423 ALBERTO FABRA PART President of the Valencian Government The IVAM celebrates its XXV anniversary, a quarter of a century long journey serving Valencians in such a complex and intriguing sphere as the one defined by contemporary art. Throughout all these years, its halls have seen continuous exhibitions and displays, cultural and social activities, and multidisciplinary events. Creators from around the world have brought their works to the IVAM and have linked their name to these five prodigious lustrums during which Valencia has turned into a reference for artistic expression. Great names of our recent past have appeared together with emerging figures in an institution that has known how to provide prestige to each of its events since the very beginning. We keep memories of unforgettable moments associated to unique art works, valuable experiences born from encounters with paintings, sculptures or installations in the museum’s halls. We also keep in mind a unique group of art works which compose the IVAM’s collection and are somehow living witnesses of that continuous work. This great collection, constructed during the years through acquisitions, and especially through generous donations by artists and collectors, forms a unique and original picture of history of art during the past decades, honouring the talent and effort of every management team in the history of the institution. The IVAM was born to adjust its rhythm to the latest creations, to take on risks daily in search of new talents, original and innovative proposals, enriching dialogues between the works of the best known masters and the most surprising and breaking initiatives. The IVAM’s history is a story of success. During twenty five years, a big number of professionals have worked with enthusiasm in different tasks to make it possible. All of them have managed the IVAM to be on everyone’s lips, the silhouette of its main building to be known by everyone, or that critics, publishers, experts, gallery owners and collectors from around the world to identify its initials, which have been so familiar to us, without hesitation. Valencians congratulate ourselves for having the IVAM, because its halls have granted us the opportunity to approach contemporary art, enriching our vision of the world with proposals made by some of the best observers of reality, as well as being able to appreciate the passionate world of artistic creation from very different perspectives. We have a museum of modern art which is a reference for Spain and the world. This anniversary gives us the chance to return to the IVAM and go over its history through a suggestive and attractive visit of its collection. This display of the IVAM’s collection as well as the scheduled exhibitions for the upcoming months confirms the institution’s great future. A complex and exciting future rich in colours and influence as the art it holds in its halls. New generations of Valencians will make these magical initials their own, relating other images, feelings and concepts to them. The task of enriching the IVAM’s collection and giving continuity to a thriving twenty five year old initiative will lie in their hands. CELEBRATING 25 YEARS CONSUELO CÍSCAR CASABÁN DIRECTOR OF THE IVAM We live such a short period of time on this planet that each of our steps should be directed at building more and more of the dreamt space of utopia. Let’s build it together: it is the only way of making it happen. CÉSAR MANRIQUE (1919 - 1992), Spanish artist The beginning of the twentieth century came along with an important shift in the field of ideas influencing all social and cultural disciplines to generate new literary knowledge, pictorial movements, philosophical trends, innovative ideological manifestos, scientific progress and social advances. This huge qualitative change in universal history caused an important dissociation and transgression of past currents of thinking. Vanguards were also born during that time, especially in the world of art, from where the main tendencies could be observed, while distancing themselves from “conventional grammars” stemming from the Ancient Regime, and pointing towards new artistic realities. It may be now when, from a certain historical perspective, we may be able to understand the historical digression defined as the “era of reaction” (and not without a reason) by some historians, to decipher its essentials in a more exact way. In this sense, we know the end of the nineteenth century helped, in an extraordinary manner, the twentieth century to begin with a clear artistic rupture, considering that since Rimbaud, modern artists have called for the disorder of senses, concepts, roles and places. It seems clear that its role, far from traditional icons, should be to “criticise, surprise, bother, shake”, as Walter Benjamin explained as he defined an art with capacity to broaden the world and establish sense given its radical creativity. When we talk about vanguards, we always and inevitably look towards Europe as a reference in the creation of this new cultural ambience. However, we should not forget that these vanguards soon spread and colonised other lands, other hemispheres, broadening their conceptual scope. The artists behind them maintained an attitude of consensus to create an art which worked as an antithesis of a concrete nineteenth century tradition already fought against and in the process of dismantling by parnassian poets and impressionist painters from Paris. The IVAM’s Julio González collection begun with that spirit of renovation in July of 1985 with a number of acquisitions and generous donations by Carmen Martínez and Viviane Grimminger, the sculptor’s heirs. The museum, inaugurated by Her Majesty Queen Sofía on February the 18th 1989, took custody of a unique set of works by this artist, as well as his brother Joan and daughter Roberta, with the intention of constituting the core of the museum’s future collection. The effort to provide Valencia with a museum like the IVAM, which fundamental aim is
Colección del IVAM. XXV Aniversario
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