BIO IN ENGLISH
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Born in Vic, Barcelona, in 1969, Llucià Homs is a cultural consultant, a curator and an art advisor. Until June 2015, he was Director of the Promotion of Cultural Sectors of the Culture Institute of the Barcelona City Council and Director of La Virreina Image Centre.
He has a polyhedral professional career –as a cultural management entrepreneur and a public cultural manager-, which enables him to understand the current social cultural debates and the challenges of a complex and changing world as the current one with a multidisciplinary vision and a transformative leadership.
Lover of opera and literature, he studied Law at University of Barcelona and did a Business Administration Course at IESE Business School to strengthen the way in which he understands cultural management. He also took Visual Art courses as part of the History of Art Degree at University of Barcelona and in 2003-2004 he did a Postgraduate Course on Curating and Cultural Practices in Art and New Media at MECAD (Media Centre of Art & Design) which provided him with an educational background for his curatorial career.
In 1993 he started his career as a gallerist in Barcelona. At Galeria Llucià Homs he developed a path whereby he supported current artistic productions, representing a group of emerging artists by way of an elaborate programme consisting of more than one hundred exhibitions, activities and participation in international art fairs.
Due to his commitment to his profession, he was Treasurer and member of the galleries association Art Barcelona. Furthermore, he was Vice-president of the Board of the Catalan Association of Art Galleries, Vice-president of the Union of Spanish Associations of Art Galleries, and Member of FEAGA (Federation of European Art Galleries Association), which helped him to understand the debates and challenges of the profession. This curiosity yielded results in subsequent projects.
His experience as a cultural consultant started in 2003 with the creation of BINOMIO GESTIÓN CULTURAL, where he curated video art projects, promoted exhibitions on Tàpies and La Fura dels Baus and managed the communication of events such as the Valencia Biennial.
During four years (2001-2005) he was asked to be a Member of the Administration Committee of Financial Entity CAIXA MANLLEU (now BBVA). He was also a Patron of Caixa Manlleu Foundation. This experience enabled 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 its social value.
In 2003, together with other partners, he created LOOP, an open platform which has become an international meeting point specialised in video art. The event includes LOOP FAIR, SCREEN FESTIVAL, which fills Barcelona with video art proposals every year, and LOOP STUDIES, a discussion space which constitutes the field of reference for debate and integration of the different artistic specialised stakeholders. This project was awarded with the Catalan Association of Art Critics Prize in 2003 and the BMW Prize to Innovation in 2005. With Screen Projects, the organizing company, they carried out projects in cities such as Berlin, Madrid, Paris, London, São Paulo, New York or Shanghai.
As a result of his curiosity for undertaking new projects related to culture, in 2009 he created LA FÀBRICA BARCELONA together with the cultural management company La Fábrica Madrid. As Managing Partner, he promoted various projects such as PhotoMeeting Ojo de Pez on documentary photography, the contemporary culture festival EUROPES and TALKING GALLERIES, an international meeting of art galleries held in Barcelona every year, which fosters critical reflection on the art system and the variety of its agents.
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 cultural manager and starting a new one focusing on his engagement with public service.
Strategically speaking, these responsibilities have led him to have to visualize the city of Barcelona from a cultural point of view and carry out clear action plans, culture being a 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 or its special relationship with tourism. Challenges on which he has worked intensively for the last four years, where he has acquired valuable knowledge in different fields and team management.
In addition to direct contact with all different sectors of culture of the city of Barcelona, he has led, amongst other challenging projects, the Barcelona Film Commission, the Art Factories Programme and the FACTORIAL Symposium and the new Barcelona Contemporary Art Centre Fabra i Coats. The awarding of grants by the Culture Institute of the Barcelona City Council and the City of Barcelona Awards were also Llucià’s responsibility. In all the above cases, he contributed new organizational systems, clear managerial criteria and objective-oriented guidance.
Also, he has been a member of the executive committees of various cultural bodies in Barcelona including MACBA, Liceu, L’Auditori, Palau de la Música, Mercat de les Flors, CCCB and institutions such as Spain Film Commission and the Institut Ramon Llull, in charge of the internationalisation of the Catalan culture.
Due to his previous experience, he managed LA VIRREINA IMAGE CENTRE, one of the key facilities of the city of Barcelona as far as contemporary art is concerned. Here he carried out exhibitions of top international artists such as Ai Weiwei, Sophie Calle, Alberto García-Alix, Martin Parr or Michael Snow, together with an intensive public programme plan.
During these years, he has given talks; he has also been a collaborator in cultural publications, book editor for Homs Editors and a lecturer at the Postgraduate Course in Communication and Art Critics at the University of Girona.
As a result of the change in government in the city of Barcelona, in June 2015 Llucià has started a new professional stage in London and Barcelona, working as a cultural consultant, curator and art advisor. In addition, he publishes regularly on international art market matters in the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia. Also, he is particularly involved in the cultural publication Hänsel* i Gretel* and the global project Talking Galleries, which he created a few years ago.