Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro, named artistic director of the University of Navarra Museum (MUN)

Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro has been appointed the new artistic director of the Museu Universitat de Navarra (MUN), assuming this position together with Teresa Lasheras, artistic director of performing arts and music. Pérez-Barreiro, who already collaborated with the MUN as an associate professor of the Master of Curator Studies, will contribute his extensive experience in the art sector to enhance the connection between the museum and the university, as well as to strengthen mediation with the public and promote Ibero-American art.

Born in A Coruña in 1970 and trained in Art History at the universities of Aberdeen and Essex, Pérez-Barreiro has more than 30 years of professional experience as a curator, cultural manager, teacher and researcher. His career includes notable contributions as director and curator of the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection, director of visual arts at the Americas Society in New York, and founding curator of the Essex Collection of Art From Latin American Art at the University of Essex. He has also been curator of Ibero-American art at the Blanton Museum of Art and project coordinator at the Casa de América in Madrid.

Among his most relevant contributions, it is worth highlighting his collaboration with Manuel Borja-Villel in the exhibition 'La invenció concreta' at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, recognized as the best exhibition by the Institute of Contemporary Art in Madrid in 2013.

Pérez-Barreiro emphasized that curation is "a job similar to translation" , since art has codes and references that are not always familiar to all viewers. His strategy includes "creating the conditions so that communication can flow between the work and the viewer" . In addition, he has directed renowned exhibitions such as 'Radical Geometry' at the Royal Academy of Arts in London and 'The Geometry of Hope: Latin American Abstract Art' at the Blanton Museum of Art, which won the prize for the best thematic exhibition of the year by the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) of the United States.

Pérez-Barreiro has expressed his enthusiasm for the new challenge, stating that "all institutional work is a collective work" and that his task will be "to enhance human talent and seek a common mission at the service of the community". In this sense, the MUN will celebrate its tenth anniversary in 2025, and Pérez-Barreiro intends to build on the successes achieved, emphasizing the dialogue between the museum and the university, mediation with the public and the promotion of the context iberoamerican

Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro i Teresa Lasheras. © MUN