A new contemporary art space housed in a former 15th-century palace ambitiously aims to put Barcelona “at the forefront of the international exhibition circuit”, say the founders of the Fundació Gaspar venue which opens to the public on Friday (20 November). The opening show includes works by Martin Creed and Louise Bourgeois; an exhibition of recent works by Paul McCarthy is due to launch in the space in 2016.
Located next to the Picasso Museum in the Palau Cervelló, the new institution is founded by Moishan Gaspar whose great-grandfather, Joan Gaspar i Xalabarder, inaugurated Sala Gaspar in 1909, a key commercial gallery in the city that hosted shows dedicated to Picasso, Braque and Chagall.
Three temporary exhibitions will be held annually in the new gallery which, says a press statement, is “free from institutional or commercial influences”. The opening show, Art Strikes Back! (20 November-28 March 2016), also includes work by Rita Ackermann, Subodh Gupta and Mira Schendel, among others.
The works are not drawn from the family collection. “The foundation is a new and independent project, which we hope will be radically contemporary,” Gaspar says. “Our idea is to work with different curators for each exhibition, with the artists themselves or with the collaboration of other institutions, depending on the needs of each project.”
Could the new museum be part of a burgeoning cultural quarter? “Having the Picasso Museum in the building next door is a big plus for us, as they receive a million visitors per year,” Gaspar says. “We believe that many of them will also find our programme both complementary to the Picasso Museum’s and attractive in its own right.”
