Opening the doors of MACA IVAM
They stood on different fronts, in varied nations and in distinct contexts, yet they shared a fierce impulse to create and a shared ache from the ruins left by war. The first era braided Spain’s Civil War with a later period, the second emboldened the end of fascist darkness. Many stayed; others were forced to flee. Art, however, marched forward, proving that even in the harshest conditions it can endure and evolve. The route described as Art in a wasteland, 1939-1959, is an exhibition staged by IVAM that visitors can experience at the Alicante Museum of Contemporary Art (MACA) until January 29.
Nuría Enguita, director of the Valencia Institute of Modern Art, noted during the opening with curator Nacho Paris and Rosa Castells, municipal collections curator, and Anthony Manresa, a member of the Cultural Council, that art history has often been taught as a straight line of movements. They remind us that this linear view does not reflect reality.
With more than 80 works, the exhibition places a demanding period on view and examines how connections form and how synchronicities emerged among artists who were all produced in a wasteland. IVAM, the courtyard of the Herrerian Museum, the Esmeraldina Gumbau Collection, and the Lafuente Archive, along with works from the World War I era and from the Valencian Cultural Institute, bring together pieces by Brossa, Chillida, Duchamp, Dubuffet, Julio González, Newman, Saura, Tàpies, Gorky, Reinhardt, Buñuel, Val del Omar, and many others. The display also features five works from the MACA collections to enrich the narrative, including two by Juana Frances (one never exhibited at MACA before), two by Eusebio Sempere, a Ramon Navarro piece, and three Arcadi Blasco works, with additional offerings from the Alicante University Museum.
Opening the doors of MACA IVAM
The exhibition seeks to demonstrate different modes of making art, presenting styles that coexist out of sync rather than as a simple evolution from one to another. Paris emphasizes that art remains constant in essence while formal solutions can diverge. The exhibition is framed as an opportunity to explore created art during a troubled era and acknowledges that the sociopolitical, economic, and cultural conditions of the time still carry echoes today. Castells highlights that the show contextualizes the artists’ work and captures a moment in the 20th century that continues to shape art.
Antonio Manresa adds that the display marks a break with avant-garde movements born from the wars, a period when culture was sometimes used to promote a rigid doctrine and worldview. The collaboration between IVAM and MACA is presented as a long-standing partnership that bridges two regional institutions and invites a broader conversation about collecting and exchange. Enguita notes a shared aspiration to be more than a museum—almost a traveling collection—so that IVAM, as a Valencian Community institution, can dialogue with MACA and its holdings. Both centers explore how to pool resources and showcase a broader range of works.
Both institutions are pursuing a sustained, long-term project drawn from the Jenkins-Romero collection, extending collaboration across collections, restoration, temporary exhibitions, education, research, and publications. Castells states that the collaboration aims to be institutionalized and productive across multiple dimensions.
EXHIBITION SECTIONS
- Green in our arid lands
Art and culture under the Franco regime from 1939 to 1959 served as a propaganda instrument. Falangist culture and National Catholicism in the forties sidelined avant-garde experiments and favored a return to formal traditions tied to a supposed national spirit rather than individual freedom. Yet, even with heavy censorship and state control of cultural production, artists persisted in preserving or reimagining the innovative spirit, whether individually or in groups. The fifties witnessed a shift toward greater state tolerance and more experimental forms and practices. Abstraction began to dominate the artistic discourse through intense debates about its meaning and possibilities. Paradoxically, sacred art became a conduit toward more contemporary expressions. The avant-garde persisted, while diplomacy with the United States during the Cold War was used to project openness and freedom.
- shoots
The Nazi ascent in Germany resulted in a severe curtailment of freedoms and the persecution of any cultural forms not aligned with the Third Reich. The invasion of Poland in 1939 and the subsequent occupation of much of Europe by 1941 forced a mass exodus of creatives and intellectuals. The defeat of Republican forces in Spain also triggered a large exodus of eminent artists and thinkers. Just as European avant-garde vitality was revived in Paris in the twenties and thirties, this forced migration—colored by nostalgia, hope, and resolve—enriched many host regions. Spanish exile to Mexico and European exile to the United States laid the groundwork for artistic renewal.
- Like those waiting for the dawn
After World War II, Europe was no longer the sole center of economic or cultural life. Across both sides of the Atlantic, the trauma of war and a sense of cultural collapse demanded a profound renewal of sources, media, and methods. A desire to start anew emerged, embracing the exploration of limits, the tension between the visual and the narrative, and the reconciliation of individual freedom with collective memory. The period became a laboratory where art increasingly made itself its own subject, seeking new forms to express memory, pain, resilience, and new possibilities.