The Rodin Santa Cruz Museum it is no longer a possibility. Yesterday, the rectors of the French museum announced their resignation from being part of the cultural world of Santa Cruz, a sector in which important firms had raised their voices against the investment of 16 million that the City hall capital had compromised with the French institution.
And it is that since Rodin Paris the criticism received, they say, attacks the prestige of the sculptor and the museum itself. This was expressed by its director, Amélie Simier, in the letter sent to the mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez, and which was made public yesterday. A resignation from a project that the architect Fernando Menis had already made room for in his design to rehabilitate the Viera y Clavijo Cultural Park, and which, they say from the City Council, will not be affected, since the intended use continues to be the cultural.
In any case, the letter has caused the mayor to order the suspension of the file that had begun at the end of December for the purchase of almost a hundred pieces for those 16 million euros.
Simier, who visited the Viera y Clavijo last year to see the place that would house Rodin’s work, acknowledges to the mayor in his letter that “we are sensitive to the recent events in your city and to the unfortunate statements made by a part of the cultural sector, academic or political. These lying statements, or, at least, misinformed, attack our museum, a public establishment of the French Ministry of Culture, Rodin’s work and his heritage, of which we are custodians”.
And it is that the Rodin Museum defends the legacy of the sculptor, as well as his link with Spain, through different collaborations with institutions in the country over the years.
“Due to this strong presence in the whole of the Spanish territory for more than 20 years, we regret more strongly the current questioning of Rodin as a universal artist, the questioning of the originality of his works and the questioning of the motivations of a public institution national like ours.
“In this context, Mr. Mayor, I wanted to inform you that it seems prudent not to continue with this project. Know that this is a decision carefully considered and made with regret, ”he concludes.
This resignation has been a jug of cold water for a government team that has been defending tooth and nail this project for the city, in the face of criticism from the opposition and numerous voices of culture, both local and national.
Jose Manuel Bermudez
The mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez, yesterday showed his “disappointment” at the loss of what he defines as a “great opportunity” for Santa Cruz. “A year and a half ago this capital had the opportunity to bring a museum of international reference. Rodin was a good project for a museum in Santa Cruz, which, unfortunately, has met with the rejection of a part of citizens linked to the cultural sphere and, above all, from political parties such as PSOE and Podemos”.
The councilor confirms that, “given the climate generated, the rectors of the Rodin Paris Museum have decided to renounce the project, and, as a consequence, I have ordered the suspension of the file.”
He also announced that he is going to dialogue with the cultural entities of the city, with the aim of defining the content for the Viera y Clavijo.
“For us it was an exciting project that incorporated a new museum to the cultural offer of the city, and we valued it with the International Exhibitions of Sculptures in the street. We are going to continue working along the lines of looking for good projects for Santa Cruz and we are starting dialogue with institutions such as the Royal Academy of Fine Arts or the Círculo de Bellas Artes. One door closes and many others will open”, concluded the mayor.
Opposition
Faced with the disappointment of Bermúdez, the joy of the opposition made up of PSOE, UP and Cs, which understands the resignation of the Rodin Museum as a “victory of local culture”. At least that is how the former socialist mayor Patricia Hernández defines it, who yesterday pointed out that “it is a magnificent way to start 2023 and a beautiful end to this grotesque.”
“We celebrate that the cultural sector has been able to stop this pufo and the only thing we regret is that this stoppage has not been the result of a rectification by Bermúdez, but of the shame generated to the Rodin Museum in national and international media due to the overwhelming and justified criticism that received the project from the cultural sector and from the city of Santa Cruz”, explains Hernández.
The also socialist deputy warns that she will closely follow the administrative act that paralyzes the award of the 16 million. “If we do not receive it and if it is an announcement, we will continue with the plan to challenge the project in court.”
Ramón Trujillo (UP) expressed himself in similar terms. “Obviously it is positive that something that we had described as wasteful and somewhat unmotivated is stopped,” he said.
For the UP spokesman, the withdrawal “perhaps is the way in which the government team has asked the Rodin Museum to get out of this issue in an honorable manner” and added that “the key is that the issue has appeared in various media nationals, in which the government team does not have the capacity to limit the impact”.
Even so, Trujillo advanced, “we must investigate what has happened, such as the fact that the economic impact contract was offered to three companies that shared directors.”
Matilde Zambudio, spokesperson for Cs, also regretted that the project had not been paralyzed by the mayor himself, defining the Rodin Santa Cruz Museum as “an attempted imposition” by Bermúdez.
Zambudio, who qualifies as “nonsense” the expense that was intended to be made, calls for dialogue with the cultural sector to put Viera y Clavijo to use “prioritizing our chicharrera culture, our artists, our carnival, which can well generate economy and jobs of work, with much less investment than in a museum of copies”.
The Cs spokeswoman also charges against the PP for its support for this project, accusing it of being “the eternal crutch of the PP.”
PP
Precisely, the PP had requested this Monday a dialogue with the cultural sector so that the file of the Rodin Museum could be developed with the greatest possible clarity, pointing out that “the figure of Rodin is beyond doubt, but the great projects for the city are not they can be unipersonal: the city must be involved”, in clear reference to its government partner.
Yesterday, after the news of the withdrawal was known, its spokesman Carlos Tarife called the abandonment of the project an “absolute failure”. “It was an excellent idea that would have made Santa Cruz the fourth city in the world that would have this institution, but this file did not start as it should,” said the PP mayor.
In addition, he insisted that “big projects cannot be from a single political party, they are for Santa Cruz, and what must be done is to involve all parties.” Even so, she pointed out that “any proposal would have found a no, because we have the worst opposition, and I personalize it in Patricia Hernández, who would have said no to Picasso, Rodin or any other museum.”
