The Minister of Culture Ernest Urtasun reacted late in the Senate to the PNV’s request for a temporary postponement Guernica de Picasso al País Vasco with motif 90th anniversary of the bombing of Guernica. Senator Igotz López (PNV) asked her to wait for the request of leader Imanolo Pradales, who proposed to exhibit the work at the site of a tank bomb during the civil war inspired by Picasso to paint his famous painting in 1937 as a gesture of symbolic reparation and historical memory.
Urtasun recognized the “sensitivity” of the request and the weight the image held for the Tub company, but expressed disapproval of the piece being moved to the Reina Sofia Museum.
In a very moderate intervention, the minister asked for the marking of the distances in the words of the president of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who clarified the requirement for the “kathetada” basin. “In front of those who classified this request for punishment, this ministry wants to show institutional respect and empathy,” Urtasun said, adding that for Euskadi it was an “important request” linked to the memory of the bomber and the pain symbolized by the image.
At the same time, he defended the government’s policy of “territorial cohesion through culture”, citing programs such as the “Prado Extended”, which now manages the museum’s more than 3,400 works distributed by more than 270 institutions across the country.
However, the basic argument for denying the transfer is strictly technical. Urtasun noted that the up-to-date information of the conservators of Queen Sofia desaconsejan “de forma rotunda” moves the risk of assuming the vibrations of any transport: new cries, levantamientos, pérdidas de la capa pictórica or even desgarros.
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He insisted Guernica es “probably one of the most fragile and complete works that have been preserved from the XX century”, with deformations, cracks, small repairs and damage accumulated during decades of international travel before its final installation in Madrid.
“The celebration of the 90th anniversary of the bombing of Guernica must also be guarantee that this work can last 90 years or more“, summed up the minister, who quoted both the current director of Reina Sofia, Manuel Segade, and his predecessor, Manuel Borja-Ville, to reiterate the decision not to lie “more”.
Urtasun defended that his duty as a minister is to “guarantee access to culture but also the protection of heritage”, leaving the door open to which transience is recalled with other initiatives in Euskadi that do not imply the transfer of the framework.
The PNV senator said that his group does not dispute the information about the preservation of Queen Sofia, but insisted on the creation of a working group between the technicians of the Madrid Museum, the Guggenheim and international experts in carrying out the main tasks to analyze “if the transfer is really possible and under what conditions”. With its juiciness, technical progress and Guggenheim’s experience in this type of operation, “we could make it possible” because “the only one doing it wrong is the political will”.
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