A BRIEF HISTORY OF A PASSION. AVELINO MARÍN COLLECTION

Description

A BRIEF HISTORY
OF A PASSION
AVELINO MARÍN COLLECTION

Dates: June 4 to September 27, 2026

Artists: Rembrandt Van Rijn; Édouard Manet; José Guadalupe Posada; Henri Matisse; Jules Pascin; Georges Valmier; Richard Lindner; Kurimoto Toyo; Joseph Beuys; Eusebio Sempere; Andy Warhol; R. B. Kitaj; Alexandre Holland; James Bidgood; Paula Rego; Joan Hernández Pijoan; Antonio López; David Hockney; Esther Ferrer; Araki; Liliana Porter; Pat Andrea; Nazario; Miquel Navarro; Robert Mapplethorpe; Rosa Torres; Guillermo Pérez Villalta; Juan Manuel Díaz Burgos; Gary Lee Boas; César Fernández Arias; Herta Müller; José Antonio Suárez Londoño; Alberto García Alix; Oukalele; Tony Oursler; Thomas Ruff Erwin Olaf Hans Hemmert; Alejandro Corujeira; Chronicle Team; Lido Rico; Claire Kerr; Sean Mackaoui; Enrique Marty; Loretta Lux; Santiago Ydáñez; Miwaco; David Delfin; Manu Arregui; Sergio Belinchón; Javier Pividal; Rosalía Banet; Inma Liñana; Sandra Gamarra; Javier Arce; Nico Munuera; Antonio González; Jaime Hayón; Sonia Navarro; Ramón González Palazón; Rashid Johnson; Manu Blázquez; José Luis Cremades; Laurina Paperina; Santiago Giralda; Alejandra Freymann; Alberto Feijóo; Christian Lagata Lluc Margrau and Claudia Pastomas; Limit Team

Location: Center del Carme. Carlos Pérez Room

Curator: Juan Bautista Peiró

Organized by: Consortium of Museums of the Valencian Community

Produced by: Consortium of Museums of the Valencian Community

Collecting often embodies a drive akin to romantic passion. When you love someone, you strive to be with that person and, at times, share your life, create a home. While the comparison isn't entirely accurate, it seems particularly fitting in this case, given that, after several decades of collecting, Avelino Marín and Luis Leao decided to build a house to house and display a significant portion of their collection. This unique project by architect Javier Peña Galiano (built between 1999 and 2003) was specifically conceived as a house for two collectors. The collection comprises more than 1,800 works of art and objects, ranging from ceramics and drawings to video, photography, painting, sculpture, and installation. This interdisciplinary nature is further enhanced by an impressive roster of artists who combine antique and contemporary works, local and internationally renowned artists.

Following this line of thought, we tackled the layout of the Carlos Pérez Room at the Centre del Carme, partially adapting it to the house's distribution—which is crammed with works of art in every single room—by categorizing the pieces, both disciplinarily and thematically, to generic uses: studio, master bedroom, playroom, and living/dining room. The four spaces, from entrance to exit, adhere to a simple interplay of dualities often found in a house: public-private, day-night, work-leisure, activity-rest.

In the Studio, drawing, printmaking, and series of works form the core of the collection. Here, it's essential to highlight names like Rembrandt, Édouard Manet, Matisse, Jules Pascin, David Hockney, Paula Rego, Richard Lindner, R. B. Kitaj, Pat Andrea, Antonio López…

The Master Bedroom (with its bathroom and gym) includes more private and intimate works in which the body, with its erotic, functional, autobiographical, symbolic, and poetic dimensions, takes center stage, with landscape and nature as supporting actors. Artists such as Erwin Olaf, Guillermo Pérez Villalta, Claire Kerr, Liliana Porter, Laurina Paperina, Loretta Lux, Alejandra Freymann, and Nazario…

In the Playroom, video reigns supreme. A dozen videos, arranged from a certain realism to a more graphic treatment of the image, include works by prominent artists with a significant presence in the collection: Rashid Johnson, Erwin Olaf, Hans Hemmert, Manu Arregui, and Liliana Porter. Two video installations by Toni Oursler and Ramón Palazón complete this darkened room. On either side, photographs glide by, both recording and evoking a historical period marked by the international glamour of the superstar artist and the exuberant enthusiasm of the vibrant Spanish cultural movement.

Finally, the living/dining room is centered around painting, with occasional porcelain and ceramics. In addition to his first acquisition, made when he was just 16 (two Viennese porcelain figurines), the collection includes contemporary works (a painting by Equipo Crónica) that opened up this vast territory he has continued to explore and delve into. We have focused on proximity—both emotional and geographical—as the guiding thread of this exhibition, where beloved artists like Pat Andrea and Liliana Porter coexist with works by Rosa Torres, Javier Pividal, Rosalía Banet, Nico Munuera, Eusebio Sempere, Sonia Navarro, Inma Liñana, Equipo Límite, Antonio González, and others.

Given the sheer number of pieces and the limited space available, we have inevitably been selective. Just over a hundred works have been chosen to create four distinct environments that, in a way, recreate the rich and eclectic character of a collection that generously overflows throughout the rooms of his extraordinary house.

Juan Bautista Peiró

Universitat Politècnica de València