The Malaga Contemporary Art Centre (CAC Málaga) is about to cease to exist as a museum space, at least for one season. The City Council will recover the concession, in force for 21 years, during which it has accumulated so many controversies, almost always related to the management of Fernando Francés and his crossed interests, as well as highly publicized visits: Marina Abramovic, Anish Kapoor, Julian Opie or Julian Schnabel have passed through here, and samples of Ai Weiei, Maurizio Cattelan, Ron Mueck or Louise Bourgeois have been seen. The management of Francés, paid for with tens of millions of euros of public money, leaves lights and shadows, and his definitive departure, a void. Today, little is known about what will happen to the center: the Councilor for Culture has stated that direct management will be assumed, but it is not clear for what or with what project.
The uncertainty keeps its 27 workers in suspense, who will be on the streets on September 18 without anyone, for the moment, assuming subrogation in their contracts. The mayor, Francisco de la Torre, went all the way by thanking them for the services provided and promising them that they would be considered favorably in possible calls for tenders. Something not enough for them, since this Friday they will begin a calendar of mobilizations.
Meanwhile, the Centre has been slowly withering away for months, the victim of a cold war between the Culture sector, which has ignored a space it had cherished for years, and the concessionaire, who lost interest when he realised he would not renew the concession. Although he was no longer running the Centre, Francés’ hand continued to guide the journey during the last stage.
“We are left in the dark,” laments Mihail Plesanu, a workers’ representative who has worked here for 16 years. Two colleagues have been here for 21 years, since the center opened, and many have been here for more than ten years. They want the municipality to take charge of them, as is the case when a company takes over a service concession that another leaves behind.
Miguel Montenegro, general secretary of the CGT Andalucía, believes that article 44 of the Workers’ Statute should be applied, which, in the case of “business succession”, provides that the change of ownership of a workplace does not extinguish the employment relationship, so that the “new entrepreneur” assumes the obligations of the previous one.
Works for 15 months
The council is not up to the task, as has been said in the two meetings held so far. According to him, it is not a replacement in the company that manages the service but rather a return to the public. “They want to get rid of it, but the space continues to exist,” stresses Montenegro, who believes that the courts would agree with them by following the line of recent European jurisprudence.
The concessionaire (Gestión Cultural y Comunicación, SL) has given each of them a “subrogation letter” in which it states that on the 18th they will be released and that there should be a “clear process of subrogation of personnel due to the succession of the company” “which does not affect the rights of the workers.
The city council, which did not respond to questions from this media, also announced to the Cultural Directorate its intention to begin work that would last at least 15 months. Other sources reduce the duration to two months. The building, which has been a museum for two decades, is the old wholesale market, declared a cultural interest asset, which implies guardianship on the part of the Junta de Andalucía that could delay any procedure.
This uncertainty has led Con Málaga to demand transparency. “A possible closure of the CAC Málaga would be a devastating blow to local culture,” says Nicolás Sguiglia, a city councilor from the left-wing coalition. They have also received support from workers at other cultural institutions such as the Picasso Museum, whose works committee called it “regrettable” that the mayor “does not value the workers in the sector” who “have contributed with their excellent work and in a significant way to the cultural development of our city.”
Famous artists and controversial management
During these two decades, the Centre has received more than seven million visitors and has managed to place itself on the narrow map of Spanish contemporary art thanks to the exhibitions of leading avant-garde artists, capable of ensuring media coverage on their own. This has happened especially in its middle years.
Long queues were seen here when, in 2014, Marina Abramovic came to present an anthology including an interactive installation to experience a “shift in consciousness”. It also hosted the exhibition Circle of animals, by Ai Weiwei, unpublished in Spain, or My red homeland, by Anish Kapoor, in addition to programming impactful exhibitions by more occasional visual artists, such as Mark Ryden, Julian Opie or Alex Katz.
The CAC has also nurtured a juicy symbiosis with artists linked to urban art, such as Obey, D’Face or Invader. This is precisely the reason for one of the many controversies in which its main promoter, Fernando Francés, has been involved. The cultural leader, of Cantabrian origin, was tried for the damage caused by the adhesive mosaics of the French artist Invader on the facades of several buildings in the Historic Centre, including the Episcopal Palace, on which he placed an eight-bit dancer. He has always maintained that he did not know what Invader would do, even though it was the Centre that had invited him to Malaga. He was acquitted in the first instance of the crime against property, but the prosecutor appealed. The final decision is expected this month.
Francés exclusively represented some of the artists he later brought to the CAC, financed by municipal public funds. Some participated in an intervention that served to illustrate the neighborhood’s facades at a time of profound transformation of the neighborhood.
The old Ensanche (natural extension of the Centre) was pedestrianised and renamed Soho, completing a movement that caused prices to skyrocket. The murals of Obey, D’Face, Boamistura or ROA were the visual hallmark of the transition to what is called the “Arts Quarter”, despite the absence of local initiatives in the process. This intervention (MAUS: Málaga Arte Urbano Soho) was accompanied for two years by a music festival organised by the Francés couple. Everything was paid for with European funds.
In statements to this media, Francés defends his management by emphasizing the quality of the programming and its truly municipal character, unlike franchises such as those of the Pompidou or the Russian Museum Collection. “I suppose that the CAC will continue to be a museum. “Deleting the only one recognized by the Council would be like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.”
Last award in 2019
Over time, the buzz around his double game (special interest in certain artists and manager of a center financed with public funds) grew. In 2018, the municipal group Málaga Ahora presented a report that concluded that Francés had “systematically benefited” from suppliers, galleries and artists in his personal environment or even from companies he owned, and denounced the laxity in justifying the commitments he had made with the group. concession.
He obtained the last renewal in 2019, even though his company presented the second worst project of all those in the running, as reported by this media outlet. The best one lost (51.50 points) because it had not bid lower and it was eleven euros more expensive than Frances’s (39.40 points). Eleven euros tipped the balance of a 16 million contract (including annual extension) in favor of a much lower valued project. The current Councilor for Culture, Mariana Pineda, represented another of the candidate companies at the time, according to the minutes. There were appeals, which came to nothing, and the city council closed ranks with the French.
The latter, well connected to Elías Bendodo and his entourage, had already been called to the first government of Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, who had appointed him Secretary General of Cultural Innovation and Museums. He entered with a new impetus, announcing that he would transfer his model to regional cultural management, which he considered stagnant. This did not last long: after six months in which he dismissed some declared opponents, such as Rafael Doctor (former director of the Andalusian Center of Photography), he ended up leaving shortly after being accused of a minor offense of injuries of which he was finally acquitted.
During these months, it was also found that he had not completely renounced his interests in the sector, despite the conflict of interest linked to his position. On the contrary, she had woven a commercial network with conditional purchases to maintain a theoretically lower participation in the CAC. Even the councilor Patricia del Pozo was not aware of it. After his resignation, he declared that he was leaving the Andalusian government “exhausted”.
It was not difficult for him to return: his name is one of the four authorized since 2019 by the General Inspectorate of Services of the Junta de Andalucía to register in the private sector before the deadline provided by law of incompatibilities, whose exhibitions he organized and presented until the last day.
At the presentation of the last exhibition, in June, he said goodbye saying: “Controversies are the business of radical left parties,” he said, according to Sur. Shortly before, he had sold his tourist building on Álamos Street, including the works of art it contained. “There are stages that are closed and mine in Malaga is finished,” he confirms. Nobody knows what will happen to the CAC, his excellent work. He leaves a permanent collection without a planned use and workers for whom nobody guarantees a professional destination.
