The Galician David Barro (Ferrol, 1974) is the person proposed as the new director of the Es Baluard museum by beating 20 candidates who aspired to take over the place. The so-called evaluation committee for the candidatures for the management of the Palma Museum of Contemporary Art is the one who has prepared a reasoned proposal that will be submitted to the Executive Committee of the Foundation and its Board of Trustees, to ratify the appointment.
In a press release, the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sports has reported that, once the evaluations of the candidates submitted to the Es Baluard management competition have been completed, the evaluation commission has believed that the proposal that has obtained the highest score has been presented by David Barro López.
The jury, made up of the director of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum Madrid, Guillermo Solanathe writer and art critic Fernando Castro Flórez, the independent commissioner Neus Cortesthe artist Red Bernard and the curator and cultural manager Alicia Venturahas stated that, after analyzing the applications and projects of the highest level, the selected candidate is, for its purposes, the one who can launch a project of greater viability.
David Barro thas a track record of 25 years in the artistic and cultural sector leading institutions and projects. With extensive management experience, he has developed a career linked to the universe of contemporary art and design, as an exhibition curator, as an editor, as a writer and as an artistic director.
Since 2017 he has been director of the Didac Foundation and has been managing director of the Luis Seoane Foundation, advisor to the Barrié Foundation and responsible for its International Contemporary Painting Collection. He has also been artistic director of events such as the SOS 4.8 Sustainable Artistic Action Festival in Murcia; Look Up! Natural Porto Art Show in Porto; or the Espacio Atlántico fair in Vigo.
In 2023 he was curator of the guest country of the Porto Design Biennale and co-director of Platform. Performing Arts Festival in Santiago de Compostela, a festival that he has directed as a member of the Performa Cooperative since 2021.
From 2020 to 2023 he serves as artistic director of MadBlue Summithe summit of culture, science and innovation for the sustainable development of Madrid, distinguished as an event of exceptional public interest by the Government of Spain.
Editor and founder of the magazine DARDOmagazinesince 2018 he has been a strategic consultant for public and private institutions, among others, the Galician Innovation Agency (Xunta de Galicia), where he collaborates in advising the Design Program for Innovation and Sustainability 2024 to incorporate design and artistic processes into the business world.
As an exhibition curator he has held more than a hundred group and individual exhibitions of renowned artists such as Julião Sarmento, Julian Opie, Jessica Stockholder, Axel Hütte, Alex Katz, Günther Förg, Sandra Cinto, Fernanda Fragateiro, Caio Reisewitz, Markus Linnenbrink and Berta Cáccamo.
His academic career highlights having been a professor at the UCP of Porto and since 2015 a professor of the Master of Advanced Studies at the University of Salamanca, being responsible for the subject of Painting and Sculpture in the 20th Century.
Currently, among other initiatives, he teaches classes in several university master's degrees. David Barro has also worked as an art critic for The Cultural from El Mundo and other publications such as the magazine Pencil; He has been director of the Portuguese magazine (W)art and from the magazine art and part. Currently she is also a columnist for the design magazine Experiment.
Writer of theoretical essays on contemporary visual culture, he has been a member of the first boards of directors of the Institute of Spanish Contemporary Art (IAC) and is a member of the Association of Directors of Contemporary Art in Spain (Adace).