The National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC) presented on Monday the 2026 season, which will be the last in conventional terms, according to director Pepe Serra. From 2027, the museum must partially close to focus on the expansion of the center, which will gain space in the Victoria Eugenia pavilion, which should be ready at the end of 2029. This closure will affect the modern and contemporary art rooms, on the first floor; while those dedicated to the Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance will remain open as much as possible. There will also be no temporary exhibitions in 2028 and 2029 because all efforts are focused on the new project, which will be presented by the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, after the Christmas holidays.
During a meeting with the media that lasted almost two hours at the MNAC library, Pepe Serra recounted everything he had kept silent in recent months. “We are coming out of a long period of involuntary silence,” he admitted. Since last May, when Sijena’s conviction fell, the museum staff has been very focused on everything that this entails, he defended. But he was also calm on the issue, recognizing that they have a duty to enforce a sentence, but also to protect art, and so he summed up: we have a problem. Personally, he assures us that “his skin has become very thick”.
Subsequently, the director focused on providing the most relevant data on the expansion, while waiting to be able to make public the project, which was delayed due to allegations. To concentrate on these works, the MNAC, awaiting growth for years, will decree a moratorium from January 1, by which its mission is temporarily suspended, in order to expand the museum. “Enlargement is on track, we have been talking with everyone for two years,” he said, “to put an end to a cultural anomaly that no other country in Europe has.” It’s about not representing the art of the last century. The director is convinced that the new museum will be “a visual experience and not a reading experience which must make the works speak”. The story will be defined in the coming months.
The mission of the MNAC, inaugurated in 1934, was interrupted by the civil war, which dispersed its funds and ended up keeping them in two different museums, at the National Palace and at the Ciutadella. It was only in 2005, with Pasqual Maragall in the Catalan government, that the two sections met, recalled Pepe Serra, defending that the mission of the center, which cannot be accomplished without expansion, is to represent all Catalan art up to the present day. Although the building is gigantic, measuring 50,000 square meters, only about 10,000 meters are dedicated to the exhibition.
With the annexed property, it will reach 19,400 square meters, double the space, and a disused heritage building will also be reopened, underlined Pepe Serra in reference to the Pavilion. Another main goal is to make it more accessible, he insisted. To do this, the main entrance will be on the side facade of the pavilion, facing the CaixaForum, with the ornamental fountain on one side and the Mies van der Rohe pavilion on the other. In addition, there will be two connections between the new building and the National Palace, one underground to facilitate the circulation of works, and the other aerial for visitors. The environment will take on much more importance.
With a budget of 122.3 million euros, the call for tenders for the works, carried out by the Harquitectes studio with the Swiss Christ & Gantenbein, is scheduled between the third and fourth quarter of 2027. During this period of partial closure, the MNAC will seek the greatest transparency, sending continuous documentation, assured Pepe Serra. Indeed, a new website will be launched, which will contain a lot of information. For Pepe Serra, this is “a fundamental expansion that will have international resonance”. To begin with, during the closure, a major transfer is planned to Tokyo, where we can admire Catalan art.
The last exhibitions before the new stage
The program for 2026 foresees four major exhibitions that meet the requirements of a national museum such as “searching for what has not been done”, he explained, in addition to searching for forgotten stories and proposing collaborative work with other institutions. “It will be an important season and the last as usual,” said Pepe Serra.
From March 19 to June 29 you can see it Sant Pere de Rodes and the master of Cabestany, the construction of a mytha tribute to the Catalan Romanesque sculptor, and his masterpiece, the lost portal of Sant Pere de Rodes, in Port de la Selva (1160-1170). An exhibition that was made possible thanks to the purchase of some early sculptures, which led to the acquisition of others by the same author, to the point that they made it possible to create a large exhibition that explores and interprets the monastic complex of Empordà.
The exhibition will also focus on Romanesque heritage, although reinterpreted from the present. The reverse journeyby Ona Balló. It is planned for autumn and will invite you to discover the light and listen to the soundscapes that pass through the churches of Santa Maria d’Àneu today; Sant Pere del Burgal, Sant Pere and Sant Pau d’Esterri de Cardós; Santa Maria de Ginestarre; Santa Maria de Taülls and Santa Eulàlia d’Estaon. Pepe Serra was enthusiastic: “it will be an extraordinarily surprising project, it will change our outlook.”
Jujol, from Perejaume It represents the view of another contemporary artist on this cult architect, who was “much more than a collaborator of Antoni Gaudí”, underlined Pepe Serra. The exhibition was not developed from genres or chronologies, but from the reflection of Perejaume (Sant Pol de Mar, 1957), responsible for the history of this vast exhibition, made possible thanks to the legacy of Jujol’s son and the collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art of Tarragona and the Official College of Architects of Catalonia (COAC).
The year will start with Recovered from the enemy. The Francoist depots of the MNAC, visible between February 19 and June 29. A review of the history of the museum and its collections, based on the works deposited by the SDPAN, National Heritage Defense Service, 146 pieces which show a heterogeneous group of diverse origins. A sample of the new political order after the civil war, which also had an impact on the artistic and heritage domain. The visit can be completed by the exhibition Acquisition of Sim, drawing and warwith fifty drawings which bear witness to the absurdity of this war and of all wars.
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