Opening a private museum is never an easy endeavor. Yet Hortensia Herrero’s seven-year, $42 million restoration of a 17th-century Valencian palace might rank among the more ambitious undertakings of its kind in recent years.
Upon entering the Centro de Arte Hortensia Herrero (CAHH), it becomes quickly apparent that the billionaire businesswoman and vice president of Spain’s ubiquitous Mercadona supermarket (which she helped build with her husband, Jan Roig) does not do things by halves. Suspended within its grand entrance hall is a site-specific installation by the Argentinian artist Tomás Saraceno: Titled Corona Australis 38.89 (2023), the piece is made up of six cubic “clouds” that reverberate neon hues across the museum’s five stories. It’s one of six site-specific pieces commissioned for the space, which comprises more than 100 works by some 50 artists.
Situated in central Valencia, Spain’s third-largest metropolitan area, the CAHH marks a significant new plank in the city’s buzzing cultural scene.
The space itself is rife with cultural history. The former Palacio de Valeriola, it was originally part of a Muslim Balansiya between the 11th and 13th centuries (two remains of fountains were uncovered during the restoration). Over the years, the building has served as a home to a family of butchers; the headquarters of the national newspaper Las Provincias; and most recently, a nightclub that once boasted two caged lions amid its dancefloors. To transform the space into a home for CAHH, ERRE Arquitectura studio and Herrero’s daughter Amparo were tasked with crafting a synergy between this long heritage and contemporary art. The result, which includes over 3,500 square meters of exhibition space, impressively retains flourishes and artifacts from the Baroque, Roman, Visigothic, and Islamic periods.
“They’ve managed to adapt the unique features of the building, its nooks and crannies, its passages…to house great works,” said Herrero. “This is a little jewel in the heart of Valencia and they’ve brought out the very best in it.”
Now, the building is home to Herrero’s art collection, which is both very international and very, very blue chip—from 20th-century masters including Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, and Roy Lichtenstein to contemporary photography by the likes of Thomas Ruff, Idris Khan, and Antonio Girbés. The expansive collection is made more impressive by both its environment and the fact that most of the works were acquired in just over a decade.
It was a visit to the “Sorolla and America” exhibition at Dallas’s Meadows Museum in 2013 that inspired Herrero to build the current collection. There, through a chance meeting with the Valencian curator Javier Molins, her collecting took a turn, from focusing primarily on works by Valencian artists to a more international scope of contemporary art.
“I could see that she wanted also to do things in the contemporary art field, and she was thinking even of opening a museum in the city maybe with Valencian artists,” recalled Molins. “I suggested that it would be a better idea to focus on Valencian citizens, many of whom are unable to travel to cities like Paris, New York, or London to see important contemporary art, rather than focusing on Valencian artists.”
Herrero agreed, and from there, a fruitful and determined partnership was sparked. “Right there, we started developing the ambitious idea of putting together an international art collection comprising a list of artists of the caliber that can be seen in the world’s leading centers of contemporary art,” Molins added.
What followed was a headfirst dive into the art world, with Herrero and Molins quickly forging an impressive partnership that took them to artists’ studios, art fairs, galleries, and everywhere in between. “With Javier, we arranged the purchases so that everything was harmonious and made sense,” said Herrero. “That’s how we got involved in the world of galleries, fairs like ARCO, [Art] Basel, [and] Frieze, and biennials like Venice.”
It was also important for the pair to build relationships with many of the artists that they would bring into the collection, several of whom would be commissioned to make site-specific pieces. The premise was simple: Artists would have total freedom to propose projects of their own, but the collector would also have the freedom to turn down a proposal. In the end, none of the proposals were rejected, and it’s clear to see why—each installation involves a thoughtful collaboration with the architects, connecting the artists’ vision to the restoration of the space.
Sean Scully, for instance, transformed the former chapel of the Palacio, replacing its walls and domed glass with evocative blocks in primary colors; the work conjures the artist’s trademark intensity within the finely restored space. Olafur Eliasson brings a passage in the building to life with a tunnel constructed from 1,035 uniquely designed pieces of glass, turning the entrance into a kaleidoscopic rainbow.
In Cristina Iglesias’s Tránsito Mineral (2022), a stony, illusive passageway links the two buildings of the art center with a series of mirrors where visitors can see their image reflected. “I hope viewers will feel they are in another world, that this passage from one place to another will be a passage into a special, dreamlike world, and that it can remind you in turn of things you have seen in nature,” Iglesias said of her work.
Herrero’s Valencian roots are a thematic presence throughout, too. Approximately a fifth of the collection comes from local galleries, and almost half of the featured artists are from Spain. A ground floor section is dedicated to works by Spanish artists including Miquel Barceló and Julio González. This selection of works will be rotated throughout the year.
Other highlights include a trio of large-scale Anselm Kiefer works, including the imposing Böse Blumen (Evil Flowers) (2012–16) and Der Tod und das Mädchen (Death and the Maiden) (2018), which include the artist’s signature black lead book. There’s also a striking room dedicated to David Hockney, featuring The Four Seasons (2010–11), a work composed of 36 synchronized screens on four walls, where the artist filmed the woods of East Yorkshire from a car at four different times of year to be watched simultaneously. The room also includes a pair of the artist’s iPad works and two drawings from his house in Normandy that show its changing seasons.
Throughout the CAHH, the thoughtful intermingling of local and international, historical and contemporary, is clear. And it’s this careful approach to collecting and exhibiting art that makes it a standout exhibition space—not to mention the beauty of the restored space itself.
“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,” said Herrero. “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.”
from Artsy News https://ift.tt/7JCSOiH
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