The government is trying to normalize the crisis in national museums by calling for a competition for directors.

The National Secretariat of Culture , headed by Leonardo Cifelli , decided to open a competition for five national museums . They are the National Historical Museum (which annexed the National Costume Museum collection after it was closed), the Buenos Aires City Council and May Revolution Museums , the Yrurtia House and the Ricardo Rojas House , and the José A. Terry Regional Painting Museum . The first four are located in Buenos Aires, and the last one is in Jujuy.

The call for applications will open in September and, in response to a query from Clarín , it was officially announced that it will last two months . Of the five museums that will be in the competition, only the Terry Museum has not previously undergone a similar process. The others were in the competition, and their directors currently have different contractual situations.

The Secretariat is launching the call after several consecutive resignations by directors who retired, not out of retirement yearning, but because the uncertainty and lack of petty cash for more than a year limited the institutions' management.

In some cases, directors have expired competitions , which former Minister of Culture Tristán Bauer, about to leave office, extended through substitutions . These have already expired or will expire in the first quarter of next year.

In other cases, there were unexpected departures (especially of acting directors) and controversial replacements, such as that of José María Posse at the Museo Casa Histórica de la Independencia in Tucumán. Its director, a respected figure, was replaced by Posse, a friend of Ricardo Bussi , son of Antonio Domingo Bussi, former governor of the province in 1995 (during the national government of Carlos Menem) and also commander-in-chief of "Operativo Independencia" between 1975 and 1977. Posse was convicted of crimes against humanity and died in 2011.

The case of the National Historical Museum (MHN) may well have been the tip of the iceberg for the call for tenders. First, because the one held during the administration of former Secretary of Culture Pablo Avelluto, during the presidency of Mauricio Macri, failed.

That competition was finalized, and Andrea Pegoraro, Roberto Amigo, and Julia Bertucci were selected in the second round. Pegoraro works at the Ethnographic Museum. When Pegoraro withdrew from the competition, it was declared void . Since then, the Historical Museum has not reopened the competition. Historian Hilda Sabato was among the distinguished jury that decided on that competition.

In the case of the MHN, a recent controversy erupted when the government asked historian Gabriel Di Meglio, director appointed by former minister Bauer, to resign . Di Meglio had won the competition at the City Council. In 2018, he resigned and was appointed to the institution he wanted to lead: the MHN. He was ejected after appearing in several media outlets discussing his dismissal.

It's a complex and difficult institution, and I'll leave it to those who aspire to lead it and apply for the appointment in September.

Let's remember that for more than a year, all national museums operated without petty cash . From then on, problems began to pile up. From a lack of toilet paper and soap in public restrooms to the resignation of the security company due to nonpayment of their salaries, which led to the closure of galleries or even the entire museum on certain days . These problems, undoubtedly, were left behind by the Bauer administration, but which the current administration didn't know how to, couldn't, or chose not to resolve, and currently there are huge unpaid debts.

The Cabildo , whose competition Di Meglio obtained to resign months later, became vacant and the position was filled by Horacio Mosquera (temporary hiring in permanent staff of the institution) appointed by Bauer in 2020. The House of Yrurtia is in charge of Andrea Griselda Elías, whose subrogation expires in March 2026 , and the House Ricardo Rojas , which is directed by María Laura Mendoza with an expired subrogation .

With the petty cash replenished this year, the most important issue still remained: the competitions that regulate the status of national museum directors so that institutions can plan their projects with sufficient advance notice—as is the case with national museums around the world—and so that they can manage private support in the face of ever-short budgets.

Undisputed sources from the Ministry of Culture said: "In line with the commitment to efficiently and transparently manage Argentine resources, work was done to streamline administrative processes, remove bureaucratic obstacles, appoint new authorities, and finally move forward with the process of issuing tenders."

This, in response to our question about the time elapsed between the current government taking office (December 2023) and the launch of museum competitions (September 2025).

But it was also a demand of the Argentine Association of History Researchers , expressed in a statement during Di Meglio's controversial dismissal.

Secretary Leonardo Cifelli agreed to answer a specific question from Clarín about these first five museums up for bid: “From the first day we began working with the Undersecretary of Cultural Heritage, Liliana Barela, she raised the need to advance these processes, which we know are very important for the continuity of public policies for national museums. But this progress would not have been possible without the great work led by the central administration to make the State increasingly efficient .”

Yesterday we learned that both Tomás Bodone, director of the prominent National Jesuit Estancia Museum of Alta Gracia and Casa del Virrey Liniers , as well as Mario Lazarovich, of the Museo Histórico del Norte , a beautiful institution located in Salta, also chose the path of retirement.

As soon as the news of the opening of the five aforementioned competitions was announced, we sought to find out if—given that the process is estimated to take two months— there would be a new call for applications for the many institutions that remain dormant.

Sources close to the Ministry of Culture—let's not forget that other areas of the national government are also involved in this call—anticipated that there could be a second call before the end of the year , which would include, specifically, the Jesuit Estancia of Alta Gracia and Casa del Virrey Liniers, the National Jesuit (Estancia Jesús María)—both in Córdoba—and the Historic North, in Salta.

It's clear that the initial proposal involves Argentine historical museums—there are more than those mentioned—more than art museums.

Of the main ones, the Kirchner administration of former minister Bauer only called for one controversial competition: that of the National Museum of Fine Arts , which was won at the end of 2023 by Andrés Duprat, who was already managing the institution. The scandal arose from the presentation of María Isabel Baldasarre, who was then National Director of Museums, who presented herself as a candidate without resigning from her position or taking leave . To everyone's surprise, she finished second in the final shortlist made up of Duprat and Mariana Marchesi, currently artistic director of the National Museum of Fine Arts.