A spectacular work that recreates the interior of the endless passenger terminal of Berlin’s Tempelhof airport, designed by the Nazis, will be the protagonist of the first temporary exhibition at the Hortensia Herrero Art Center (CAHH), which will be dedicated to Anselm Kiefer (Donaueschingen, 80 years 1945). Danae is the title of the work over 13 meters wide, previously exhibited only in New York, which will occupy the noble hall of the ancient Valeriola palace, located in the heart of Valencia.
Alongside it, other large-format, mostly unpublished works by the sought-after creator from his studio will be exhibited, which will be distributed across six galleries of the 3,500-square-metre private centre, from 28 April to the end of October 2026. The tour will delve into the theme centered on landscape which, together with history, mythology and literature, constitute the central core of the veteran artist’s inspiration, with works present in the collections of some of the world’s major museums. “I think in images. Poems help me. They are like buoys in the sea. I swim towards them, from one to the other; between them, without them, I would get lost”, explains the artist himself. The screening of the documentary that Wim Wenders made in 2023 on the figure of the painter and sculptor is also planned.
It will be the first exhibition in Valencia of the German creator, one of the pillars of the contemporary art collection of Hortensia Herrero, vice president of Mercadona and wife of Juan Roig, president of the supermarket chain. Herrero was included in the magazine’s Top 200 List for the second consecutive year. ARTnews, which brings together the most relevant art collectors in the world. She is the only Spaniard present.
The selection of the exhibition, which has been ongoing for five years, is made “in close collaboration” with the artist – who intends to visit Valencia -, with the “personal involvement” of Hortensia Herrero and a project ad hoc for the Valencian space, which attracted the attention of the creator for its historical nature and the rediscovered vestiges, like those of a Roman circus, as the curator of the exhibition and advisor to the collection, Javier Molins, explained on Tuesday. The relationship with Kiefer began almost ten years ago when the collector purchased the painting The flowers of evil, which was part of the 2016 Royal Academy of Arts summer exhibition.
This work can now be seen in the main hall of the center together with two other works by the author on permanent exhibition. The center brings together works by other artists, also highly appreciated in the art market, all belonging to the private collection of the Valencian patron, such as David Hockney, Olafur Eliason, Anish Kapoor, Jaume Plensa or Eduardo Chillida.
With this temporary exhibition, the CAHH aims to “consolidate” its growing international audience and also to give Valencian fans the opportunity to “rediscover” this space, in the words of its director, Alejandra Silvestre. The center has just turned two years old, a period in which it has reached 400,000 accumulated visitors and has overcome the so-called “cork effect” which occurs when a museum ceases to be a novelty. 70% of the audience is Valencian, 9% from the rest of Spain and 21% international.
The painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer studied law, literature and linguistics before entering the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe and later in Düsseldorf, where he was a pupil of Joseph Beuys. In 1980 he was selected to represent the West German Pavilion at the 39th Venice Biennale and since then his works have been exhibited in major international solo exhibitions in prestigious museums around the world. Since 1992 he has lived in France, between Paris and Barjac, near Avignon. In 2007 he became the first artist since Georges Braque to receive a commission for a permanent installation at the Louvre Museum in Paris.
