Claudia Curiel strolled through the recently opened rooms of the Yancuic Museum in Iztapalapa at the end of February to show this newspaper the brand new facilities of the spectacular venue built to promote art and change the violent image of the largest city hall in the capital. The opening of the center was for her, the current Secretary of Culture of the City, a declaration of intentions: she intended, she said on that occasion, to bring recreational possibilities beyond the traditional areas that monopolize museums, galleries, concerts and events in this city of 20 million souls. The official will take the reins of the Federal Secretariat of Culture on October 1 with that effort as her letter of introduction, but under the clouds of demands for better working conditions for workers and the cuts to the sector imposed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which have raised criticism from artists, actors and cultural promoters. Her great challenge is, according to representatives of the sector, “to reestablish the relationship with the cultural community, greatly damaged by the current Administration.”
During the presentation of her appointment, President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum spoke of Curiel as a young and efficient official, who from her position in the capital’s government “developed a series of actions that have to do with everything from community culture to support for creators.” The president-elect recalled that Curiel promoted projects such as 298 Pillars, the Points of Innovation, Freedom, Art, Education and Knowledge, which were Sheinbaum’s bets, when she was head of government of the capital, to bring free cultural, sports and educational activities to areas hit by poverty, inequality and violence. UNESCO recognized this program in 2021 for its efforts to improve living conditions in the communities where it has been implemented.
She also highlighted that the official promoted “popular culture” by declaring the capital’s neighborhood carnivals and the so-called sonideros, a kind of traveling discotheques, as heritage. Curiel promoted memory laws, supported independent cultural spaces and built museums such as the one in Iztapalapa. “It is the first museum of this size in the city that is in a space that is not hegemonic to traditional museums. It was important as a policy to decentralize culture, generating top-quality infrastructure outside of these hegemonic spaces,” said Curiel in an interview with this newspaper.
Claudia Curiel (Mexico City, 45 years old) has extensive experience in cultural management, both in the private and public sectors. She has worked in the organization of art festivals and in organizations such as UNAM’s Casa del Lago, of which she was deputy director. She also held the position of deputy director of programming for the General Directorate of Music at that university. There are, however, those who criticize her management as head of Culture for the city. “Everything has been grandiloquent,” says a source from the sector who asks not to be quoted. “They have done great concerts in the Zócalo, the Day of the Dead Festival, the cultural markets, a promotion of culture that has to do with the grandiloquence sold from the Government Palace. But in this city there are many millions of inhabitants who need attention in their neighborhoods and communities. The Pilares are marginal, there is actually less culture for all the communities,” she adds.
The weight of the cuts
The Ministry of Culture will represent an enormous challenge for its new head. Curiel de Icaza takes the reins under harsh criticism for the budget cuts during this six-year term and the discontent of workers in the sector, who complain of non-payment of their salaries, frozen benefits and even the absence of essential materials to carry out their jobs. They have also denounced the deterioration of museums and cultural venues, where there is a lack of water or clean toilets or guarantees for the safety of the heritage they protect. “He arrives at a Ministry that is very broken, dismembered in many ways. One of the first things he must do is recover the budget that was cut during this six-year term, a cut of 50%. He must increase it to save the basics of culture,” says Nubia Macías, cultural manager and former director of the Guadalajara International Book Fair.
Curiel will have to deal with the discontent of people like Francisco Albarrán Villanueva, from the Independent National Union of Workers of the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (INBAL), who has been protesting for several months with his colleagues to demand better salaries and working conditions. “We have not had a very good time these past six years,” says Albarrán. “We have no supplies at work, no stationery, we don’t even have water. They tell us ‘they’re coming,’ but six years have passed and we’re still the same,” says the union member during a rally held on Thursday in front of the INBAL offices on Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City. He does not have good expectations for improvements with the arrival of the new Administration. “I think we will continue the same. The conditions in cultural institutions are precarious. There is a lack of resources.”
The wounds opened by the so-called republican austerity affect an entire sector that protests against the cuts, which in the first year of López Obrador’s government alone were estimated at around 1,000 million pesos. This year the cut has been 3% and the budget for Culture amounts to almost 17,000 million. Mexican actors, directors, artists and cultural promoters estimate that it is a very low amount for a sector that represents, according to Inegi statistics, 3% of the Mexican GDP: this institution reports that in 2022 the cultural sector reported income of 736,725 million pesos. Many members of the cultural sector (actors such as Diego Luna or Luis Gerardo Méndez, for example) have expressed disappointment with the cultural policies imposed by the López Obrador government.
“The new Secretary of Culture must reestablish the relationship with the cultural community, which has been severely damaged by the current Administration,” recommends Nubia Macías, the cultural manager. “Now there is practically no relationship, so new agreements must be established,” she adds. Macías says that valuable initiatives such as support for the book industry and the promotion of reading must be recovered. She criticizes, for example, the lack of federal support for such important fairs as the Guadalajara International Book Fair, harshly criticized by President López Obrador, who has gone so far as to call it a “right-wing conclave.” Macías maintains that “less work has been done on the issue of promoting the literary sector in this six-year term. Culture has been one of the most punished secretariats.”
Other experts applaud the support that has been given to the most disadvantaged sectors, although they also point to a possible clientelist bias. Government officials, for their part, have justified that the funds now benefit other marginalized sectors. Alejandro Pelayo, director of the Cineteca Nacional, said in May in an interview with EL PAÍS that “the cuts benefited a group that was not previously benefited, groups from the interior of the Republic. The policy in production changed, which went more towards supporting marginalized groups.”
The manager Macías agrees to give the new secretary “the benefit of the doubt” and wait for her to present her project. “We don’t know what her bet is,” she warns. What Curiel has made clear, according to her acceptance speech on Thursday, is her loyalty to López Obrador’s political project and that she will maintain her commitment to community culture. This is what the new Secretary of Culture said: “I had to, like many, grow up in a country where there was no pluralism or democracy, where those at the top ruled and those at the bottom sacrificed themselves. That is why being part of this movement that reverses the order of things, that puts people before particular interests, not only fills me with pride, but also proves that changes and transformations through the popular will are possible and necessary.”
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