Hortensia Herrero Art Centre, Valencia - CAHH - Centro de Arte Hortensia Herrero

Hortensia Herrero Art Centre, Valencia, Opening

11 November 2023

After more than five years of work and preparation, the CENTRO DE ARTE HORTENSIA HERRERO (CAHH) - Hortensia Herrero Art Centre opens its doors with the aim of providing a new window on contemporary art and bringing it closer to those who live in or visit Valencia. Located in the heart of the city, the building, with 3,500 square metres of exhibition space, will house a selection from the private collection of Hortensia Herrero, vice president of Mercadona and president of the foundation that bears her name.

Well known for her commitment to art and culture, the president of the Hortensia Herrero Foundation has been the driving force behind this project, and her vision and dedication have been crucial in making it a reality. Between the restoration of the building and the various interventions, both architectural and artistic, the cost of the project has come to 40 million euros.

“This is a wonderful day for me. Seven and a half years has been a long period of my life, a long period of work for the architects, for Carlos Campos, Carlos Barberá, the Mercadona team and my colleagues in the Hortensia Herrero Foundation, led by Alejandra Silvestre. At last this art centre is a reality”, began Hortensia Herrero. “One of the objectives of my foundation is to care for the city’s heritage, to bring to light the beauty of buildings that are our history and are in ruins. With this restoration I think that objective is being fulfilled. Add to that my art collection and I think we’re creating a cultural focus in Valencia for both residents and visitors to enjoy.”

On the building, Hortensia Herrero wanted to express her gratitude for “the work of the team of architects, and especially my daughter Amparo for the loving care and the hours she has put into this project. They’ve managed to adapt the unique features of the building, its nooks and crannies, its passages… to house great works. This is a little jewel in the heart of Valencia and they’ve brought out the very best in it.”

She gave an account of how her relationship with art began. “I’ve always enjoyed painting, art in general, handicrafts. I visited galleries, museums… and bought the odd picture, becoming a collector without realising. One day, Elena Tejedor, my fantastic project initiator at the Foundation, introduced me to Javier Molins while visiting Andreu Alfaro’s studio. With Javier we arranged the purchases so that everything was harmonious and made sense. That’s how we got involved in the world of galleries, fairs like Arco, Basel, Frieze, biennials like Venice. What with all this, we have some 50 artists represented in this art centre, some of them bought in Valencia galleries, thanks to Abierto València. In addition, we have six site-specifics. We selected six artists to make us specific installations for this centre, so that they would develop their creativity by embellishing it.”

Hortensia Herrero ended by thanking “my husband, because without the results he obtains from his company, it would not have been possible to make this happen. Thank you all from my heart. I hope you like it as much as I do.”

CAHH: A private collection of contemporary art

Hortensia Herrero has always has a special sensitivity to art and has been collecting artworks for more than ten years. The Hortensia Herrero Art Collection has a clear international orientation, with contemporary artists of recognised stature that can be found in the collections of museums such as MoMA, the Tate or the Pompidou Centre, among many others. The first presentation of this collection, with which the Hortensia Herrero Art Centre will open its doors tomorrow, Saturday 11 November, includes over 100 works by more than 50 artists.

Names like Andreas Gursky, Anselm Kiefer, Georg Baselitz, Anish Kapoor, Mat Collishaw, Cristina Iglesias, Manolo Valdés, Michal Rovner, Ann Veronica Janssens, Eduardo Chillida and Tony Cragg are just some of the more than 50 artists whose work will be represented in one of the seventeen exhibition rooms in the Hortensia Herrero Art Centre. They are accompanied by internationally renowned figures such as David Hockney, El Anatsui and Peter Halley, and the Spanish artists Miquel Barceló, Blanca Muñoz, Julio González, Antonio Girbés, Juan Genovés and Joan Miró.

Javier Molins, artistic director of the Hortensia Herrero Art Centre, is the collection’s adviser: “Not only have we brought in a series of outstanding names in contemporary art, but we’ve brought in the best work by these artists, because there’s been a high degree of involvement on their part. In many cases they’ve been asked to do something specifically for the art centre or we’ve waited for some time to find the piece that best fitted into the collection.”

Javier Molins began working on this collection with Hortensia Herrero a decade ago: “The collection and the centre that houses it are the product of two quite distinct yet complementary passions: on the one hand, the passion that Hortensia Herrero has always felt for art, which has prompted her to collect and put together a set of works of high quality, and on the other, her passion for the city of Valencia, which has led her to acquire one of its most representative buildings, restore it, bring to light a whole series of archaeological remains of the history of the city and open it to the public with her contemporary art collection. In this way, a very interesting dialogue is set up between the history of the city, starting in the Roman Empire, with its circus, part of which we can see in the subsoil of the building, and the most international contemporary art.”

Six site-specifics at the CAHH

The space that accommodates this exhibition, the former Palacio de Valeriola, has been restored by the ERRE Architecture studio. Moreover, the beauty of a unique historical space containing the whole history of the city has been enhanced by specific interventions in six corners of the art centre. These are six site-specifics, created by artists of international stature, that merge with the building. Jaume Plensa, who visited the CAHH during the restoration process, has intervened in the apse, which connects the mansion to the garden. The “navel” of the building — melic in Catalan, as Plensa himself dubbed it — now has its walls inundated with letters and symbols in various alphabets from all over the world. Tomás Saraceno has created an installation comprising six clouds composed of irregular tetrahedrons and dodecahedrons and covered with iridescent panels, which completely fill the sixteen-metre-high entrance hall. Sean Scully has intervened in the former chapel of the Palacio, filling the space with colour. Scully suggested carrying out a comprehensive transformation of the chapel that would include both the windows in the walls and the glass in the dome. His intervention was completed with one of his paintings from the Landline series, characterized by horizontal stripes in various colours. Cristina Iglesias has transformed the connection between the main building and the annex, so that visitors will be able to feel they are inside her work. Olafur Eliasson has brought to life another of the passages in the building, creating a tunnel with two quite distinct perspectives: the view at the entrance, in which we can see 1,035 pieces of glass, each with a different design and position, containing all the colours of the rainbow, and the view looking back from the exit, where we see a black tunnel. Finally, there is Mat Collishaw, whose work is characterized by treating classical themes from art history with modern technology. Hortensia Herrero was fascinated by the video Sordid Earth created by Collishaw for Rod Arad’s curtain (which Hortensia Herrero herself brought to Valencia in the summer of 2022), so she commissioned him to produce a video specially for the art centre. She slipped in the idea that it could be inspired by the Fallas of Valencia, another of this patron’s great passions.

In short, they are six interventions that not only enter into a dialogue with the space but end up being integrated into the building itself and further enhancing its uniqueness. All these works will remain in the art centre permanently, enriching its architecture and investing this building with soul.

Supporting the Valencian art ecosystem: the Abierto València room

As the art centre is situated in Valencia, Hortensia Herrero was determined not to forget the city’s more emerging art and its gallery ecosystem. As Javier Molins explains, the Valencian patron “first started collecting in her own city by acquiring artworks by the artists who exhibited in its galleries for her own enjoyment in the privacy of her own home. It is a practice that she has continued over time and has institutionalized through the acquisition prize she awards every year as part of the event known as Abierto València (Open Valencia), with which the galleries of Valencia launch the September season. From 2014 to 2022, twenty-one works by sixteen artists have been added to the Hortensia Herrero collection through this acquisition prize, and two rooms in the CAHH have been fitted out to show a selection of these works acquired in the galleries of Valencia.”

CAHH: A unique space

As if the selection that forms this first exhibition were not enough, its container, the actual building that houses the Hortensia Herrero Art Centre, is a work of art in itself. It is located in the former Palacio de Valeriola, an iconic construction in a Baroque style which encapsulates the history of the city, from Roman, Visigothic and Islamic times to the Christian era: a space like few others in Valencia in which to see and admire the past. Moreover, a fragment of the Roman circus of the ancient city of Valentia has been found in the subsoil.

The site was part of Muslim Balansiya between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, and remains of two fountains belonging to an Islamic patio have been found in it. One of them has survived in good condition and can be viewed by visitors to the art centre. This eight-pointed fountain, and the other, which is more damaged, stood at either end of the pool in a large courtyard with a border of plants, framed by channels around the perimeter and rotundas at the corners, through which water circulated.

This courtyard belonged to the large Islamic house of Haçach Habinbadel. It also constitutes the last vestige of the Jewish quarter, as can be seen in an alley that lies within the art centre and has also been recovered for visitors to enjoy. Later on, the construction of the Palacio de Valeriola became a showcase for the opulence of Valencian Baroque society.

The restoration of the building, which was in a very advanced state of dereliction when Hortensia Herrero acquired it, was undertaken by the ERRE Arquitectura studio. Amparo Roig, one of its three partners, also took part in the presentation of this new exhibition space:

“We fell in love with this building, even though it was a ruin. A ruin that was lucky enough to catch the eye of Hortensia Herrero, with unstinting investment of time, cost and loving care. And in order to breathe life into the building, ensuring its continuity over time. From the outset we aimed to recover the original character of the existing building, reinforcing the most damaged parts, of which there were many. We’ve brought out the original atmosphere of the seventeenth-century palacio while achieving an exhibition space with the modern facilities it deserves. We hope and wish that this new chapter in the history of the Palacio de Valeriola, from now on the Hortensia Herrero Art Centre, will serve to promote contemporary art of the highest level and to highlight the great value of Valencia’s architectural heritage”, explained Amparo Roig.

The exhibition area is organized around seventeen rooms distributed on four levels. One of the main challenges of the project was to design a continuous walkthrough that would offer visitors a pleasant and comfortable experience throughout an area of over 3,500 square metres. This walkthrough follows an ascending course in the Calle del Mar building and descends in the second section, adjacent to Calle de San Cristóbal, connecting with it via the building situated in the garden. The complex is completed with a landscaped courtyard, as well as a basement, where the remains of the ancient Roman circus of Valencia found during the archaeological excavations can be visited. This Roman circus was the most imposing structure in the city in the second century AD, with an area equivalent to more than three football pitches (350 metres long and more than 70 metres wide). During the excavations, several sections of the thick five-metre-wide wall of the western tiered seating area were located, another three transverse walls serving as braces, and seven buttresses on the outside of the wall. These finds have been preserved and will be open to visitors to the centre.

The restoration work has taken over five years, during which the aim has been to recover as far as possible the historical character contained in the Palacio de Valeriola, and at the same time to turn it into a leading contemporary art centre, with all the technological requirements that this entails.

CENTRO DE ARTE HORTENSIA HERRERO, VALENCIA

HORTENSIA HERRERO ART CENTRE, VALENCIA

Calle del Mar, 31 – 46003 València

www.cahh.es

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Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai

Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai 

The Rockbund Art Museum Opens on May 4, 2010. The Museum is built on a rich historical and cultural heritage, and aims to be an international platform for the promotion and exchange of contemporary art. 

Drawing on resources from governmental, social and corporate domains, the Rockbund Art Museum considers its mission to be the spread of humanistic values and the promotion of art, and dedicates its efforts to the study, exchange and promotion of contemporary visual arts. 

Through diverse exhibitions and educational programmes, it seeks to stimulate discussions of topical and social issues in contemporary spirit. It also hopes that, by providing the members of the community with high-quality aesthetic and leisure resources, it can contribute to social progress and improve the quality of urban life in the city.

The Museum collaborates with artists and curators of international importance on exhibitions. It also presents exhibitions of new talented artists as well as those of design, fashion and architecture to reflect a broad spectrum of human creativity.

As the first contemporary art museum on the Bund, the Rockbund Art Museum benefits from its rich cultural tradition and mainstream location. It works to integrate art, design and innovation into an aesthetic space for a new Shanghai lifestyle. At present, the Rockbund Art Museum has a number of cross-disciplinary programmes in planning, which include contemporary artists' exhibitions, annually guest curator’s project, international seminars and cultural lecture series, and guided tours of historical architecture on the Bund. 

A Proud Legacy

The Rockbund Art Museum is located at the triangle where Suzhou Creek flows into the Huangpu River, an area known as Waitanyuan today. The Museum is housed in the former Royal Asiatic Society building, which was also home to one of China's first modern museums -- the previously Shanghai Museum.  Adjacent to the former British Consulate General, this neighborhood was one of the first settlements of foreign expatriates, and a centre of cultural and commercial prosperity.  

Established in 1932, the RAS Building was a witness to the history of 19th and 20th Century Sino-European cultural and academic exchange. At its height, this five-story building which contained a lecture hall, a library, and a museum had received over 7000 visits a month.  Bringing together the functions of scholarly research, cultural exchange and public education under one roof, this structure was truly unique in Shanghai of that era.  

 

During the half-century of its existence, the RAS Shanghai Museum had established collaborative relationship with world-renown museums, including the British Museum, the New York Metropolitan Museum, and the Musée Guimet in France, a proof of its highly professional standard attained at the time. Through its rich and diverse programmes, it had greatly contributed to the scholarship in related disciplines, cultural exchanges between China and the world, and the dissemination of scientific knowledge in the community. Eventually it had become the largest center for Oriental Studies as well as a widely respected institution for public education.  In 1952, the RAS closed its operation in China. At its request, its collections were transferred to the new Shanghai Municipal Services.

The Building

In 2005, the Shanghai Bund de Rockefeller Group Master Development Co. Ltd. Obtained the right to develop the area. In respect for its historical and cultural heritage, and as a form of contribution to the community, the developer decided to restore the RAS building, and to renovate it into a public museum for contemporary art.

At the helm of the important task of restoration and design planning is the world-renowned British architect David Chipperfield, who had directed the master planning of the Museum Island in Berlin. The building was originally designed by the British design firm Palmer and Turner.  In highlighting a harmonious blend of Western architectural elements with Shanghai's cityscape, the firm incorporated traditional Chinese decorative elements in the building and created a unique hybrid architectural style. 

In an effort to retain the original flavour of the historical building, David Chipperfield has chosen to stay consistent to the original 1932 design in the building’s main exterior facade in the restoration. To facilitate the functions of contemporary art museum, the restoration extends the building eastward.

Cai Guo-Qiang: Peasant Da Vincis is the Rockbund Art Museum's inaugural exhibition.

ROCKBUND ART MUSEUM

20 Huqiu Road, Huangpu District, Shanghai 20002

www.rockbundartmuseum.org

Walker Evans Archive, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Walker Evans Archive 

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Opening on February 1, 2000

The Metropolitan Museum of Art will open the Walker Evans Archive, one of the most complete single-artist archives of the 20th century, as a special research center devoted to the American photographer Walker Evans (1903-1975), on February 1, 2000. 

Acquired in 1994 by the Museum's Department of Photographs, the Walker Evans Archive includes Evans's black-and-white negatives, color transparencies, and motion-picture film from the late 1920s to the 1970s; the artist's original manuscripts, diaries, correspondence, and audiotape recordings of interviews and lectures; and his personal library and collections. This extraordinary trove will provide artists and scholars with a rare insight not only into the artistic achievement of Walker Evans, but also into the cultural, intellectual, and personal context of his career. The opening of the Archive coincides with the premiere of Walker Evans, the Museum's retrospective exhibition of the photographer's work, on view from February 1 through May 14, 2000.

The Walker Evans Archive has been designated a National Treasure by Save America's Treasures, a public-private partnership between the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the White House Millennium Council dedicated to raising awareness of and protecting America's irreplaceable historic and cultural legacy.

The conservation of the Walker Evans Archive has been made possible through the generous support of the William Randolph Hearst Foundation as part of the Save America's Treasures program.

Additional conservation support has been provided by The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Henry J. Nias Foundation, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

"The acquisition of the Walker Evans Archive provides an invaluable new dimension to the development of the Metropolitan's collection of photography, which was inaugurated in 1928," said Philippe de Montebello, Director of the Metropolitan Museum. "The rich and extensive resources of this vast archive will not only enhance the Museum's presentation of photography by providing an unprecedented depth of understanding of one of the most powerful and persuasive artists of the 20th century, but will also prove to be an invaluable resource for scholars and researchers of American art and culture."

The Archive's photographic materials include some 30,000 black-and-white negatives, 10,000 color transparencies, annotated proof sheets, family albums, and access to all 2,600 of Evans's SX-70 photographs, his last work with the camera. With the nearly 1,000 negatives Evans made for the New Deal's Resettlement (later Farm Security) Administration kept in the Library of Congress, the totality of Evans's pictorial development is now fully preserved and available for study. This encyclopedia of Walker Evans's work, together with the artist's carefully annotated negative sleeves, reveals how the artist shaped and interpreted his material and how he refined his concept of his subjects.

Although he is best known as a photographer, Walker Evans also used his writing and lecturing, as well as his collections of postcards and commercial signs, to convey his unique vision of the American scene. The Archive brings together all of these original materials: it is both the source and repository for Evans's thoughts and ideas. The papers and diaries contain many opinions, accounts, facts, and episodes relating in detail Evans's life experiences and the forces that shaped his art. The archive reveals important intersections between Evans's thought and that of Hart Crane, Lincoln Kirstein, Ben Shahn, James Agee, Robert Fitzgerald, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, and other important figures of the century.

The Walker Evans Archive also includes: the artist's collection of printed ephemera; his paintings, drawings, and collages; and his library of over 400 volumes, many annotated by Evans; and his collection of 10,000 picture postcards, which he began acquiring as a child. Predominantly views of American vernacular architecture, the postcards, with their humble purpose and straightforward photography, were a great source of inspiration for Evans and was among his most prized possessions.

For a time in the 1960s, Evans momentarily dispensed with the camera and liberated from the roadside the kinds of hand-made and commercial signs he had photographed since the beginning of his career. The Archive contains approximately 100 signs including ones for nightcrawlers, a post office, lobsters for sale, as well for Coca-Cola and other nationally advertised products. This was the artist's last great collection of vernacular images, a resonant complement to his postcards.

The Walker Evans Archive will be available to researchers and scholars beginning February 1, 2000. Appointments must be made in advance.

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

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