After fifteen years of service, Manuel Borja-Villel stepped down as the director of Madrid's Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. As a result, the Spanish Ministry of Culture engaged in a country-wide search for his replacement. Finally, the chips fell on Manuel Segade.
Segade currently leads the Dos de Mayo Art Center Museum in Madrid, switching over from the Galician Center for Contemporary Art. As the curator and together with artist Jordi Colomer, he represented Spain at the 2017 Venice Biennale. But sound as it is, Segade's appointment is overshadowed by the dodgy circumstances under which his predecessor left the building. Borja-Villel found himself at the gunpoint of conservative-leaning media in Spain. His resignation is understood as part of the cultural war initiated by the country's ever-growing lean toward the right.