A spectacular work that recreates the interior of the never-ending passenger terminal at Tempelhof airport in Berlin, designed by the Nazis, will be the star of the first temporary exhibition at the Hortensia Herrero Art Center (CAHH), which will be dedicated to Anselm Kiefer (Donaueschingen, 80 years old 1945). Danaë is the title of the piece measuring more than 13 meters wide, only previously exhibited in New York, which will occupy the noble room of the old Valeriola palace, located in the heart of Valencia.
Along with it, other large-format works by the sought-after creator will be exhibited, most of them unpublished, from his studio, which will be distributed in six galleries of the 3,500-square-meter private center, from April 28 to the end of October 2026. The tour will delve into the theme centered on the landscape that, 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 main museums of the world. “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. It is also intended to screen the documentary that Wim Wenders made in 2023 about the figure of the painter and sculptor.
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 has been included for the second consecutive year in the magazine’s Top 200 List. ARTnews, which brings together the most relevant art collectors in the world. She is the only Spanish person present.
The selection of the exhibition, which has been in progress for five years, is carried out “in close collaboration” with the artist – who plans to visit Valencia –, with the “personal involvement” of Hortensia Herrero and a design for this for the Valencian space, which has caught the attention of the creator due to its historical nature and the vestiges found, such as those of a Roman circus, as explained this Tuesday by the curator of the exhibition and advisor to the collection, Javier Molins. The relationship with Kiefer began almost ten years ago when the collector acquired 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 room of the center along with two other works by the author on permanent display. The center brings together works by other artists, also highly valued in the art market, all of them 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 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 “corkage effect” that occurs when a museum stops being novelty. 70% of the public 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 student 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 shown in prominent 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.