Spain’s exhibition-driven cultural center
Created in 1955 by the financier Juan March Ordinas, the Juan March Foundation is a family charitable institution with a mission to promote culture in Spain. Guided only by its commitment to quality and service to the community, the foundation undertakes curatorial research and presents exhibitions as the public outcome of these scholarly efforts. Since 2006, it has combined thesis-driven shows and presentations of historically lesser-known artists and movements with monographic exhibitions on key figures of modernity, many of which are shown for the first time in Spain.
The foundation’s Madrid headquarters, opened in 1975 in a building designed by José Luis Picardo, presents many of these exhibitions alongside a robust music program, holding around 150 concerts each season across varied styles, ensembles and periods. It also organizes an extensive lecture series dedicated to the humanities and sciences, incorporating conferences, interviews and debates. In addition to this programming, the headquarters houses a library, research center and data laboratory, including the donated archives of several composers, artists, writers and playwrights, made available to researchers, plus a small patio library open to the public.
The foundation publishes catalogues in Spanish and English for its exhibitions and collection of contemporary Spanish art, which comprises more than 1,600 works. These are displayed at the foundation's two other locations: the Juan March Museum in Palma, which operates a museum of 20th-century Spanish art, and the Museum of Spanish Abstract Art in Cuenca, originally founded in 1966 by the artist Fernando Zóbel and donated in 1981.
Installation view of the exhibition “Genealogías del arte, o la historia del arte como arte visual,” 2019–20
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