CULTURAL MANAGER CAREER
His studies in Law at the University of Barcelona, his Business Administration Course at IESE Business School and his Postgraduate Course on Curating and Cultural Practices in Art and New Media at MECAD (Media Centre of Art & Design) have enabled Llucià to understand cultural management. Furthermore, his experience as a member of the Administration Committee of the Financial Entity CAIXA MANLLEU (now BBVA) has permitted him to delve into the criteria of management and the rigour of the financial world to later make use of them in cultural management, without shying away from the importance of culture’s social value.
After ten years as a gallerist, in 2003 he decided to combine his work at Galeria Llucià Homs with cultural management. He created BINOMIO GESTIÓN CULTURAL, a company specialised in the art world, through which he started developing projects for private and public entities, creating and itinerating different types of exhibitions throughout Spain. Some of those projects included exhibitions on videoart, contemporary Catalan prints, Bigas Luna, the 25th Anniversary of La Fura dels Baus and works of art by Tàpies in private collections. He also managed art collections such as Olor Visual by Ernesto Ventós and was responsible for the management of communication of events such as the Valencia Biennial.
Moreover, in 2003 together with other partners, Llucià created LOOP, an open platform which has become an international meeting point specialised in videoart. The event includes LOOP FAIR, SCREEN FESTIVAL, which fills Barcelona with videoart proposals every year, and LOOP STUDIES, a space for discussion which constitutes the field of reference for debate and integration of the different artistic specialised stakeholders.
With SCREEN PROJECTS, the cultural agency which organises LOOP, he carried out a long list of projects and exhibitions in collaboration with internationally leading stakeholders, from curating projects, screenings and conferences to itinerating videoart exhibitions and exhibitions on collecting videoart and its dissemination, together with other disciplines such as music. The above projects have been carried out in the cities of Berlin, Madrid, Paris, London, São Paulo, New York and Shanghai.
As a result of his curiosity for undertaking new projects related to culture, in 2009 he joined the Executive Board of the cultural management company La Fábrica Madrid. Once in partnership with them, he went on to create LA FÀBRICA BARCELONA, with a space at Poble Sec in Barcelona which combined a bookshop, a photography exhibition space and a culinary space. As Managing Partner, he promoted various projects such as PhotoMeeting Ojo de Pez on documentary photography, which takes place every year at La Virreina Palace, and the contemporary culture festival EUROPES, established in Barcelona, which included cultural proposals from a variety of European countries with a multidisciplinary vision.
As a gallerist, he saw the need for a space where other professionals could interrelate and learn. For this reason, in 2011 he created TALKING GALLERIES, an international meeting of art gallerists held in Barcelona every year, which fosters critical reflection on the art system and the variety of its agents. This meeting also takes place in cities such as Madrid during the ARCO fair, New York at The Armory Show, São Paulo or Berlin.
As a result of his appointment as Director of the Promotion of Cultural Sectors of the CULTURE INSTITUTE of the Barcelona City Council in 2011, he gave up his previous responsibilities, closing a professional cycle as a cultural manager and starting anew as a public manager, which required him to change his perspective on how to visualize the cultural system of the city.
A direct interaction with all cultural sectors in Barcelona, both at individual level –managing the awarding of grants by the Culture Institute of the Barcelona City Council- and at collective level –participating in different sectorial Committees-, enabled Llucià to understand the way in which this cultural ecosystem functions, its strengths and weaknesses and the numerous big challenges and possibilities it faces.
Also, he managed strategic programmes such as the Barcelona Film Commission, which enabled him to have an in-depth look at the filming and audio-visual worlds from the perspective of the shootings which take place in the city. As a result of his international leadership, Barcelona was elected to host Cineposium 2015, the subject of which is “Screen Tourism”.
Within the framework of the Barcelona Art Factories Programme Llucià designed strategies to channel artistic creativity based on the reformulation of spaces in disuse. He also worked from the perspective of new urban centralities, connecting those spaces with key networks and with factories of other European cultural capitals. The FACTORIAL Symposium brought together the experience he had previously acquired. Other key programmes included creating the new Barcelona Contemporary Art Centre Fabra i Coats and managing the City of Barcelona Awards, which recognise the highest levels of creativity in the city.
Llucià was also a member of the executive committees of various cultural bodies in Barcelona including the contemporary art museum MACBA, the opera house Liceu, the concert halls L’Auditori and Palau de la Música, the dance house Mercat de les Flors, the centre for contemporary culture CCCB and institutions such as Spain Film Commission. This gave him a broad vision regarding cultural management of key spaces which are responsible for the strength and growth of an entire sector.
As a Board Member of Institut Ramon Llull, in charge of the internationalisation of the Catalan culture, he explored the strategies of the positioning of Catalonia at an international level and the importance of cultural diplomacy. This was of particular importance in projects such as Barcelona as guest city at Beijing Design Week and Barcelona’s bid for being elected as literary city within the network of UNSECO’s creative cities.
Strategically speaking, these responsibilities have required him to visualize the city of Barcelona from a cultural point of view and to carry out clear action plans, culture being the key element: The City of Barcelona in relation to its cultural ecosystem, from which the importance of creativity and knowledge derive; culture as an innovation engine and as an element of participation and social cohesion; the promotion of cultural industries; the new urban centralities; the international repercussion of the city and its special relationship with tourism. Challenges on which he worked intensively over the last four years, where he acquired valuable knowledge in different fields and in team management.
As a result of the change in government in the city of Barcelona, in June 2015 Llucià has started a new stage in his professional career in London and Barcelona.
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