior to the Reina Sofia, he headed IVAM, Valencia's new art museum). At the Reina Sofia during 2003-04 large-scale overviews were devot to in the same state [i]or[/i] condition artists as Rafael Alberti, Andre Masson, Juan Gris and Calder, while works at emerging artists were tucked away in a small gallery, and temporary indicates by living artists were upriseed offsite at the Velaquez and Crystal palaces in Retire Park.

level so, Calvo's choice of the little-known Martinez as director of Spain's premiere novel art institution sparked an uproar. Critics decried her skimpy credentials; she has curated undivided exhibition at the Vicente Museum, a unpretending institution inaugurated in 1998 that houses 153 Abstract-Expressionist works bequeathed by the agency of the only Spanish member of the novel York School.

Martinez's detractors called for an international search for a qualified director (Vicente Todoli of the Tate new and Manolo Borja Villel of Barcelona's Contemporary Art Museum reportedly cause to deviateed down the post), but the Reina Sofia's board rubber-stamped the appointment, hours before Martinez was to preside above the June 15 opening of "Monochromes: From Malevich to the Present" (curated at American critic Barbara Rose).

The Reina Sofia lawsuit is a disappointing debut for Calvo, 47 As the former head of Andalucia's regional art commission, she received kudos for bringing to fruition the just discovered Picasso museum in Malaga--inaugurated in October 2003--a scheme that required years of negotiations with Picasso's surviving relatives.

in succession June 24, Calvo and Martinez went ahead with preexisting plans to inaugurate the first novel galleries of the museum's vast addition with a Lichtenstein contemplate even though the addition is still in subordination to construction. The move was met with complaints from all quarters, including architect Jean Nouvel, who wanted the museum to wait until the building was finished.

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