The Moscow Museum of Modern Art presents the exhibition Masterpieces of the 20th Century from the Collection of the Valencia Institute of Modern Art (IVAM) on view through October 30, 2011.
The IVAM (Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno) opened in 1989 and became the first museum of modern art in Spain. This marked the beginning of a new stage in Valencia art life and an event of universal importance in the sphere of modern art. Its collection of masterpieces of the 20th and 21st centuries is highly valued all over the world and attracts a lot of visitors every year.
It is remarkable that the IVAM and the MMoMA collections are similar to each other in many respects. Each collection counts over 10,000 exhibits and tends to present a panoramic view of modern art in all its diversity, with special emphasis on the national heritage. So it comes as no surprise that the Moscow Museum of Modern Art hosts this important exhibition.
The IVAM collection presents an overview of the avant-garde art of the first decades of the 20th century and all art tendencies of the postwar period. The art of Julio González, a pioneering Spanish artist and sculptor of the first half of the past century, occupies a special place in the IVAM holdings. The IVAM holds the richest collection of his artworks. The exhibition at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art opens with Julio González’s oeuvre together with the works by Torres Garcia, a Uruguayan artist of the early 20th century. Also on view at the Museum, will be kinetic sculptures by Alexander Calder, installations by Kurt Schwitters and Man Ray, abstract works by František Kupka and works by classic Surrealist and Dadaist masters Joan Miro, Marcel Duchamp, André Masson, Jean Arp.
The exhibition will show experimental tendencies of the postwar period, which reflected a newly formed worldview. These are works by European masters, i. e. Antoni Tàpies, Antonio Saura, Karel Appel, Ad Reinhardt, Pierre Soulages, and works by celebrated American artists, i. e. Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Serra. Works by American Pop-art artists, such as Richard Hamilton, James Rosenquist and European representatives of this tendency, such as Eduardo Arroyo, Equipo Crónica group and others will also be exhibited.
Starting from the 1980s, artists have been actively using new media, new techniques and electronic devices. The IVAM responded to the new art trends early on and acquired for its collection works by Andreu Alfaro, Miquel Navarro, John Davies, Bruce Nauman, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Christian Boltanski, Eduardo Chillida and Juan Usle. Some of these artworks will be displayed at the exhibition «Masterpieces of the 20th century». Postwar Modern Art will be represented at the exhibition by the works by Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso.
Since the IVAM holds the most extensive and valuable collection of photography in Spain, a section of the exhibition is devoted to photography of the past century. Among other photo masterpieces of the 20th century, the show will feature a work by Alexander Rodchenko, one of the greatest Russian photographers.
According to curator Francisco Jarauta, the exhibition of selected artworks from the IVAM collection at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art gives the visitors an opportunity to retrace the history of every period of the 20th century art. By studying history we learn about key events and circumstances which marked important paradigm shifts in the development of art.
The project aims to initiate a full-fledged dialogue between the two museums’ different but complementary collections and concepts. But the collaboration between the IVAM and the MMoMA goes beyond this point. In the summer of 2012, a reciprocal exhibition «Era of Discoveries: Masters of the Russian Avant-Garde» from the collection of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art will be held at the Valencia Institute of Modern Art.