As part of the expansion of the New Museum, the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya aims to become a space for reflection and collective debate. For this reason, we have invited New York-based cultural advisor and established author András Szántó, who has studied innovative cultural and museum practices and strategies around the world. In this lecture, Szántó will analyze the systemic changes taking place in the museum field and how institutions are adapting to them, not only through their collections and programs, but also through architecture and design. He will speak about a sector in the midst of a transformation process that is redefining museums, making them more people- and community-oriented, more digital and connected, and more engaged with diverse cultural practices.

The lecture will be followed by a conversation with Pepe Serra, Director of the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, in which some of the museum’s future challenges will be discussed.

This event will mark the starting point of a series of conversations with leading professionals in the field, to be held from October 2026 to October 2027, and which will form part of a Public Program linked to the transformation of the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya planned for 2029.

Language: English, with simultaneous translation into Catalan and Spanish.

Photograph: Patrice Casanova.

András Szántó advises museums, foundations, educational institutions, and corporations on cultural strategy and program development around the world. He earned his PhD in sociology from Columbia University. He is a widely published author, with articles appearing in The New York Times, Artforum, Artnet News, and The Art Newspaper, among others. As a consultant, he collaborates with some of the most important public and private cultural institutions internationally. He has taught courses on art management and the art market at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art and directed the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he helped launch and coordinate the Global Museum Leaders Colloquium, a lecture series for museum directors. He is a regular moderator of the Art Basel Conversations. Born in Budapest, he has curated exhibitions on Hungarian art of the 1960s and 1970s. His most recent books are The Future of the Museum: 28 Dialogues (2020), Imagining the Future Museum: 21 Dialogues with Architects (2022), and The Future of the Art World: 38 Dialogues (2025). He lives in Brooklyn, USA.