Spain, plans to open a Musée Rodin in Tenerife fall apart: engulfed in controversy

A branch of the Musée Rodin in Paris was to have been set up in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, capital of the Canary Islands: however, the French museum’s project in the Spanish islands was engulfed in fierce controversy and eventually fell through. Executives of the Parisian museum have in fact given up on the idea of landing in Tenerife, with a project that would have been financed with 16 million euros made available by the municipal government: This was announced yesterday by the director of the Musée Rodin, Amélie Simier, in a letter sent to Mayor José Manuel Bermúdez of Coalición Canaria, a nationalist and conservative party that has governed the Canary Islands archipelago since its founding.

The project involved the recovery of a 1903 building, the Parque Cultural Viera y Clavijo, signed by Spanish architect Fernando Menis, the winner of a call for bids launched by the mayor of Santa Cruz in 2019: it had been chosen to house several dozen works by Rodin that would be acquired with sums made available by the Spanish municipality. In October, 16 million euros had been allocated, to be spread over four years, to fill the museum with 83 works by Auguste Rodin (15 reproductions and 68 pieces defined as “original,” although created from scratch, since the Musée Rodin also considers works made from casts of the sculptor to be original). The City Council had then reached an agreement with the Musée Rodin to obtain an original copy of the celebrated Kiss for a period of fifteen years, without having to pay anything to the French museum. Culture Councilor Juan José Martínez, in presenting the allocation (later approved on Dec. 19 by the junta), called it “an investment that will put us in the lead of cities that invest more in culture, differentiating us and making the Rodin Museum an extra attraction factor to the city.” The first works were scheduled to arrive in the first quarter of 2023, and while waiting for the building to be ready they would be displayed at the local Museo de Bellas Artes.

The affair raised criticism from the opposition in the city council (PSOE and Podemos), as well as from numerous cultural figures. There are several reasons why many have expressed opposition to the project, summarized in a petition that has gathered nearly three thousand signatures and called for the project to be stopped. There are, meanwhile, economic reasons: it was contested that the analyses on the estimates of the economic return from a very large investment (to which the resources to keep the museum open will necessarily have to be added, since according to many it will not be able to maintain itself on its own strength) are not well-founded. Also disputed is the amount of the investment itself, which is completely disproportionate to the annual budgets that the City of Santa Cruz de Tenerife reserves for culture.

The concept of “originality” to be attributed to works made, yes, from casts of Rodin, but nonetheless produced ex novo, more than a century after the artist’s death, an eventuality that, the Council of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of La Laguna has also made known, makes the cultural interest in these works manifestly low. “A museum dedicated to a nineteenth-century artist that will house not unique pieces but serial sculptures, made posthumously and that can be seen in different parts of the world, including Paris,” the council said in a note (other similar branches are in fact in Philadelphia in the U.S. and Shizuoka in Japan), “is completely devoid of artistic interest and, therefore, its attractiveness for bringing cultural tourism to Tenerife is more than questionable.” The Faculty of Fine Arts, in short, cut short: it is an eminently entrepreneurial project. And it concludes its remarks by expressing solidarity with Tenerife’s cultural and creative sector, which views with concern how “valuable economic resources that art and culture need are being allocated to a commercial operation,” and urging the municipality to “reconsider, stop this project and study the best way to allocate its funds to the promotion of culture produced in and by Tenerife.”

Then there is also a cultural issue about what should be meant by "museum.“ ”A museum is not a series of reproductions of sculptures,“ the petition reads. ”A museum needs a serious museum project that determines its patrimonial, research, educational and, above all, social function in relation to the context in which it is placed. Not only has there been no attempt by the City to develop a museum project in this case, but no specialist would justify the relevance of this museum to the City." Again, petitioners and opposition recall that the Musée Rodin in Paris is currently involved in a lawsuit that could force it to put the 3D scans of the sculptures it houses in the public domain, reasoning that, should it lose it, the unfortunate situation would arise whereby the City of Santa Cruz will have paid a large sum to buy sculptures it could have had produced without having to pay any license fees. Finally, there is the no less important argument that Auguste Rodin had nothing to do with Tenerife, and some even speak of "cultural self-colonialism.“ Ultimately, for the petitioners, the decision to open a Musée Rodin in Tenerife is ”unjustifiable,“ a ”very expensive political whim that will irreparably damage both the City’s ability to sustain the cultural fabric and its cultural image abroad."

To resolve theimpasse, therefore, the Musée Rodin has taken care of it. In an excerpt of the letter published by El País newspaper, Simier defends the project, saying, “We are sensitive to recent events in your city and the unfortunate statements made by a part of the cultural, academic or political sector. These lying, or at least uninformed, statements attack our museum, a public institution of the French Ministry of Culture, Rodin’s work and his heritage, of which we are the custodians.” The director recalls that a long series of Rodin exhibitions have been held in Spain, and that it was the author himself who authorized the creation of works from his casts. However, “we must conclude that the conditions do not currently exist for the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife to host an international museum project,” Simier says. And Mayor Bermúdez had no choice but to issue instructions to block the administrative file dedicated to the Spanish Musée Rodin, regretting the “loss of an opportunity.”

Pictured is a rendering of the Parque Cultural Viera y Clavijo after the redevelopment project.

Spain, plans to open a Musée Rodin in Tenerife fall apart: engulfed in controversy

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