In an exclusive interview given to our newspaper, the National Director of Culture, professor Hugo Achugar, talked about Public Funds and the Direction of the National Museum of Visual Arts (NMVA), relevant matters of current cultural affairs.

Achugar stated that changes in the rules of Public Funds intend to make them more democratic and that the direction of the NMVA should not be subject to politics’ ups and downs.

- Changes have been made in the rules of Public Funds for the next call for applications. How has this process been conducted?

- At the beginning of my administration, I announced that I would revise some aspects related to the viability jury in order to democratise the Funds. I communicated this to the media a few days after my appointment and in the official presentation of 2009’s edition, at the Parliament Headquarters. The viability jury discarded some projects that had received a score between 90 and 100, and there was not any chance for a project with a high cultural and artistic value to meet the viability requirements. A high number of these projects were discarded because of viability or formal mistakes. This occurred because not everyone has the required knowledge to fill in the forms that are highly complex; indeed many organizations had to hire a producer to fill them out. The modification we have introduced grants a project with an artistic content of at least 75 points 72 extra hours to improve it in order to meet the recommendations made and be re-evaluated by the Contents and Viability Juries.
 
- What will be the profile of the Museum taking into account that a new space for contemporary art will be opened?

- The new director and the Advisory Committee will be in charge of renewing the Museum’s relationship to contemporary arts, and of writing the bill, which will allow changing this position from one of trust to a technical one. In the field of culture there are some positions that cannot be subject to politics’ ups and downs, they should be subject to a State policy and that is why we want the director position to be technical. In relation to the new space for Contemporary Art we are expecting to open it before the end of this administration, in approximately 18 months. The construction works at the ex-prison Miguelete, where it will be placed, depends on the way the Ministry of Public Works functions and of its working schedule.  

We have translated some excerpts of this interview. To read the rest of it, in Spanish, please visit:
www.larepublica.com.uy/cultura/351596-fondos-mas-democraticos

http://www.larepublica.com.uy/cultura/351596-fondos-mas-democraticos