424 research and the diffusion of modern and contemporary art, would not have been successful without this outstanding beginning. This initiative collection, composed of nearly four hundred works disseminated among sculptures, paintings, drawings and jewellery, is considered the most complete existing exhibition on Julio González, an artist that marked the development of contemporary sculpture as well as demonstrating, at an early age, the will to renew himself in relation to the traditional use of bronze and stone binding himself to new techniques such as forging, welding, assembling and iron cutting. The perception of sculpture as a single piece changes thanks to the work of this precursor, today considered to be the main iron sculpture pioneer. But the whole collection built over the years at the IVAM with great judgement, is much more than just the work of González, because it represents the conquest of an artistic field, transgressively born during the twentieth century, in which different artistic languages have presented new ways of looking, hearing and thinking. These museum funds present the enormous work of a group of men and women who have lead the artistic revolutions of the past century, inventing new codes that have evolved into common heritage inside our collective cultural imagination, a real party of freedom, a live fire perpetuating twentieth century art and a fantastic flame of creativity. Therefore, recent history of art is expressed in this set of works, in this Collection, actually travelling the world given that it is marked, from the beginning to the end, by artistic languages and artists which walked along prosperous dialectics between great processes of dematerialisation-abstraction, and the opposite, of concretion-materialisation, leading to the conceptualising of plastic components and the visual construction of concepts. Therefore, the collection presents key aspects of the configuration of modernity and contemporaneousness, where the artist’s transgressive spirit, his desire towards innovation and experimenting, offer us incredible accomplishments. This is the reason why, during the celebration of our XXV anniversary, I firmly believe we should do so paying a tribute to the Permanent Collection as centre stage and real protagonist of the museum. In it, the reality of Spanish modern and contemporary culture is expressed, aligning itself equitably with cultures of other latitudes, especially in Latin America. This historical journey through some of the universal and artistic symbols of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries highlights how the IVAM’s collection has been during all these years the main force, driven by the tailwind of enthusiasm and the daily effort of every manager and working group that has existed in the institution, guaranteeing the future viability and excellence of the museum. This magnificent repertoire of works housed by the IVAM has been organised, under my management, in seven themes: photography and photomontage, sculpture, pop art, abstraction, installations and new media, drawing, work on paper and collage which I have personally been in charged of exhibiting around the globe, pursuing the internationalisation of the collection in a way it had never been proposed before and which is a product of the museum’s strategy to broaden new cultural horizons around contemporary art. Therefore, the IVAM’s Collection is composed by a total of 10.909 works, out of which 61,2% come from donations, of which 43% (2.975 works) have been obtained during my directorship of the museum. In this sense, we are always grateful for the generosity of artists, heirs and collectors which have contributed to the increase in wealth of every Valencian. Practically since its beginning, the IVAM has been favoured by this spirit reflected in a series of fine donations, which have allowed it to strengthen its collection and influence the development of cultural policies which have resulted in a greater knowledge, guardianship, promotion and diffusion of modern art. They are all a symbol of the philanthropic stance adopted by artists, individuals and entities which have placed their trust in the IVAM knowing their works were going to be kept, researched on and divulged correctly. This way, and with the assurance provided to us by this artistic capital, we have been organising partial and clarifying itineraries of the collection during twenty five years, with the goal of attracting new public to enjoy art knowledgably and sentimentally. As I was saying, it has been a quarter of a century since the challenge of building a museum like the IVAM begun, in a time when an extended culture around contemporary art in Spain did not exist. During those days, in 1989, the course of history was changing impressively due to a chain of events with global repercussions which consequences we are still living today. Nowadays we can verify how decisive 1989 were. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, we experienced a silent revolution which certainly reinforced three great phenomena still on the rise today and thoroughly protected by the IVAM since their beginning. As I see it, these interrelated phenomena, which are now part of the museum’s nature, are “citizen participation” (participatory ethics), “communication” (technological networks and globalisation) and “knowledge” (interdisciplinary and open source). This interconnected conceptual triumvirate has not only provoked the fusion of ideas and public feelings but the globalisation of knowledge and the interdisciplinarity of subjects, which is granting both artistic and scientific innovation with great results. I focus on these historical events because I consider them truly important to clearly understand the times in which the IVAM was born, and the spirit of transformation with which it begun a committed journey together with that time’s society. Given those circumstances, today we face this anniversary with the maturity required to reach this age and the joint commitment of fulfilling promises and obligations. That is why the best way of hosting this commemoration is to continue doing what we have always done best: to develop new exhibitions, build an activity programme with enthusiasm, to enrich ourselves with the people, to be a reference and a centre of reflection in art research, in conclusion, to host actions resulting from a demanding project and deliver them for viewers to feel and enjoy art. Therefore, the IVAM is sensitive to the
Colección del IVAM. XXV Aniversario
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