The name MEIAC (standing in Spanish for Extremadura and Ibero-American Museum of Contemporary Art) properly identifies its location, its contents and its vocational reference background, at the same time being a reaction to the foundational will that led to the creation of this Museum: the immediate gathering of a widespread heritage, the creation of a cross-border cultural relationship with Portugal and the reinforcement of those links that for historical reasons this region shares with Latin America.

The goals of the creation of MEIAC fit into the general purpose of cultivating development and spreading artistic activity in a region that until now did not have any centre of specialised formation; to facilitate its reintegration in a circuit open to cultural relationships and interchange with other similar centres, and endow the Autonomous Community of Extremadura with an unprecedented heritage of works of contemporary art, since there had not been in Extremadura any public or private collections of true meaning and value.

The collection, the exhibitions and the activities in the Museum are oriented towards its declared Ibero-American identity. In order to elaborate the project of the Museum, a Committee was constituted in 1994. The committe was formed by Antonio Franco Domínguez, Antonio Bonet Correa, Fernando Huici March, Fernando Castro Flórez, Rosa Olivares Zurilla, Bernardo Pinto de Almeida, Miguel Logroño Leza, Luís Alonso Fernández, Miguel Rojas Mix, María del Mar Lozano Bartolozzi, Javier Cano Ramos, José Antonio Galea Fernández, Pedro Barquero Moreno and José María Soriano Llamazares.