In June 2025, less than two years after its grand opening, the Museu de l’Art Prohibit, the world’s first and only museum dedicated to showcasing and defending censored art, faced an unexpected closure. The institution, which claimed to be a stronghold of free speech, was not brought down by the political or religious pressures from outside that it was meant to withstand. Instead, it fell apart because of a labor dispute within the company that led to a bitter, four-month-long strike. Tatxo Benet, a well-known Catalan journalist and businessman, started the museum. The striking SUT (Solidaritat i Unitat dels Treballadors) union accused it of becoming a “caricature of itself” by promoting abstract ideas of freedom while allegedly violating the rights of its workers. This report looks at this complicated and contradictory failure in excellent detail, looking at the museum’s ambitious mission, its controversial collection, how it fell apart, and the deep lessons its story has for museums around the world.
A Place of Peace for the Quiet: The Museu de l’Art Prohibit’s Vision and Collection
To fully grasp how badly the museum failed, you need to first understand how high its goals were. The Museu de l’Art Prohibit was more than just a gallery; it was meant to be a moral and political project, a permanent home for works of art that had been attacked, banned, or taken down from public view. This mission, which came from a direct fight against censorship, gave it its identity and helped it get its first praise.
The Founder’s Crusade: A Response to Censorship
Tatxo Benet, a well-known Catalan journalist, entrepreneur, and co-founder of the powerful media company Mediapro, had the idea for the museum. He didn’t just start collecting “forbidden art” as a hobby; he did it as a mission after seeing a specific act of censorship firsthand. The spark happened at the 2018 ARCO art fair in Madrid, which is one of Spain’s most important cultural events. Benet bought
Santiago Sierra’s artwork “Political Prisoners in Contemporary Spain” shows 24 pixelated portraits of jailed Catalan separatist leaders and other activists. A few days after the purchase, officials from Ifema, the group in charge of the fair, told the gallery to take down the politically charged work because they were worried it would upset people who were there.
This event made Benet’s philosophy clear, which he would say over and over: “When there is an act of censorship, two things happen: an artist’s freedom is limited, and the people’s freedom to interact with the piece of art is also limited.” The museum’s manifesto was based on this dual focus on the rights of the creator and the rights of the public. For the next five years, Benet carefully put together a collection of more than 200 works that all had a history of being censored, banned, attacked, or denounced for political, social, or religious reasons. These works created a unique and powerful storehouse of artistic defiance.
The Collection as Manifesto: A Tool for Controversy
The museum’s stated mission was “to give visibility to and vindicate censored artworks,” to serve as a “meeting point to stand up to censorship,” and, most importantly, “to restore to us the ability to behold ARTWORKS THAT WERE WITHDRAWN from public display.” The collection itself was the main way to carry out this mission; it was a carefully chosen set of controversial works meant to spark debate and question authority.
The pieces in the collection that dealt most directly with Spain’s recent history and national identity were the strongest. The Francisco Franco National Foundation has already sued Eugenio Merino over his hyper-realistic sculpture of the former dictator in a commercial Coca-Cola fridge, Forever Franco (2012). It was a biting satire. Ines Doujak’s installation is also similar to this one.
Not Dressed for Conquering – HC04 Transport (2010), which shows former King Juan Carlos I having sex with Bolivian labor activist Domitila Barrios and a German Shepherd, caused a scandal in 2015 that led to the resignation of the director of the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA). Adding these attention-grabbing pieces made sure that the museum would be the center of national debate right away and without fail.
The museum also placed itself in a longer, international history of art-related conflict by displaying famous works from the global “culture wars.” For example, Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ (1987), a photo of a crucifix submerged in the artist’s urine, and Robert Mapplethorpe’s explicit X Portfolio, which documented New York’s gay BDSM subculture, were both on display. These works had sparked heated arguments in the US about public funding, obscenity, and religious blasphemy. Their presence in Barcelona showed how universal the museum’s theme was.
The collection was clearly global, with works of political dissent from all over the world. Ai Weiwei’s Filippo Strozzi in Lego (2016) was part of a series that the Lego company first refused to give the artist the materials for. David Wojnarowicz’s video
A Fire in My Belly (1986–87), which was famously taken out of a Smithsonian exhibit after conservative politicians protested, was another important work. The museum even showed a collection of drawings made by prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon had tried to stop the drawings from being shown, which raised questions about censorship and national security.
Adding works by well-known masters was a smart move that made the collection even stronger. The show included Francisco de Goya’s satirical engravings Caprichos (1797–99), which the Inquisition questioned the artist about; Pablo Picasso’s erotic Suite 347 (1968), which the Art Institute of Chicago once banned; and works by Andy Warhol and Gustav Klimt. Their inclusion was a deliberate choice by the curators to show that censorship is not a modern or fringe issue but a powerful force that has historically targeted even the most famous people in art history. This made the museum’s whole project seem more legitimate.
The Inauguration: A Famous ArrivalThe Museu de l’Art Prohibit opened on October 26, 2023, in the Casa Garriga Nogués, a beautiful modernist building in Barcelona’s wealthy Eixample district that used to hold the Mapfre Foundation’s art collection. The choice of this historic and architecturally important space was deliberate, giving the controversial art inside a sense of legitimacy and institutional support.
The first response was mostly positive. Art critics and cultural commentators praised the museum as a necessary and timely place. For instance, art critic and curator Gabriel Luciani said that its existence is “imperative…in Europe and around the world. Especially in these times of censorship that we’re seeing.” The design firm Mucho made the museum’s own branding, which focused on creating “a spirit of doubt and uncompromising debate.” It claimed to be a “testament to the enduring power of art to transcend censorship,” a story that was widely and enthusiastically accepted at the time.
The museum’s very existence was based on a noble, political, and moral goal: to fight censorship and the misuse of power. When it first opened, it had a lot of cultural capital and importance. But this same identity also set an extremely high moral standard for the institution to live up to. The museum’s “brand” was more than just “art.” It was “forbidden art,” which made it a moral and political actor whose main selling point was its righteousness. This moral high ground was great for the institution’s mission, but it also made it very easy for people to call it hypocritical. If the museum did anything that could be considered an “abuse of power” or “form of censorship,” it wouldn’t just be a mistake; it would be a threat to its credibility. The labor dispute that followed didn’t just hurt its finances; it hurt its very soul.
The Picket Line and the Empty Halls: How a Collapse Happened
The Museu de l’Art Prohibit’s fall was quick and brutal and based on a basic disagreement between what the museum said it stood for and what it did. The fight brought to light long-standing problems with working conditions and the museum’s business model, leading to a public war of stories between management and the union.
The Flashpoint: A Contract That Was Ended
The fight started on January 22, 2025, when the museum ended its contract with Magma Cultura, an outside company that provided seven people to work in visitor services. The museum said the termination was a normal business decision. It said that Magma Cultura, the company that hired the workers, “relocated them to other facilities in the city.”
The workers, on the other hand, did not agree with this solution. They asked the SUT union for help, and soon workers from two other subcontracted companies that worked at the museum, Silicia and Palacios y Museos, joined their cause. This quick rise in complaints suggests that they weren’t just about the seven fired workers but were probably a problem with the whole museum’s outsourced workforce.
The Strike: Calls for Respect and Good Working Conditions
The SUT union went on an indefinite strike on February 26, 2025. For the next four months, a picket line was set up every day outside the museum’s entrance on Carrer de la Diputació. The workers’ demands were not vague ideological ideas but a list of specific, tangible ways to make their working conditions better. They asked for proper climate control, saying that they were exposed to “drafts in winter” while the art was kept in perfectly controlled spaces. They wanted ergonomic chairs so they wouldn’t have to stand for nine hours straight, more staff on weekends to handle the workload, enough breaks, higher pay, and pay for working on holidays.
One of the most important and telling demands was that the museum hire them directly instead of through a chain of subcontractors. This was a direct attack on the museum’s whole outsourcing model and the way it kept its distance from its frontline workers.
Why Management Decided to Close: An Economic Disaster
The museum’s management always and publicly blamed the strike for its indefinite closure in late June 2025. The museum called the shutdown a “painful and undesired closure, but an unavoidable one” in its official statement, making it seem like the union was to blame for the protest that wouldn’t end.
The museum backed up its claim with shocking financial numbers, saying that the four-month protest had caused a 75% drop in revenue compared to the same time last year and a 95% drop in its projected growth. It said that these losses had become “unsustainable.” The museum also said that the picketers’ “coercions and insults” and “threats and slander” had made things difficult and even “put museum visitors and staff at risk.” The museum said in its defense that it had passed three labor inspections and taken part in two mediation sessions that didn’t work, which showed that it had followed the law and tried to find a solution.
The Union’s Counter-Narrative: A “Repressive and Anti-Worker” Strategy
The SUT union had a very different view of what happened. The union said in a statement that the Catalan newspaper El Triangle reported that Tatxo Benet closed the museum “to get rid of the strikers.” This claim changes the closure from an unfortunate economic outcome to a planned and aggressive way for the union to break up.
During the dispute, the union kept pointing out how hypocritical and contradictory it was for an organization that was supposed to support free speech to also deny its workers’ basic rights. The union also disagreed with the museum’s story about the drop in revenue, saying that many people who could have gone to the museum chose not to after hearing about the labor dispute from the picketers. This changes the way we think about the financial losses. They are not just a result of the strike but a sign of public support for the workers.
A cartoon of itself? The Main Problem
The Museu de l’Art Prohibit’s failure was not just a business failure; it was a philosophical failure as well. The museum’s very foundation was used against it, showing a deep and ultimately deadly conflict between its mission and its methods. The conflict revealed the institution’s serious lack of understanding regarding power, censorship, and free speech.
Weaponizing the Mission: Freedom of Speech vs. Workers’ Rights
The union’s most damaging and effective criticism was that the museum had become a “caricature… taking a contradictory stance.” The museum was ready for fights over the ideas behind its
the controversial pictures on its walls that make up its exhibits. But it was completely blindsided by a fight over how it should run—between the people who worked there. The SUT union cleverly changed the way people saw the labor dispute from a simple wage negotiation to a fight for dignity and freedom of expression, making the picket line its piece of protest art.
The museum’s identity was based on standing up for free speech against powerful groups. In this case, the museum itself became the powerful institution, and the labor strike, which is a legally recognized and historically important way to express political and economic views, became the act of breaking the law. When museum management said this way of expressing oneself was bad for business, the union was able to say that the museum was censoring it.
The museum used the same logic for governments and religious groups: to stop their protests and take away their rights. This put a stop to the story. The museum couldn’t fight the strike without looking like it was going against its own core values, which is what the union said it was. These facts showed that the institution had a major blind spot when it came to “freedom.” It valued artists’ abstract expression more than its workers’ material expression.
The Outsourcing View: A Flaw in Structure and Morality
The museum’s operational model was at the center of the disagreement. It relied on a shaky, outsourced workforce from subcontractors like Magma Cultura, Silicia, and Palacios y Museos. Many businesses use outsourcing to save money, but for an organization that built its public image on being anti-authoritarian and fighting the “abuse of power,” it was a huge ethical risk. This model let management avoid direct responsibility for working conditions, which labor advocates often call exploitative.
Because of this, the museum’s business model was always in conflict with its moral brand. The operational structure (the how) was in direct conflict with the mission (the what) that it was known for. The strike didn’t make this contradiction happen; it just brought it to the public’s attention. The workers’ main demand that the museum hire them directly was a direct challenge to this basic hypocrisy. They were trying to get the museum to follow its own rules.
Was the museum able to make money?
It is important to look closely at the museum’s claim that it suddenly went bankrupt. The claim that revenues fell by 75% and projected growth fell by 95% after just four months of protests is shocking, but it doesn’t give enough information about the museum’s baseline operating costs and revenues. It’s well known that it’s challenging to keep private, single-collector museums going financially. One academic study of this phenomenon says that these kinds of businesses often have “horrific operating costs” that can quickly become too much to handle, especially when they depend on ticket sales from just one location.
The museum may have already been having trouble meeting its financial goals before the strike started, since tickets cost between €12 and €14. If this were true, the strike may have given the company a public reason to shut down a project that was already going down a bad path, even though it hurt their bottom line. This scenario changes the way people think about what happened from “the strike killed the museum” to “the strike was the last illness for a patient who was already sick.” This possibility bolsters the union’s assertion that the closure was a deliberate attempt to “evict the strikers,” allowing the founder to minimize his losses while publicly attributing the project’s failure to the workers.
The Afterlife of the Forbidden: A Future on the Move and Questions That Won’t Go Away
The Museu de l’Art Prohibit has announced a new chapter now that its doors in Barcelona are closed. But this shift to a “nomadic” way of life raises important questions about whether the original mission can be kept or if the institutional failure is a loss that can’t be fixed.
The Nomadic Collection: Is the Mission Still Strong or Weakened?
Tatxo Benet and the museum have announced that the official plan is to turn the collection into a “nomadic collection, with traveling exhibitions around the world” that will “stay alive” and be a “meeting point to confront censorship.”
This plan, on the other hand, is a big step back from the original, more radical goal. The original idea was to build a permanent “safehouse” for art that had been attacked. This space would be a stable, safe place for people to gather, do research, and talk. On the other hand, a traveling exhibition is only temporary. It is a series of short-term events, not a permanent institution. This change makes it hard to believe that the main goal can be kept up. A touring show depends on the willingness and resources of the host institutions, and it may face the same censorship that it protests in other cultural or political settings. In fact, this had already happened on a planned international tour of the collection when a host in Andorra asked for the removal of a piece that had a
Charlie Hebdo cover, which made the museum cancel the collaboration in protest, saying they were “absolutely” committed to freedom of speech. This event shows how difficult it is to put a “nomadic” model into practice and how hard it is to think about it. The plan, which was presented as a dynamic continuation, is actually a major watering down of the original vision. It turns a bold institutional project into a more traditional, but still difficult, touring art collection.
The Assets’ Fate: Loss of Public and Private Property
The closure makes it clear that public trust is not the same as private business. Tatxo Benet still owns the collection of more than 200 works of art, and he can do whatever he wants with them. The public loses because the institution itself is going away. The beautiful Casa Garriga Nogués, once an important cultural center for the city of Barcelona, now stands empty, a silent reminder of a failed experiment.
The legacy of a short, bright, and failed experiment
The Museu de l’Art Prohibit was only open for 20 months, from October 2023 to June 2025, but it definitely got people all over the world talking about censorship and gave artists a strong, centralized place to show their work. But its failure teaches us an even more powerful lesson, even if it wasn’t meant to. People will remember the museum not just for the art it showed but also as an important, cautionary example of how institutional ethics, labor rights, and the difficulties of bringing radical ideas into line with market realities can clash.
Art, Work, and Power in the 21st-Century Museum: Bigger Ideas
The Museu de l’Art Prohibit’s sudden collapse is not the only one of its kind. It is a bellwether for the whole cultural sector, showing how the tensions between institutional branding, labor consciousness, and the special weaknesses of private, mission-driven organizations are growing.
A Bellwether for the Museum Sector: The Politics of Curators and Workers Are Linked
The events in Barcelona must be seen in the larger context of the rise of museum unionization and labor activism around the world. For years, cultural workers have been expected to make a “salary sacrifice,” which means that they should be willing to work for less money and in dangerous conditions because of the prestige of working in a museum. The strike in Barcelona is a clear example of how people are increasingly unwilling to accept this story.
More importantly, the SUT union successfully framed their disagreement in moral terms instead of just economic ones, giving mission-driven organizations a powerful new way to organize workers. They showed that a museum’s modern branding can be its biggest weakness. This case marks a change in the way things are done: museums can no longer keep their external curatorial politics separate from their internal labor politics. As cultural institutions use the words “social justice,” “diversity,” and “community engagement” more and more to show how important they are, they set a standard for how people should act inside. Labor unions will likely exploit any disparity between a museum’s stated values and its treatment of employees. The whole sector should take note: ethical labor practices are no longer just about following the law or following HR policy. They are now a key part of maintaining the integrity of an institution and managing its brand. A museum that says it is a “safe space for difficult conversations” must first be a safe place to work.
The weaknesses and duties of private museums
This case clearly shows how weak the private, founder-driven museum model is. Their existence is often unstable, depending on the founder’s financial health, continued involvement, and, as we can see here, their ability to handle difficult operational problems. The closure brings up an important question for the world of philanthropy: Does a private, mission-driven organization have a greater duty to make sure that its operations are in line with its public values? The quickness with which the union and its supporters jumped on the museum’s hypocrisy shows that the public and the media will expect these kinds of places to live up to the high standards they set for themselves.
We need to change what we mean by “censorship” in the age of institutions.
In the end, the story of the Museu de l’Art Prohibit is about the many different and sometimes contradictory meanings of “censorship” that exist in the 21st century. The museum was set up to fight the usual censorship by the state and religious groups. The museum, on the other hand, said that the union was “censoring” their right to strike by closing down. Some people might even say that the union’s picket line “censored” the public’s right to see the art.
The saga is a perfect example of how the concept of censorship has changed from the simple idea of a government banning a piece of art. In a time when people are more aware of their rights and are critical of institutions, power and its abuses can be found in things like economic structures, employment contracts, and the hypocrisy of mission statements. The Museu de l’Art Prohibit was meant to be a monument to the triumph of free speech, but it has ironically become a more complicated and lasting monument to the unyielding nature of power itself. Its short, brilliant, and sad life is an important lesson for the future of museums as social, political, and, unfortunately, economic actors.
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