Enric Mira Pastor
The IVAM-Centre Julio González de Valencia has hosted ongoing conversations about photography as a living language. An exhibition that opened to the public on June 2, 2024, highlights photography within the IVAM collection dating back to 1950. Curated by Enric Mira Pastor, a professor in Communication and Social Psychology at the University of Alicante, the show materialized from a scientific-technical cooperation agreement between IVAM and the University of Alicante. It first appeared in November 2021 at the IVAM-CADA venue in Alcoy and has since expanded into additional spaces and discussions.
The selection brings together 62 works by 31 artists, proposing new readings of IVAM’s photography holdings. It treats photography not merely as a documentation tool but as a creative medium capable of spawning new narratives. The discourse touches on body and identity, memory and history, and questions the role of public space, media, and mass consumption. As media hybrids multiply, photography has permeated art through approaches that treat it as an expressive language, a code, and a document all at once.
From 1950 onward, the IVAM collection showcases a spectrum of significant works and personalities, spanning from documentary to experimental forms. Renowned names such as Robert Frank and Lee Friedlander sit alongside pop and post-pop artists, including Baldessari and Prince. The spectrum also embraces various currents of conceptual and action art—figures like Fulton and Valie Export contribute to the dialogue. The collection features explorations focused on human subjects, and it reflects the visual impact of the New German Objectivity, as well as narrative strategies employed by artists exploring form and meaning. In this expansive roster, important Spanish voices join the international lineup, including Soto and Valldosera, with regional contributions from Valencia’s Bernabeu and Navarrete, among others. The breadth and richness of IVAM’s photography holdings are evident in the cross-pollination of ideas and practices across time and geography.
Enric Mira Pastor
He holds a Doctorate in Philosophy and Education Sciences from the University of Valencia. As a professor in the University of Alicante’s Department of Communication and Social Psychology, he has guided academic programs and contributed to the leadership of the faculty. His career includes roles such as Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and in leadership positions within the Economics and Business Administration department and the Communication and Social Psychology department. Since 1984 he has been a member of the Valencian Association of Art Critics and since 1998 part of the Photograph Collection Advisory Commission at the University Museum of Alicante. His work has earned recognition through the Espais Art Criticism Award, among others.
Pastor’s scholarship covers the theory and history of photography, with notable publications including The Photographic Avant-Garde in Spain in the Seventies (1991) and The Artistic Language of Electrography (2000). He has authored works on Ana Teresa Ortega, photo sculptures, and installations, and contributed chapters to books on commodity and spectacle, photo theory, mass culture, and modernization in Alicante since 1950. His writings have appeared in journals and magazines dedicated to image creation, theory, and visual culture, including Cimal, Lápiz, Fotovision, Canelobre, Valencian Art Archive, and Photocinema. He co-authored and edited volumes on image design and communication in Alicante from 1975 to 2015 and contributed to discussions on 21st-century communication trends. He has also produced catalog essays for contemporary Spanish photographers and artists such as Ana Teresa Ortega, Pablo Genovés, Mira Bernabeu, Tommy Ceballos, Óscar Molina, Pepe Calvo, Cayetano Ferrández, Jesús Rivera, and Luis Gordillo, among others.
Curated exhibitions under his direction include projects by Jesús Rivera, In Front of Empty Spaces (2012) at the Jose Gil Albert Cultural Institute in Alicante, Fragility of Light (2015), and Alicante is Rolling (2016). Other highlights feature Ana T. Ortega’s Silenced Cartography (2016) and Narratives in the Cracks of Space and Time (2018). Cayetano Ferrández presented Discontinuous (2109) at the University Museum in Alicante, alongside collaborations with major art and cultural institutions such as the Centre de Cultura del Carme, IVAM, the Juan Gil-Albert Cultural Institute, MACBA in Barcelona, Centro Párraga in Murcia, Canal Isabel II in Madrid, UIMP in Santander, and CICUS at the University of Seville. These collaborations reflect a robust network that supports critical discourse in photography and contemporary art. [Citation: IVAM curator profiles and institutional histories]