Author: Juan A. Esteban
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That which returns
In recent years we have seen something that seemed unthinkable a generation ago: objects that return. In 2021, France returned to Benin twenty-six works from the royal treasure of Abomey, taken as spoils in 1892. In 2022, Germany signed the transfer to Nigeria of the one thousand one hundred and thirty Benin Bronzes identified in its public museums,…
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Which original must be returned: the restoration of the Sistine Chapel
When the Vatican Museums finished the cleaning of the Sistine Chapel frescoes in 1994, fourteen years after it began, the world encountered a Michelangelo it did not expect. Beneath centuries of candle soot, brazier smoke, animal glue, and repainting from previous restorations, an explosion of colours appeared: pinks, greens…
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Twenty-seven seconds
There is a figure that circulates through museum outreach texts with the authority of the obvious: the average visitor looks at the Mona Lisa for fifteen seconds. It is repeated in articles, talks and guides, always to say the same thing, that we no longer know how to look, that contemplation is dead, that we pass before works as before…
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Architecture is not neutral
El debate sobre soberanía tecnológica suele plantearse mal. Se presenta como elegir entre modelos de inteligencia artificial «europeos» o los americanos y chinos. Esa es la superficie. La pregunta de fondo es otra: quién controla la pila completa sobre la que todo lo demás se apoya. No solo los modelos, sino los chips, los centros…
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One criticises what one cares for
I have just concluded a series of nine texts on art and society. I wrote them over the course of several weeks, each on a different subject—impact, good conscience, heritage, labour, territory, funding, access, recognition, the digital—but upon viewing them together, I see that they all made the same…
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The access promised by the screen
When a cultural institution uploads its collection to the internet, it makes a gesture that seems like justice: what previously required travelling, paying, knowing that it existed, is now a click away for anyone. I work with the digital and I believe in a large part of that promise. But the data tell a less rounded story than…
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How a reputation is manufactured
We tend to think of recognition as a natural consequence: talent exists, sooner or later it is noticed, and recognition arrives behind it like someone picking up something that was already there. It is a comforting story and almost always false. Recognition is not picked up: it is manufactured through concrete devices that one must know, especially if…
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The hand that funds
There is a question that cultural organisations avoid asking ourselves aloud, perhaps because the answer is uncomfortable: to what extent is what we can say and do conditioned by those who fund us? I pose this from within, not as an accusation. I direct a foundation with a constrained budget, dependent on grants and support, and I know that this matter...
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Who feels invited
The entire conversation regarding art and society occupies the foundation I direct, yet it tends to look in only one direction: who produces, who finances, who consecrates, who mediates. The other side is missing, and it is the most uncomfortable: who receives, who feels invited, and above all, who does not. The audience of the...
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Art that raises the rent
The scene repeats in many cities and is almost invariably recounted in the same manner, as a positive development. A neglected neighbourhood, characterised by vacant premises and low rents, begins to attract artists' studios, small galleries, a festival, and a café with character. The neighbourhood 'revives'. Cultural supplements celebrate the transformation. And a few years later, the...