Es Baluard Museu dâÂÂArt Modern i Contemporani de Palma, located in Palma and inaugurated on 30 January 2004, has a reserve of more than 700 works of art linked to artists from the Balearic Islands and/or of international renown.
As well as conserving and publicising its collection, Es Baluard runs a programme of temporary exhibitions, cultural activities and educational and training cycles. The main artists and movements related to the Balearic Islands form a body which took shape after the initial presentation of the collection which was made in the year the museum opened. Since then, the original nucleus of the museumâÂÂs reserves â made up of donations and the deposit of works by the Art Serra Foundation (Fundació dâÂÂArt Serra), as well as works deposited by Palma City Council (Ajuntament de Palma), the Council of Mallorca (Consell de Mallorca) and the Government of the Balearic Islands (Govern de les Illes Balears) â has been added to as a result of the introduction of further works that have been acquired, donated and temporarily ceded by artists, collectors and entities.
The main building was designed in 2003 by LluÃÂs GarcÃÂa-Ruiz, Jaume GarcÃÂa-Ruiz, Vicente Tomás and Angel Sánchez Cantalejo. It has a total surface area of 5,027 mò, of which 2,500 are used as exhibition spaces. It is divided into three storeys which are connected to the outside, to the city walls and to each other by means of ramps, skylights and large interior balconies, in an attempt to reflect an indoor street concept.
The Collection of Es Baluard Museu dâÂÂArt Modern i Contemporani de Palma includes works of art by the most significant artists and movements that have converged in the past and continue to converge in the Balearic Islands, from the late 19th century to the present.
It begins with the works of pictorial modernism and the renovation of the landscape genre in Spain, showcasing the importance of Mallorca in its development. Joaquim Mir, Santiago Rusiñol, Hermen Anglada-Camarasa, JoaquÃÂn Sorolla, Antoni Gelabert and Tito Cittadini are some of the key artists from this period, placed between the late 19th century and the 1930s; alongside them are two female creators, Pilar Montaner de Sureda and Norah Borges, who were associated to the artistic and literary trends of the day.
The early years of the 20th century, meanwhile, bear witness to the emergence in Europe of the different avant-garde movements which rebelled against the hegemony of western figurative art, a state of cultural crisis that was heightened after World War One and which would continue in the 1940s and âÂÂ50s, advocating a questioning of the artistic object. The artists represented include MarÃÂa Blanchard, Wifredo Lam, Fernand Léger, André Masson, Roberto Matta, Joan Miró, Robert Motherwell, Jorge Oteiza, Picasso, Juli Ramis and Antoni Tàpies, among others.
New figuration, pop, minimalism or conceptual art are just some of the tendencies that arose from the âÂÂsixties onwards, a period in which social and cultural ensued and which would later be called âÂÂpostmodernismâÂÂ. Erwin Bechtold, Joan Brossa, Erró, Juan Genovés, Hans Hartung, Rebecca Horn, Antoni Miralda, Pablo Palazuelo, Antonio Saura and Rafael Tur Costa, for example, precede the new generation of recognised painters: Miquel Barceló, José Manuel Broto, Miguel ÃÂngel Campano, Maria Carbonero, Ramon Canet, Luis Gordillo, Anselm Kiefer and Juan Uslé. A wide diversity of languages shapes todayâÂÂs artistic panorama, with creators such as Lida Abdul, Marina AbramoviÃÂ, Pilar AlbarracÃÂn, Christian Boltanski, Daniel Canogar, Toni Catany, ÃÂaco Fabré, Mónica Fuster, Alberto GarcÃÂa-Alix, Núria Marqués, Jorge Mayet, Joan Morey, Michael Najjar, Marina Núñez, BernardàRoig, Francisco Ruiz de Infante, Amparo Sard, Antoni SocÃÂas and Nicholas Woods as examples of this evolution of contemporary artistic practice.