Should there ever be the need for an artist who can envision the apocalypse, Mat Collishaw would probably be the right man to call. This thought came up after I saw some of his work in Valencia, in the newly opened Centro de Arte Hortensia Herrero (CAHH), a private collection gone public, with an impressive list of artists, both Spanish and international. Collishaw is one of a handful who were invited to develop a site-specific work that would find a home in the renovated seventeenth-century Palazzo Valeriola in the center of town. In his work, there is often a sense of danger, be it violence, cruelty, or simply decay. But he presents his work in such a monumental and ingenious way that you cannot help looking. Like staring into a fire.
The CAHH was founded by Hortensia Herrero, a collector who, with her husband, Juan Roig, largely owns one of Spain’s supermarket chains. The headquarters of the company are close to Valencia, which is the reason the city is the focus of the cultural and entrepreneurial endeavors of the family. Not tax money, but grocery money coming back to the people.
Of the invited artists, Collishaw is probably the one who engaged most with the city, its tradition, and its history. For his Transformer (2023), he was inspired by the Fallas, Valencia’s yearly spring festivities accompanied by grand fireworks as well as the burnings of giant wooden ninots. These figures or characters are artfully built and carried in processions, after which they are burned. The fire stands for renewal, getting rid of (hated) figures; it is a centuries-old rite of spring. While in other cities, people might panic when they hear explosions, in Valencia nobody would believe it is war or an attack. It is just fireworks.
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Read the full review online in the Brooklyn Rail, first published in Feb. 2024