Agustín Pérez Rubio, New Director of MUSAC Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León
Avenida de los Reyes Leoneses, 24
24008 León, SPAIN
(T) +34 987 09 00 00
musac [at] musac.es
Agustín Pérez Rubio has been appointed Director of MUSAC, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León by the Cultural Council of the Government of the autonomous region of Castilla y León, Spain, following an open international competition. Pérez Rubio has been the Acting Director of MUSAC since February 2009 and its Chief Curator since 2003, prior to the inauguration of the museum in 2005. Pérez Rubio succeeds Rafael Doctor, who had led MUSAC since its opening.
The Selection Committee, assigned to recommend the new director from among the candidates and formed by José Guirao (Director of Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain), Jaime Morate (Curator and Technical Coordinator, Fundación Siglo, Valladolid, Spain), Emilio Navarro (Director of CAB, Burgos, Spain), Beatrix Ruf (Director Kunsthalle Zürich, Switzerland) and Octavio Zaya (Independent Curator), voted unanimously to appoint Pérez Rubio. The museum’s workers and the art community at large have also responded enthusiastically to the nomination.
The appointment of Pérez Rubio emphasises MUSAC’s reputation as an up-to-date, challenging, and socially committed museum, devoted to the art and artists of the present. Pérez Rubio represents not only continuity in the museum’s programs and exhibitions but also growth. It signals a major commitment to ideas and theoretical research, dynamic education programs and cultural action, and a continuous collaboration with other local and international institutions, experimental projects, and artists.
Pérez Rubio says that he “feels deeply honoured to be able to guide this ongoing project as it matures, helping to strengthen and develop its internal and external structures.” He wants the museum to be “a reference point for social, educational, and intellectual work, offering to its diverse audiences an engaging reflection on the artistic and social reality of this time of crisis, and to serve the local audiences as a tool in connection with the critical role that the museum performs.” He hopes “to make sure that the different agents making up the social fabric feel themselves reflected, providing means for the expression of their own opinions and criticisms through contemporary art”. Also among his aims is “to dymamize the local and regional artistic scene”.
AGUSTÍN PÉREZ RUBIO
Agustín Pérez Rubio has been Chief Curator of MUSAC since the inauguration of the museum in 2004, and has recently taken up the position of Acting Director at MUSAC. He has played a decisive role in shaping the trajectory and Collection of the museum, and in the development of MUSAC into an internationally acclaimed institution. His knowledge of contemporary art of the last decades as well as his dedication and commitment to emerging artists will be extremely relevant to his new position at MUSAC, as will his interests and ideas concerning the role and responsibilities of museums today, as social agents through Contemporary Art. Although based in Spain, Pérez Rubio has an extensive network of relationships with international art institutions, curators, artists, and scholars.
Born in Valencia in 1972, Pérez Rubio received his degree in Art History from the University of Valencia. He was the general coordinator of La Gallera, an exhibition space of the Comunitat Valenciana, from 1998 to 2002, and director of the Cultural Conferences on the Image for the Comunidad de Madrid from 2002 to 2004. He has curated important exhibitions, including Bad Boys, devoted to Spanish video artists, which took place in the context of the 50th Venice Biennale; Cruising Danubio (curated with Zsolt Petrany), for the Communidad de Madrid; and Tobias Rehberger at the Palacio de Cristal of the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid. But Pérez Rubio has developed his most relevant curatorial work at MUSAC, including acclaimed monographic exhibitions devoted to the works of artists such as Dora Garcia, Muntean & Rosemblum, Julie Mehretu, Sejima + Nishizawa/SANAA, Pierre Huyghe, Dave Muller, Ana Laura Aláez, Hedi Slimane, Terence Koh, and Ugo Rondinone. He has also curated shows of the MUSAC Collection in international institutions such as Santralistambul (Istambul) and Mucsarnok (Budapest) He has authored over a dozen art books and publications and contributed to various art journals and magazines, including NU. The Nordic Art Review (Sweden), Art Journal (Philadelhia), Tema Celeste (Milan), Le Journal des Arts (Paris), The Art Newspaper (London), and Spanish art publications such as Atlántica, Arte y Parte, Arco Noticias and Kalias. He has also been invited to numerous educational institutions, universities, and museums to give lectures about contemporary art, Art Collecting and Art Theory.
MUSAC, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y Léon
Opening hours:
Tue-Fri 10 a.m. – 3 p.m / 5 p.m – 8 p.m.
Sat, Sun 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. /5 p.m – 9 p.m
Mon closed
Press Contact:
Izaskun Sebastián / Paula Álvarez
Phone: + 34 987091103
e-mail: prensa@musac.es
