The new Minister of Culture, Dalila Rodrigues, has been the director of the Jerónimos Monastery and the Belém Tower since May 2019.
With a PhD in Art History from the University of Coimbra, she gained public notoriety as director of the Grão Vasco Museum, a position she held between 2001-2004, and which she left to direct the National Museum of Ancient Art (2004-2007), for which she was appointed by the Minister of Culture of the short-lived Government of Pedro Santana Lopes, Maria João Bustorff.
The Ministry of Culture led by Isabel Pires de Lima chose not to reinstate her in the position, a decision that generated controversy and that Dalila Rodrigues herself, now 63 years old, then considered “ideological”, attributing it to the fact that she publicly disagreed. of the management model that José Sócrates’ minister had imposed on museums.
She then had a brief stint at Casa da Música, where she headed the Communication and Marketing department, and in 2008 she was invited by Paula Rego to head Casa das Histórias, in Cascais, but shortly after she was removed from the project, once again without much explanations. Cascais City Council only informed her that her appointment had not been approved by the administration of the Paula Rego Foundation.
Between 2012 and 2015 he was a member of the Board of Directors of the Belém Cultural Center Foundation (CCB) and, in that capacity, of the Modern and Contemporary Art Foundation – Museu Colecção Berardo. He left his position in January 2015, during the first Passos Coelho Government, when Jorge Barreto Xavier was Secretary of State for Culture. If we believe the explanation he then gave for his departure, it was once Dalila Rodrigues herself who asked to leave her position, “out of a desire to return to her academic career”.
Coordinating professor at the Higher School of Education at the Polytechnic Institute of Viseu and guest professor at the College of Arts at the University of Coimbra, she is also the author of several books and scientific articles in the areas of Art History, Heritage and Museology.
If his dynamism is recognized, his proverbial directness has caused him some discomfort, and it remains to be seen how these characteristics will now work at the top of the hierarchy.
