In a brief message, musician Juanes asked journalist Hector Arango to halt an initiative to build a museum commemorating his work, Caracol Radio reported Wednesday.
According to the article, the message read: “Forget this idea Hector. I am telling you this with care and respect, in the name of our whole family.”
Arango reportedly responded, saying, “The English say: Your wish is my law … And I assure you that this is how it will be, in view of the great friendship and profound admiration that I feel for you and your entire family.”
The journalist added that he would take up the initiative again if Juanes and family ever considered the occasion to be appropriate, and said “I offer you apologies for whatever mortification this well-intentioned initiative may have caused you.”
An article last week in El Periodico indicates that members of Juanes’ family had, prior to the exchange, expressed opposition to the museum idea. In the article, his sister Maria Victoria Aristizabal Vasquez is quoted as saying “I will … make it very clear to him [Arango] that the Juanes museum is not going to be possible; that the family is not in agreement; that he should not insist on the idea anymore.”
Following the correspondence between Juanes and Arango, there will, at least for the time being, be no museum built to commemorate the singer in Carolina del Principe in the north of Antioquia, Juanes’ hometown.