'Between Works, prefigured dialogues with the Carmen Thyssen Collection'

This past Friday at 12:00 noon, the new temporary exhibition of the Carmen Thyssen Space in Sant Feliu de Guíxols Entre Obres was presented, prefigured dialogues with the Carmen Thyssen Collection, which runs from 5 July until October 24, 2024 at the Monastery of Sant Feliu de Guíxols.

The presentation was attended by Guillermo Cervera, curator of the collection, the mayor of Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Carles Motas, the curator of the exhibition Pilar Giró and Jordi Camps, representing the Diputació de Girona. A total of 27 contemporary artists participate in this exhibition, in a game with 24 dialogues with pieces from the collection of Baroness Carmen Thyssen.

Four of the sculptures on display are part of the Carmen Thyssen collection and the exhibition is curated by Pilar Giró. The artists participating in the exhibition are: Nei Albertí, Manel Álvarez, Alfonso Alzamora, Ricardo Campos/Rosa Rosell, Josep Canals, Eduardo Chillida, Xavier Corberó, Xavier Escribà, Sílvia Gubern, Cristina Iglesias, Eva Lootz, Manel Marzo-Mart, Gerard Mas, José Luis Pascual, Enric Pladevall, Miquel Planas, Jaume Plensa, Pepa Poch, Juan Miguel Quiñones, Samuel Salcedo, Susana Solano, Alberto Udaeta and Manolo Valdés.

Visitors to the exhibition will encounter the sculptures and next to them they will see an identifying element that enables dialogue between artists, pieces and stories. Through the website www.espaicarmenthyssen.com or through a magazine publication the textual connection is established, and soon a connection in podcast format will also be implemented. It must be said that this is the first exhibition entirely of sculpture, although linked to pictorial works in digital form. Going deeper with this idea, the exhibition moves in the two spaces that outline the hybrid scenario of the 21st century: on the one hand, the physical and tangible universe of the sculptures and installations present in the exhibition and, on the other the other, the liquid and digital universe where the images of the paintings that have been selected for the dialogue are housed. For each of the sculptures and installations in the exhibition, a virtual correspondence has been selected with a piece from the Carmen Thyssen Catalan Painting Collection, which can be accessed via the image or the QR code that can be found on each card.

The handbook also includes texts of the real ones created for each of the dialogues, aesthetic or symbolic, between the works present in the exhibition and those prefigured in the Carmen Thyssen Collection. According to sources of communication from the Carmen Thyssen Space, this is an exhibition that shows a story between works by local, national and international artists, loaned free of charge, from the Carmen Thyssen Collection, from the Fundació La Caixa, of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona, of Chillida Leku, of Opera Gallery Madrid, of the Museum of History of Sant Feliu de Guíxols and the workshop of the artists themselves.

What we want to achieve with this exhibition is to pursue a stimulating experience for the public, so that the existing dialogues are put into debate, creating new ones, looking for new readings or different interpretations, so that these Dialogues are not only the that are offered to the public, but for visitors to make the show their own.

Visiting hours to the exhibition are from Monday to Sunday from 11:00 to 13:30 and from 17:00 to 20:30 in the evening.

Restoration works of the monastery from 2025 to 2027

During the press conference, Carles Motas and Guillermo Cervera communicated that the restoration works of the monastery should in principle begin in the spring of 2025 and may extend until 2027. The mayor of Guixos wanted to thank the collaboration of the Provincial Government of Girona, the Generalitat, the Spanish government and the European Next Generation Fund.

According to Motas, the project is divided into two phases, the first consists of the reform of the Benedictine monastery, with an approximate budget of six million seven hundred thousand euros. This phase would begin in March 2025 and the expected duration of the works would be 18 months.

As for the second phase, it will depend on the contribution of the state, through the 2% Cultural of the Ministry of Transport. This second phase would cover the construction of the building called El Claustre. On the other hand, the Carmen Thyssen Museum project in Catalonia at the Cinema Comèdia in Barcelona, Cervera stated that it is a completely independent project, but that synergies can be established with the one in Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Andorra, the one in Madrid and the one in Málaga, since "we have an art fund of 600 works in the Carmen Thyssen collection, which we use to exhibit in the museum of Sant Feliu de Guíxols and in Barcelona".

Cervera also wanted to insist that the Museum wants to continue establishing the relationship of collaboration with the University of Girona, and with different universities from all over Spain and there is also a scholarship program for students.