Voces del Prado

Learning to distance oneself from the Museum

Manuela Mena Marqués, Head of the Department of Conservation of 18th Century Painting and Goya, 1978-2019

I really learned how to distance myself from the Museo del Prado during the management of Checa Cremades. During that period I had the strength to distance myself from the Museum without suffering too much. I distanced myself in a very natural manner, and I think I achieved this distance whilst preserving a sense of inner peace. It’s the same distance you experience when you retire. You have to face the fact that this is the way things are. I only hope I keep my health, because I would find it extremely difficult to distance myself from my health. I’d find it hard, in the same way as its difficult to understand death, for which you need to prepare yourself from a young age, knowing that it’s there. That’s the difficult thing; the other isn’t that difficult. I’m going to continue loving art. I have the ICOM (International Council of Museums) Card, which enables me to gain entrance to every museum throughout the world. And also to churches, as long as you pay, because now you have to pay to enter them. I shall try to see things in any way I like, and everything I like. I don’t think it’s going to entail any significant change.