Es Baluard Museu d’Art 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 museum’s reserves – made up of donations and the deposit of works by the Art Serra Foundation (Fundació d’Art 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) – 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.

Location

The main building was designed in 2003 by Lluís García-Ruiz, Jaume García-Ruiz, Vicente Tomás and Angel Sánchez Cantalejo. It has a total surface area of 5,027 m², 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

The Collection of Es Baluard Museu d’Art 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 The Balearic Islands ( es, Islas Baleares ; or ca, Illes Balears ) are an archipelago in the Balearic Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The archipelago is an autonomous community and a province of Spain; its capital is ...

, 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 Joaquin Mir Trinxet or Joaquin Mir y Trinxet (Catalan: ''Joaquim Mir i Trinxet'') (Barcelona 6 January 1873 – 8 April 1940) was a Catalan artist known for his use of color in his paintings. He lived through a turbulent time in the history o ...

Santiago Rusiñol Santiago Rusiñol i Prats (, ; Barcelona 25 February 1861 – Aranjuez 13 June 1931) was a Spanish painter, poet, journalist, collector and playwright. He was one of the leaders of the Catalan ''modernisme'' movement. He created more than a ...

, Hermen Anglada-Camarasa,

Joaquín Sorolla Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida ( va, Joaquim Sorolla i Bastida, 27 February 1863 – 10 August 1923) was a Spanish Valencian painter. Sorolla excelled in the painting of portraits, landscapes and monumental works of social and historical themes. Hi ...

, 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 Leonor Fanny "Norah" Borges Acevedo (March 4, 1901 – July 20, 1998), was a visual artist and art critic, member of the Florida group, and sister of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. Early life and source of nickname She was the daught ...

, who were associated to the artistic and literary trends of the day.Video "Es Baluard, Museum of Modern Art"
English, 1:07 min., Mallorca TV Teleweb+ 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 ‘50s, advocating a questioning of the artistic object. The artists represented include

María Blanchard María Blanchard (born María Gutiérrez-Cueto y Blanchard;
spanish-art.org; accessed 4 August 2015. ...

Wifredo Lam Wifredo Óscar de la Concepción Lam y Castilla (; December 8, 1902 – September 11, 1982), better known as Wifredo Lam, was a Cuban artist who sought to portray and revive the enduring Afro-Cuban spirit and culture. Inspired by and in conta ...

Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...

André Masson André-Aimé-René Masson (4 January 1896 – 28 October 1987) was a French artist. Biography Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, but when he was eight his father's work took the family first briefly to Lille and then to Brussel ...

Roberto Matta Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren (; November 11, 1911 – November 23, 2002), better known as Roberto Matta, was one of Chile's best-known painters and a seminal figure in 20th century abstract expressionist and surrealist art. Bio ...

Joan Miró Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , , ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona i ...

Robert Motherwell Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American Abstract Expressionism, abstract expressionist Painting, painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of th ...

Jorge Oteiza Jorge Oteiza (October 21, 1908 – April 9, 2003), was a Basque Spanish sculptor, painter, designer and writer from the Basque Autonomous Community, renowned for being one of the main theorists on Basque modern art. Oteiza was born in Or ...

Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

, Juli Ramis and

Antoni Tàpies Antoni Tàpies i Puig, 1st Marquess of Tápies (; 13 December 1923 – 6 February 2012) was a Catalan People, Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist, who became one of the most famous European artists of his generation. Life The son of Jo ...

, among others. New figuration, pop, minimalism or conceptual art are just some of the tendencies that arose from the ‘sixties onwards, a period in which social and cultural ensued and which would later be called “postmodernism”. Erwin Bechtold,

Joan Brossa Joan Brossa (; 19 January 1919 – 30 December 1998) was a Catalan poet, playwright, graphic designer and visual artist. He wrote only in the Catalan language. He was one of the founders of both the group and the publication known as Dau-al-Se ...

Erró Erró (born Guðmundur Guðmundsson in 1932 in Ólafsvík, Iceland) is a visual artist and painter, who is best known for his painted pop art collages of images from comic books and advertisements.

, Juan Genovés,

Hans Hartung Hans Hartung (21 September 1904 – 7 December 1989) was a German-French painter, known for his gestural abstract style. He was also a decorated World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, ...

Rebecca Horn Rebecca Horn (born 24 March 1944, in Michelstadt, Hesse) is a German visual artist, who is best known for her installation art, film directing, and her body modifications such a''Einhorn'' (Unicorn) a body-suit with a very large horn projecting ve ...

, Antoni Miralda,

Pablo Palazuelo Pablo Palazuelo (October 8, 1915 – October 3, 2007) was a Spanish painter and sculptor. Work and biography Pabich led to an invitation to join the Galérie Maeght (currently Galérie Lelong), an association that has continued for some f ...

, Antonio Saura and Rafael Tur Costa, for example, precede the new generation of recognised painters: Miquel Barceló, José Manuel Broto, Miguel Ángel Campano, Maria Carbonero, Ramon Canet, Luis Gordillo, Anselm Kiefer and Juan Uslé. A wide diversity of languages shapes today’s artistic panorama, with creators such as Lida Abdul,

Marina Abramović Marina Abramović ( sr-Cyrl, Марина Абрамовић, ; born November 30, 1946) is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist. Her work explores body art, endurance art, feminist art, the relationship between the performer and audienc ...

, Pilar Albarracín,

Christian Boltanski Christian Liberté Boltanski (6 September 1944 – 14 July 2021) was a French sculptor, photographer, painter, and film maker. He is best known for his photography installations and contemporary French conceptual style. Early life Boltanski wa ...

, Daniel Canogar, Toni Catany, Ñaco Fabré, Mónica Fuster, Alberto García-Alix, Núria Marqués, Jorge Mayet, Joan Morey, Michael Najjar, Marina Núñez, Bernardí Roig, Francisco Ruiz de Infante, Amparo Sard, Antoni Socías and Nicholas Woods as examples of this evolution of contemporary artistic practice.

References

External links

Official website
{{authority control Contemporary art galleries in Spain Modern art museums Museums in the Balearic Islands Palma de Mallorca Culture of Mallorca Art museums established in 2004 2004 establishments in Spain Tourist attractions in Mallorca