Manuel Segade, director of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, is interviewed as part of a series for International Museum Day. He discusses the museum's role as a space historically tied to critique, conflict, and negotiation with tradition, emphasizing the need to preserve the world's complexity. Segade advocates for institutions that can speak on multiple levels, from introductory lectures to para-academic research, and stresses transforming internal structures toward more horizontal and interdependent models.
This interview matters because it offers a leading museum director's perspective on key contemporary challenges: balancing accessibility with depth, responding to representation demands, and navigating economic constraints. Segade's vision of the museum as a living ecosystem whose critical capacity depends on care and diverse languages of exhibition reflects broader debates about the future of public art institutions in Latin America and beyond.