The IVAM Collection to Date

This presentation offers a contextualized journey through the history of modern and contemporary art in Valencia, Spain, and internationally, through a historiographic reading of the key movements of the 20th and XXI centuries. Rather than following a single linear narrative, it opens the collection to multiple stories and points of connection, creating dialogue between history and histories through the specific character of the IVAM collection. Its distinctive approach lies in rethinking the canon and hegemonic accounts by weaving together major figures with lesser-known names. The project follows a hybrid model: a guiding thread combined with alternative readings. Alongside the sequential route, visitors can choose four thematic paths focused on color, ecologies, feminisms, and conflict. In keeping with IVAM’s commitment to sustainability, the exhibition design was developed by Smart & Green Design, a studio specializing in eco-design and environmental auditing for exhibitions and museums. The museum’s formation shaped a collection marked by European historiography, with resulting imbalances in gender, race, inclusion, and equity. Even so, and despite a consistent acquisition policy across different directors, periods, and working methods, the collection also contains gaps. These absences are part of its identity as a living heritage: an ecosystem of memories and lives in which criticism, gallery work, administration, collecting, advising, artists, curatorship, moments, and places all intersect. Any collection of contemporary art is, by definition, open-ended, unfinished, and multiple.