Thursday 13 June, 8 PM, sees the opening of the exhibition marking the 50th Anniversary of Pelaires Gallery with works by Pier Paolo Calzolari, Günter Forg, Rebecca Horn, Jannis Kounellis, Richard Long, Fausto Melotti, Marisa Merz, Mario Merz, Joan Miró, Giulio Paolini, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Thomas Schütte and Antoni Tàpies. The show corresponds to the first part of the 50th Anniversary celebrations and takes a look back at the past of the Gallery, while the second part will focus on the present and future of Pelaires' programme proposal.
According to Pep Pinya, founder of Pelaires Gallery,
"Covering 50 years of history in one single show is impossible. Therefore, we have selected only 26 pieces by artists who have collaborated with Pelaires, putting them together in an attempt to reveal our passion for a job that became our way of life from the very beginning".
Gallery Director Frederic Pinya explains,
"We have divided our 50th Anniversary into two exhibitions: the first one takes a retrospective look, while the second one will be about our future. The aim of the first part is to pay tribute to the founder of the Gallery Pep Pinya through a selection of works by different artists who have collaborated with us over the last 50 years. They are mostly linked to artist Rebecca Horn who took part in the 40th Anniversary show along with Jannis Kounellis, Aigüestortes although the exhibition also features works by other artists such as Antoni Tàpies or Joan Miró, who had a major role in the history of the Gallery." He adds, "Our 50th Anniversary is a great opportunity to grasp the true dimensions of the project initiated by my father in 1969, a project that has attracted worldwide known artists to Palma and Majorca and has put us on the contemporary art map. All this has unquestionably been possible because of the story of Pelaires, a story of our passion for art."
Finally, Frederic Pinya invites everyone
"to come to Pelaires Gallery and enjoy the show. We have worked really hard to bring all these pieces by major artists to the Gallery. However, our efforts will only pay off if we share them with as many people as possible. We would like to celebrate our 50th Anniversary with the whole city of Palma and Majorca."
Although most of the artists represented in the exhibition are generationally closer to German Rebecca Horn -who plays a key role in our celebrations-, it also features works by Joan Miró, since he played a significant role when Pelaires was established. The Gallery could not host an exhibition marking its 50th Anniversary without including pieces by the artist who supported it the most at the very beginning and helped it become a meeting point for some of the most famous 20th-century artists. The show also includes works by Antoni Tàpies, who had several shows during its first 30 years of history and is considered the most important Spanish artist after Miró by the Gallery.
The exhibition celebrates the anniversary of the Gallery by showing their passion for their job and for long gone artists who, thanks to their artistic stance and language, still have great impact on present generations. Their idea was to start with an international female artist collaborating with the Gallery (Rebecca Horn) and combine her work with those by generationally close artists with whom she had a professional or personal relationship.
