La fotografía en la Colección del IVAM

Including photography in the IVAM collection was always part of its initial project. It was judged essential for a proper understanding of reality yet had not been tackled in Spain beforehand with any degree of normality, despite the fact that its discovery and changing uses have been closely tied in with the evolution of Modern Art itself. Therefore, it was absolutely crucial to include this artistic discipline, not only in the collection, but in each one of the activities of the IVAM, on the same level as drawing, sculpture or painting in recognition of its importance in the true historiographic foundations of Modern Art. The technological progress of this medium was instrumental in the current hegemony of concepts such as multimedia and information highways, while at once ensuring a massive, democratic exercise of creation thanks to its wide social use. The positive decision was conceived to settle, once and for all, a groundless controversy exclusively based on the fact that, by dint of using this new tool, the results did not merit the consideration of works of art. This false controversy had already been overcome in many other countries, yet in Spain, notwithstanding having internationally acclaimed artists and hosting various festivals and congresses, it still prevailed in the museum circuit as a whole. The IVAM’s photography collection was begun with the same spirit as the museum’s main collection, which follows fundamentally historical criteria, aimed at expressing and underscoring the characteristics of modern and contemporary art, as well as the specific contributions to its development in Spain and very especially in Valencia, revolving around the sculptures of Julio González, with his use of emptiness and assemblage of pieces in the sculptural composition. This change in artistic language is the main axis around which we have selected artists using photography as a form of artistic expression, alongside artists who made up the historical movements from the decade of the nineteen-thirties, and those that arose later with Informalism and Pop Art. These movements have received a fair share of attention in the Collection of the IVAM. Photography, photomontage and graphic design have always been given a central place in the Collection and in the temporary exhibitions we have organised, situating them in their rightful place in the history of art. Works which have been made by some of the most emblematic figures in the artistic avant-garde plus a series of artists deserving greater attention, bestowing the collection with a different and exclusive character, and which are essential for any proper understanding of the present situation of contemporary art. Artists we can locate from the dawn of modernism right up to the present moment in time, artists with a direct connection to the central concept of the collection, based on the profound change they brought about in their ongoing search for form, coupled with a level of engagement with the events being developed in the society in which they live. Given the dearth of photographic collections in Spain when the IVAM was beginning its collection, and thanks to the loan of work from the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos, with some exceptional historical pieces by the great pioneers in ‘writing with light’, it was decided to extend the time range of the Photography Collection from the origins to the present, including both Spanish and international artists. The Photography Collection of the IVAM presents a particular revision of the History of Photography, featuring the artists who pioneered technical experimentation, contributing a decidedly artistic character to their works, the work by the main innovators developing their activity in between the two world wars, and covering European, Spanish and very particularly Valencian artists not included in mainstream collections in the United States around which many historical publications to date have revolved. Works of the utmost importance and which, unlike the paintings or sculptures by the great masters, it was still possible to acquire and, in some cases, are still affordable today, even though the art market has already outstripped previous forecasts for photographic-based art, now reaching astronomic figures in the case of fashionable artists, apart from the crucial names in the history of the discipline. The Photography Collection of the IVAM hopes to clarify two misunderstandings that have been associated with the evolution of photography. The first, the false attribution that the results of this tool are exclusively the fruit of technique and truthfully represent reality and the second is that, once overcome the first, it seemed that only those photographs made by artists had any intrinsic value, with their genial manipulations that would convert them into unique objects, in contradistinction to the infinite copies that photography could contribute, on the other hand the most important of its specific characteristics and one which began a new technological revolution, as a democratising image of society. This exhibition will take a closer look at some of the works by great masters who have entered the annals of the History of Photography. But it would be from Robert Frank and Gabriel Cualladó onwards when photographs began to fit in to perfection with the conception of the collection of the IVAM, finding a wide representation of works by a series of artists who use this tool for “writing with light”, and coincide fully with the conceptual goal of the collection. Also in complete consonance with the driving force of the Collection is a major selection of photomontages which begin with the whole series John Heartfield did for the magazine AIZ, in the period of classical avant-garde, recovering the magazines from the era as the true originals, because that was how their authors had initially conceived them, being as they were against the figure of the artist and aiming their art with its strong revolutionary component mainly at the general public. This part of the collection is further complemented by an important group of works left by the photomontage artist from Valencia Josep Renau, who added the inclusion of colour in political photomontage, tying in directly with the idea of montage and the appropriation of images of the pop artists who appeared in the sixties, at a moment when non-figurative art entered in crisis and the relationship between art and society was totally ambiguous, with more or less subtle positions coexisting in both directions. Overlooking the individual techniques used, we can see in this exhibition the possibilities that photomontage offered in all directions. From the early use by the first photographers who tried to simulate a realist action to the various experimentations dating from the era of the historic avant-gardes, reinforcing the huge communicative potential of photomontage. From the 1920s onwards, cubist collage and photomontage maintained a special influence on constructivists and Dadaists, when it was used by the latter as an instrument for critical political and social action by dint of the visual impact and strength coming from this singular free relation of fragments of reality. These ideas evolved together with the use of photography, new typographies and the new processes of graphic reproduction, which added much more precision to the language of photomontage and allowed for a mass diffusion, ensuring its continuity in the work of artists from later generations, who are also included in this collection. The selection we are now presenting consists of 500 photographs from 230 of the most representative artists in the collection, made up of donations from artists and private individuals, from loans from the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos, the Josep Renau Foundation, the Gabriel Cualladó Collection, the Ordóñez-Falcón Collection and the Gandia i la Safor. Els paisatges de Joanot Martorell Collection, jointly shared with the City Council of Gandía, but above all with the acquisitions made by the IVAM itself since it was first set up.