• With two contemporary art exhibitions a year, the new art centre is keen to showcase prestigious artists whose works deserve public exposure.

• In its second year, the Centre is expanding its artistic offer to include support for young creators, in the form of its Visual Arts Grants and the annual Itinerarios exhibition, and several presentations of the Fundación Botín Collection.

• Fundación Botín has evaluated the Centre’s first three months of activity positively. In this period, more than 100,000 people visited its inaugural three exhibitions (Carsten Höller, Goya’s Drawings and the Collection) and took part in its activities.

• At present, and until 25 February 2018, the Botín Centre is hosting what is to date the most important solo exhibition dedicated to the work of Julie Mehretu ever to have been organized in Europe.

2018 will see the Botín Centre consolidate its vocation as a benchmark international centre with exhibitions of works by such first rate artists as Cristina Iglesias, one of the most widely acclaimed Spanish creators at international level; an exploratory look at little known aspects of renowned figures of Spanish art like Joan Miró; and an in-depth examination of drawing in Spanish Art as manifested in an exhibition of works by Manolo Millares – a show which clearly reflects Fundación Botín’s continuing commitment to research into the draughtsmanship skills of leading Spanish artists from all periods.

As part of its untiring quest to encourage training for young artists, the Botín Centre will launch its 2018 Programme with the Itinerarios XXIV exhibition (from 13 March to 3 June 2018). Since 1994, this event has acted as a showcase for the current state of affairs in art. This new edition will present projects by creators who benefited from one of the Fundación Botín’s Visual Arts Grants in 2016.

It will be followed by Joan Miró. Sculptures 1928-1982. This exhibition, which will be open to the public at the Botín Centre from 20 March to 2 September, was conceived specifically for the new art centre in Santander and will include sculptures, drawings, photographs, videos and objects, many of which will be displayed for the first time.

In October, the Botín Centre will present the work of Cristina Iglesias (San Sebastián, 1956), in a large exhibition that will occupy the whole of the second floor of the building’s exhibition space. Iglesias, creator of the sculptural work Desde lo subterráneo (From the Underground) in the Pereda Gardens, will be displaying both her trademark sculptures and a selection of wall-mounted works.

In the upcoming season, and as a continuation of its research work into drawing in Spanish Art, the Fundación Botín will also present The Silent Shout. Millares on Paper (27 October 2018, to 27 January 2019), a chronological journey through the drawings of Manolo Millares (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1921 – Madrid, 1972). The works on display in this show reveal new aspects of Millares’ production, best known for his use of burlap.

According to Benjamin Weil, Art Director at the Botín Centre, “the Botín Centre is keen to showcase prestigious artists whose works are very solid and deserve public exposure, and it does so with two exhibitions a year organised by the directors of its traditional Villa Iris Visual Arts Workshop. A show of this type used to be held before the Centre opened, but from now on there will be two, reflecting the Visual Arts Advisory Committee’s commitment to carry on working in this direction”.

Throughout 2018, items from the Fundación Botín Collection will also continue to be displayed in Room 1 of the Centre in several presentations featuring works by consolidated artists who have directed Visual Arts Workshops at Fundación Botín, and works by beneficiaries of the Visual Arts Grants.

The Botín Centre’s Exhibition Programme is planned by the Centre’s Visual Arts Advisory Committee under the supervision of its Chairman, former head of the Tate Modern in London, Vicente Todolí. The Committee members are Paloma Botín, member of the Fundación Botín Board of Trustees; Udo Kittelmann, head of the National Galerie in Berlin; Manuela Mena, Chief Curator of 18th Century Paintings and Goya at the Museo Nacional del Prado; María José Salazar, conservator at the Museo Nacional Reina Sofía, and Benjamin Weil, Art Director at the Botín Centre.

BOTÍN CENTRE 2018 EXHIBITION CALENDAR

JULIE MEHRETU. A UNIVERSAL HISTORY OF EVERYTHING AND NOTHING
Until 25 February 2018 Room 2

Curators: Vicente Todolí, Chairman of the Visual Arts Advisory Committee at Fundación Botín, and Suzanne Cotter, Director of the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in Oporto.

Up until 25 February 2018, visitors to the Botín Centre will be able to admire the large format abstract works so characteristic of Julie Mehretu, one of the most outstanding artists of her generation, in one of the most important solo exhibitions ever dedicated to her in Europe.

JOAN MIRÓ. SCULPTURES 1928-1982
20 March to 2 September 2018. Room 2

Curators: Mª José Salazar, member of the Visual Arts Advisory Committee at Fundación Botín, and Joan Punyet Miró, Joan Miró’s grandson and principal representative of Sucessió Miró.

This exhibition, conceived solely and exclusively for the Botín Centre, focusses on the creative process of Joan Miró (Barcelona, 1893 – Palma, 1983) and, more specifically, on his sculptural production. More than a hundred sculptures, together with drawings, photographs, videos and objects of different types, constitute a comprehensive journey through Miró’s career. Also included is a large amount of previously unseen material.

Miró used a variety of techniques to create works full of deep poetic and artistic meaning. His methods included assembling materials he had collected while out walking, transforming found objects and pairing everyday objects to form unlikely associations. The artist himself very succinctly described this process: I am drawn to an object by a magnetic force, with no premeditation whatsoever. Then I am attracted to another object. The second object, through its connection with the first, produces a poetic shock that first passes through that initial plastic, physical love at first sight, which makes poetry really move you and without which it would not be effective…”

CRISTINA IGLESIAS
6 October 2018 to 25 February 2019. Room 2

Curator: Vicente Todolí, Chairman of the Visual Arts Advisory Committee at Fundación Botín.

Winner of the 1999 National Prize for Visual Arts, Cristina Iglesias (San Sebastián, 1956) is one of the best known Spanish artists on the international art scene. This exhibition featuring a large selection of her works will occupy the whole of the second floor of the Botín Centre’s west wing. Famous for her sculptural creations with suspended pavilions, latticed panels, passageways and mazes,her works combine industrial materials with natural elements to produce unexpected settings and spaces full of new experiences.

Cristina Iglesias has close ties with Fundación Botín and its new art centre in Santander. Her sculptural project From the Underground, a work in stone, steel and water comprising four wells and a pond, was conceived specifically for the Botín Centre and the Pereda Gardens. In September 2018, the artist will also direct a Villa Iris Visual Arts Workshop, an initiative Fundación Botín has been organising every year since 1994.

Iglesias’ last big exhibition in Spain was at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in 2013, so this show at the Botín Centre offers a marvellous opportunity to look back over her career and discover her more recent works.

ITINERARIOS XXIV
13 March to 03 June 2018. Room 1

Curator: Benjamin Weil, Art Director of Botín Centre.
The Itinerarios cycle of exhibitions is the result of work carried out by Spanish and international recipients of Fundación Botín Visual Arts Grants. These artists’ research activity is reflected each year in a catalogue which serves as a showcase for their different projects.
The beneficiaries of the grants in 2016 were Irma Álvarez-Laviada (Gijón, 1978), Elena Bajo (Madrid, 1976), Josu Bilbao (Bermeo, Bizkaia, 1978), Felipe Dulzaides (Havana, Cuba, 1965), Rafael Munárriz Gimeno (Tudela, Navarre, 1990), Alex Reynolds (Bilbao, 1978), Leonor Serrano Rivas (Malaga, 1986) and Pep Vidal (Tarrasa, 1980). The exhibition in 2018 will allow us to see their work, executed in a wide variety of disciplines and locations. These creations will also be included in a catalogue published by Fundación Botín.
A jury made up of Ibon Aranberri, Lorena Martínez de Corral, Bárbara Rodríguez Muñoz and Wilfredo Prieto has been given the task of choosing eight artists from a total of 703 applicants from 53 different countries for this edition.

THE SILENT SHOUT. MILLARES ON PAPER
27 October 2018 to 27 January 2019. Room 1

Curator: Mª José Salazar, member of the Visual Arts Advisory Committee at Fundación Botín.

Conceived solely and exclusively for the Botín Centre, The Silent Shout. Millares on Paper is the first exhibition integrally dedicated to the drawings of Manolo Millares (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1921 – Madrid, 1972).

Best known for his use of sacking, burlap, rope and other materials in his works, Millares also produced a considerable number of drawings during the course of his career, an activity clearly reflected in this exhibition.

The show will invite visitors to take a chronological journey from the artist’s academic beginnings, watercolour landscapes and surrealist, Guanche-inspired works to the powerful, highly original creations he produced in later years, with special emphasis on the period between 1955 and 1972. It will include works from Los curas (The Priests), a series executed between 1960 and 1964 in which the artist presents a catalogue of dark figures ranging from the caricaturesque to the sinister; and also from other series like Animales en el Desierto (Animals in the Desert) and Mussolini, both dating from 1971.

THE FUNDACIÓN BOTÍN COLLECTION
Several presentations during the course of 2018. Room 1

Curator: Benjamin Weil, Art Director of Botín Centre.

The Fundación Botín Collection will continue to be showcased in different presentations throughout 2018, with displays in different spaces allowing new discoveries, new itineraries and the establishment of new connections between works.

The Collection, which has grown gradually over the last forty years, brings together works by international artists who have directed Villa Iris Visual Arts Workshops, artists who have benefited from Fundación Botín Visual Arts Grants since their creation in the 1990s, and others.

Outstanding figures represented in it include Miroslaw Balka, Tacita Dean, Carlos Garaicoa, Mona Hatoum, Joan Jonas, Jannis Kounellis, Julie Mehretu, Antoni Muntadas and Juan Uslé.