Baroness Thyssen, Carmen Cervera, the Stoneweg fund and the families that own the old Comedia cinema in Barcelona have signed a preliminary agreement for the property to be a Carmen Thyssen Museum. As it progressed this Friday The vanguard, the Baroness has reached an agreement with the owners of the building, on Passeig de Gràcia, and who had a dozen options on the table regarding the possible use of the property. The same sources consulted affirm that “the conditions of the contract are being negotiated.” This new Carmen Thyssen Museum is expected to house “part of the baroness’s private collection.”
The new museum will feature both works from the Cervera collection and pieces from other museums around the world, which will make it “a great international museum,” as the baroness announced in an interview. In it, Carmen Thyssen claims to have received offers from Arab countries and other places to establish her museum, proposals that she has rejected to focus on Barcelona, which was her “absolute preference.” “Within the space, we aspire to have museum education programs, and projects with the latest technological innovations,” she told EL PAÍS on the 10th, when her intentions to apply for this museum became known. That same day, sources from the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum assured this newspaper that the project is a “private initiative” by Cervera, with no relation to the Madrid headquarters.
As for what works can be seen in the new museum, Cervera states that “there will not only be old paintings, but also contemporary ones,” to which “new technologies applied to the art world” will be added, where Cervera plans to give “surprises.” . Regarding which part of the Thyssen collection can be seen in Barcelona, the Baroness has indicated that they will be renovated so that everything can be seen. He also explained that not only his pieces will be seen, since “it will be a large international museum, which will organize temporary exhibitions, lasting about three months, with important museums from other countries”, so they will get great works from other museums in the world. , following the model of the museums of Madrid, Malaga and Andorra.
Regarding issues such as who will direct it, what type of institutional support it will receive or the opening date, the Baroness is cautious, although she stresses that she wants it to be inaugurated as soon as possible. According to the same sources, the lease of the space that the Comedia cinema occupied until last January will last for 25 years and Stoneweg would also like to have two commercial premises at street level. “We have been behind the project for some time and we believe that it can be an important boost for the city,” Jaume Sabater, general director of the Stoneweg fund, told this newspaper on the 10th.
Currently, the baroness, who has a large collection of Catalan art from the 19th and 20th centuries, has museums in Malaga and Andorra, an exhibition space in Sant Feliu de Guíxols (Girona) and works in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation in Madrid and the MNAC, where in the past it had a room dedicated to its collections. For its part, the Stoneweg fund has opted in recent years to invest in cultural activities in the Barcelona area, such as the Palau Martorell exhibition space, the America’s Cup Experience center, in the old Imax cinemas in Port Vell, or a hub cultural in the Godó i Trias factory in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat.