following the trend of large European museum institutions, such as the Boijmans in Rotterdam, which two years ago inaugurated the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, an imposing building where, in addition to storing the 150,000 works that make up its extensive holdings (the Bosch , Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Kandinski), expands its uses beyond custody and conservation, the La Caixa Foundation will transform its current warehouse in l'Hospitalet de Llobregat into a new cultural facility. The CaixaForum ArtStudio will bring together the 1,069 works of its contemporary art collection, one of the most important of a private nature in Europe, and will be a research space and a meeting and exchange point for professionals of art, culture and thought on a national and international scale.
The project was presented yesterday, by the president of the La Caixa Foundation, Isidre Fainé, and the mayor of l'Hospitalet, Núria Marín, who have sealed an agreement to convert and expand the warehouse, located at the confluence of the street Leonardo Da Vinci and Carrilet avenue, in a modern artistic space that aspires to become the great dynamizer and one of the biggest poles of attraction in the Cultural District, where in recent years numerous artists and old factory complexes give way to galleries and creative spaces. The renovation of the ship, based on an architectural project by Pretel Arquitectura, will begin in mid-2024 and the ArtStudio CaixaForum is scheduled to begin the new stage in 2026. In total, it will occupy 10,000 square meters and will represent an investment of 12 million of euros
"ArtStudio CaixaForum represents the culmination of 40 years of work with our collection and will represent an impetus in our commitment to bring culture to everyone as a driver of social transformation", points out Isidre Fainé. "With this project, we want to give even more value to this unique heritage and continue working on the connection with the most vivid reality of art today and on the ability to create associations and establish links between art and the world that surrounds us", he concludes. Started in the 1980s by María de Corral and currently directed by Nimfa Bisbe, the collection gathers a unique fund with relevant works by 455 artists, such as Joseph Beuys, Bruce Nauman, Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Doris Salcedo, Mona Hatoum, Cristina Iglesias, Tacita Dean, Olafur Eliasson, Richard Serra, Cindy Sherman, Juan Muñoz, Pierre Huyghe, Antoni Tàpies, Ignasi Aballí, Soledad Sevilla, Antoni Muntadas and Dora García. To date, it has been the subject of 194 exhibitions and has had 585,000 visitors since the beginning of the year alone.
Although it is private, the collection has always had a public vocation. When the fund, which today offers a view of the last 40 years of creation, began to be assembled, there were hardly any museums, foundations or collections dedicated to contemporary art. Today it is divided between the Hospitalet warehouse and the CaixaForum Barcelona, both at the limit of their storage capacity. The aim is not only to concentrate the heritage in a single space, but also to turn it into a true "state reference center for the research and conservation of works of art", with projects jointly led with universities and institutions international
The building that will host ArtStudio CaixaForum was built in 1976 and will be transformed and expanded under the guidance of Pretel Arquitectura, a studio that has worked, among other reforms, on the annex room of the Palau Sant Jordi and on the bleachers of the Olympic Stadium. It is designed to be open for visits by interest groups and professional groups, and seminars and activities related to artistic heritage will be organized there.
The implementation of the project in L'Hospitalet has been welcomed with enthusiasm by the mayor of the municipality, Núria Marín, who thinks that the center "brings our artists and creatives closer to a unique and singular heritage, and strengthens a district that must not leave never growing and that includes new artistic and creative proposals day after day that consolidate it as a cultural reference". The building will have spaces dedicated to the conservation, study, management and storage of works and will be equipped with sophisticated museographic and audiovisual equipment.
