MEADOWS MUSEUM EXPANDS ITS FOCUS ON CONTEMPORARY SPANISH ART
Meadows Museum Announces New Partnership with Fundación ARCO and Upcoming Special Loan of Recent Painting by Secundino Hernández
Dallas, TX—November 6, 2019—The Meadows Museum, SMU, announced today an expansion of its contemporary art program with the establishment of a six-year partnership with Fundación ARCO, the guiding organization behind Spain’s premier contemporary art fair, ARCOmadrid. Through the collaboration, titled MAS: Meadows/ARCO Artist Spotlight, the Meadows will, on a biennial basis, select one emerging or mid-career Spanish artist to present their work at the Meadows Museum for approximately four months. As part of the series, each selected artist will also travel to Dallas to participate in public programming, envisioned to further engage audiences with the artist’s practice. The partnership leverages ARCO’s deep knowledge of Spain’s contemporary art scene and the Meadows Museum’s leadership as a center for Spanish art in the United States to promote Spanish artists who have had limited exposure in the U.S. and provide them with an opportunity to enhance their visibility, build networks of support and interest, and expand understanding and appreciation of their work among U.S. audiences. The first artist’s installation under the MAS program will open at the Meadows in January 2021.
As a prelude to the launch of MAS, the Meadows Museum will display a recent painting (Untitled, 2019) by Madrid native Secundino Hernández (b. 1975). The featured painting captures Hernández’s exuberant style, which mixes hard-edged lines with vibrant washes of color. In his works, subtle representational elements are consumed by abstract, free-form gesture, producing a strong sense of movement and depth across and beneath the surface plane. Hernández has been inspired by old and modern masters from his native country of Spain, creating a strong connection with the Meadows’s excellent historic collection of Spanish art. The work will be on view from November 19, 2019, through April 26, 2020. In April, Hernández will visit Dallas to participate in a series of public programs.
Both the Hernández presentation and the MAS collaboration originated in a trip taken by Meadows Museum leadership to the ARCOmadrid Fair in February 2018, at which The Meadows Foundation, an independent entity established by philanthropist Algur H. Meadows that vigorously supports the Meadows Museum, received Fundación ARCO’s “A” Award for collecting Spanish art. During the trip, the group visited Hernández’s Madrid studio, and determined to bring Untitled, 2019, to the museum as a short-term loan. The decision led to wider conversations about extending the Meadows Museum’s central focus on the art of Spain with a new contemporary art program.
“The range of contemporary artists working in Spain is enormous, but many of them have not been able to gain meaningful visibility in the U.S.,” said Mark A. Roglán, the Linda P. and William A. Custard Director of the Meadows Museum. “This new initiative is an opportunity for us to expand the Meadows Museum’s presentation of contemporary Spanish art, while developing relationships with a new roster of artists and strengthening those connections through their participation in programs in Dallas. We are excited to kick-off this new vision for our curatorial program with the installation of Secundino Hernández’s work, which has many aesthetic connections with works in our collection. We are grateful to Fundación ARCO for their support and collaboration in this project.”
“As the leaders of Spain’s largest contemporary art fair, we are all too aware of the terrific art and artists who nonetheless struggle for recognition,” said Clemente González Soler, president of Fundación ARCO. “This collaboration with the Meadows Museum dovetails beautifully with its role as the leading institution for Spanish art in the U.S., and will be a great platform to bring critical attention and new audiences to these selected artists.”
There will be a total of three MAS loans, installed at the Meadows every other year from mid-January to the end of April; the first will be in 2021, the second will be in 2023, and the third will take place in 2025. Throughout the 12 months prior to each presentation period, Fundación ARCO and the Meadows Museum will work together to select each artist. The process will begin with Fundación ARCO assembling a Nominating Committee, comprised of two collectors and two directors of institutions dedicated to contemporary art in Spain. ARCO’s Nominating Committee will then propose four emerging or mid-career Spanish artists for participation in the program, and will present a portfolio of the artists’ work to the Meadows Museum Selection Committee.
The Meadows Museum’s Selection Committee—which will include members of the museum’s curatorial staff, two collectors from the Meadows Museum Advisory Council, and a specialist in contemporary art—will then review the portfolios of the four artists and select one to participate in the program. Once identified, the artist and the museum will coordinate on the selection of the artwork to be lent to the museum. MAS will be open to Spanish artists working in all media, ensuring diversity in the works that are presented—and, likewise, in the types of educational programs the selected artists can conduct during their stay in Dallas.
Funding for this initiative has been provided by the Meadows Museum thanks to a generous gift from The Meadows Foundation.
About the Meadows Museum
The Meadows Museum is the leading U.S. institution focused on the study and presentation of the art of Spain. In 1962, Dallas businessman and philanthropist Algur H. Meadows donated his private collection of Spanish paintings, as well as funds to start a museum, to Southern Methodist University. The museum opened to the public in 1965, marking the first step in fulfilling Meadows’s vision to create “a small Prado for Texas.” Today, the Meadows is home to one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of Spanish art outside of Spain. The collection spans from the 10th to the 21st centuries and includes medieval objects, Renaissance and Baroque sculptures, and major paintings by Golden Age and modern masters. For more information visit meadowsmuseumdallas.org.
About Fundación ARCO
Set up in 1987, Fundación ARCO aims to promote contemporary art collecting and research. The brainchild of IFEMA (Institución Ferial de Madrid) and made up of its consortium members—Madrid City Council, Madrid Regional Council, Fundación Montemadrid and the Madrid Chamber of Commerce—it is a structure that complements the informative nature of the International Contemporary Art Fair, ARCOmadrid.
Since its beginnings, Fundación ARCO has actively participated in the development of collecting in Spain, modernizing it and opening it up to new possibilities beyond the traditional domestic market. It has also been part of its professionalization by highlighting the importance of drawing on the knowledge of curators and experts in the collecting process. Under these premises, the Fundación ARCO Collection itself brings together works acquired at each edition of ARCO, and has always benefited from the advice of professionals from the art world: Edy de Wilde; Gloria Moure; Jan Debbaut; Dan Cameron; Iwona Blazwick; María de Corral; Chus Martínez; Sabine Brietwiesser; José Guirao; María Inés Rodríguez; Adriano Pedrosa; Ferrán Barenblit; Miguel von Hafe; Vincent Honoré; and Manuel Segade, director of the CA2M-Centro de Arte dos de Mayo de Móstoles (Comunidad de Madrid), where the Collection has been on loan since 2012. The Collection, with more than 300 pieces, is an active part of the CA2M program, with works present in different thematic exhibitions.
Fundación ARCO presents the “A” Awards for Collecting every year. The 23rd edition of these awards, which recognize the work of both national and international collectors, were presented to Cleusa Garfinkel; CAAC MALI, Museo de Arte de Lima; The Meadows Foundation; Banco de España Collection; HEF Collection, Juan Entrecanales Azcárate; and Kells Collection, Juan Manuel Elizalde and Choli Fuentes, for their involvement in the development of contemporary culture.
In addition, throughout the year it carries out various activities and actions aimed at promoting and strengthening collecting and the local contemporary art market: ARCO Gallery Walks; #mecomprounaobra; First Collector; Collecting Forum. For more information visit arcomadrid.es.
About Secundino Hernández
Hernández was born in 1975 in Madrid, where he currently lives and works. Solo exhibitions of his work have been presented at international institutional venues including CAC Málaga, Spain (2018); Taidehalli Helsinki, Finland (2018); Yuz Museum, Shanghai (2015); and Maison Louis Carré, Bazoches-sur-Guyonne, France (2014). The artist has also participated in group shows including Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London (2017); Abstract Painting Now, Kunsthalle Krems, Krems, Austria (2017); Das Allerletze Prof. Winkler Stipendium at Kunstverein Weiden, Austria (2013); Alone Together at the Rubell Family Collection/Contemporary Arts Foundation, Miami, U.S. (2013); Dialogos DKV – Patio Herreriano at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Espanol, Valladolid, Spain (2013); Berlin Status 1 at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany (2012); and Berlin Klondyke 2011 at Art Center Los Angeles, U.S. (2011). His work is in numerous institutional and private collections, including National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, U.K.; Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand; Museo Patio Herreriano, Valladolid, Spain; Fundación Helga de Alvear, Cáceres, Spain; The Rubell Family Collection, Miami, U.S.; Kunstdepot Göschenen, Switzerland; and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada. For more information visit victoria-miro.com.
