Al Norte de la Tormenta: from Robert Rauschenberg to Juan Muñoz

Antoni Tàpies, Robert Rauschenberg, Bruce Nauman, Eduardo Chillida, Tony Cragg, Pedro Cabrita Reis, Richard Tuttle, Cristina Iglesias, Eulalia Valldosera

These are only a few main characters from the exhibition Al Norte de la Tormenta. From Robert Rauschenberg to Juan Muñoz, The IVAM collection masterpieces, which extends MAXXI’s international collaboration network.

The IVAM, Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, is one of the most important modern art museums in Spain and hosts significant Spanish and international works. In 2020, a MAXXI Collection focus is going to be hosted at the IVAM.

The exhibition, curated by Hou Hanru and Chiara Bertini and displayed at MAXXI - National Museum of 21st Century Arts from May 22 to September 8, takes its name from 1986 work by notorious Spanish artist Juan Muñoz, Al norte de la tormenta (North of the Storm). Over 50 works among some of the great masters of the contemporary international and Spanish art’s scene will be displayed in the exhibition.

Visitors are going to be welcomed by two sculptures: Juan Muñoz’s Untitled—from the MAXXI Collection—showing an Asian smiley and accessible figure opposite to the enigmatic and unusual Al norte de la tormenta—from the IVAM Collection - both highlighting the institutions’ dialogue. This particular, grand and circular iron sculpture resembling an astrolabe filled with knives, doors and railings produces an alienating effect, a rush of visions, a proper “tormenta” (storm) of thought and ideas.

The whole exhibition follows a tension, distinctive in the Spanish culture, between a more open dimension, luminous, ironic, poetic and another one more intimate, mysterious, dark and delusional.

Two sculptures, Float by Tony Cragg and Blood Orange Summer Glut by Robert Rauschenberg, consisting of waste materials recall a disjointed, paradoxical, ludic imaginary, opposite to the two canvas by Spanish artist  Antoni Tàpies, La ligne rouge (Negre amblínia vermella) and Gran diptic, both characterised by an explosive big-bang-like matter.

Furthermore, great evocative power is to be found in the terracotta sculptures by Basque’s artist Eduardo Chillida, Lurra G 139, Lurra G 215, Lurra G 217 and Oxido G 269, opposite to Model for tunnels, by the American Bruce Nauman, simulating an empty tube, raises a sense of indefiniteness, showing the process rather than the finished work of art.

Finally, the There´s no reason a good man is hard to find work by the American artist Richard Tuttle is tall spiral emerging from above, opposite to the big iron and concrete sculpture by Cristina Iglesias, Untitled, seems to invite the spectators in entering the installation.