The new Carmen Thyssen Andorra opens
It is the third Thyssen to open outside of Madrid , after Malaga and San Feliu . "We are the little ones." In age and size: between twenty-five and thirty paintings fit in about two hundred square meters. "It's a smaller space than usual, but we couldn't get involved in making a huge museum either." Speech William Cervera, the Director of him. "Oversizing it would have been a mistake" . The idea is that the dilettante enjoys the paintings without getting stressed. " In the great art galleries there comes a time when you disconnect, they are too complex ". The heart rate accelerates before the collection of beauty, vertigo, confusion, palpitations in the temples, trembling. "Here the visitor can stop without haste in a work of art, because mentally he does not have that burden that he still has seventy left pieces ahead". Approximately half an hour is how long the guided tour lasts. " **I think it is the ideal format for Andorra **, and a museum option for the future that institutions such as the Getty of the angels; people go for a shot and are very successful. But it is important that there is a pictorial quality: it doesn't make any sense if you show few works and they are weak".
Small, avoiding oversize (like Andorra)
twenty six frames of Henry Matisse, Claude Monet, Paul Signac, Gauguin, Alfred Sisley, Ramón Casas, Anglada i Camarasa … hang from the new white panels. Varvara Stepanova she is the only woman among so many geniuses. "I would have liked to include more, bring Gabriele Munter and Menchu Gal , but it was not possible; I was only able to get this revolutionary Soviet cubist, who was one of the main architects of the Russian avant-garde."
Woods with cabins. Beaches a plein air at low tide. Impressionist vacationers bathing. In Normandy, in Brittany. Two fauvist chat ladies under the olive grove. Parisians with the joie de vivre exalted with luminosity. Billiard players, constructivist pachanga musical notes in a bar. Gorgeous sunset in Manhattan. A strong expressionist farewell hug. Crowds on 42nd Street. Hyper-realistic cheese double at a hamburger and sausage stand… "This painting by Richard Estes is my favourite. It looks like a photograph, but it's an oil! It's amazing, I'd love to have it in my house."
Technology is very present in the new Thyssen museum
Some canvases come from Madrid Thyssen ; others remained stored in different addresses of their Aunt Carmen Cervera , who has resided in Andorra since the nineties. "Already then they were talking with my father about how nice it would be to open a museum here." But until now they had only mounted three exhibitions in the Principality, which were very well received, by the way. "My aunt can't have her entire collection on display at home, and she prefers that the whole world see it rather than having it put away." Her Andorran chalet is decorated with silk copies of the originals. "Sometimes I tell her that she should keep some for herself, but she thinks that the artists did not paint these paintings for one person".
Guillermo Cervera has set himself the challenge of attracting between 50,000 and 60,000 annual visits. "I think that people will expressly travel to Andorra to visit us." Not on Mondays, it's closed. They open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., from Tuesday to Saturday; on Sundays, until two in the afternoon. With the ticket at 9 euros, the audio guide is included. "Facilitating the connection between the viewer and the artwork is key." Additional information is provided via giant touch screens. "It's like three 46-inch iPads." So we found out that Karl Schmidt-Rottluff was a German artist vexed as degenerate … "They are used to interact with paintings in the exhibition and access others in the collection with which they have a relationship…" That his brushstrokes were influenced by Van Gogh… "It is also possible to extend strokes from one centimeter to ten or fifteen…" And that he had to paint his sea shells in hiding. "...without distortion, with a lot of quality."
Between 50,000 and 60,000 visits per year are expected
One would have to travel to the United States or Australia to find a museum with technology as advanced as that of the Carmen Thyssen Andorra . "Security is maximum, and the lighting and air conditioning system are state-of-the-art." The building where it is located, on the other hand, dates from the 1930s. It is at the top of Escaldes-Engordany (in the last border of the shopping street, so that foreigners understand it), and is part of the National Cultural Heritage. In its heyday it was a luxury hotel built by the monks of Montserrat in the actual 37 Carlemany avenue.
The Benedictines, who leased it, were enlightened when they began to use the thermal water as an attraction to attract spa tourism. They offered all the comfort that could be expected at the time and more. Among his most prominent clientele was Pau Casals, Luis Mariano with his Cadillac, Kubala , a former Italian queen or the painter Joaquim Mir. One of the postmodernist landscapes of the Catalan is now exhibited in what was the hall. "Here was the staircase and the elevator, which was the first in Andorra" . A real attraction that caused a sensation among the locals when it was installed. "And on the upper floors high standing apartments are rented". To live in one of the most emblematic buildings in the country, due to its typical gray granite architecture. "I had come for a picnic once in the 1990s... Then the hotel closed, in 2000 it burned down and the entire interior has recently been restored." Including the original sign, from when the three stars was a hostel, and which hangs again from the facade, as shiny as the one on Carmen Thyssen Museum Andorra.
The hotel garage was across the street, at number 30 Carlemany avenue. Before becoming a bank, the first Andorran cinema was located there; today it is the Escaldes-Engordany Art Center, where the work of the sculptor Josep Viladomat, models of Romanesque art and an exhibition on Coco Chanel are exhibited until May 27. And a little further up the Bornemisza is the Art al Roc room, on Carlemany avenue number 8, with shows like the one by the ** painter Eduardo Arranz-Bravo ** during this month of March. Few tourists dare to go beyond the limits of the commercial bustle and go up to this last stretch of street with hardly any shop windows; with the opening of the Thyssen Museum, they hope that things will change. The idea is to develop a cultural circuit in the area, following the example of the Madrid Art Triangle. "But saving the distances, here we are much more modest!".
This is what the facade of the building looks like
GUIDE TO GETTING AROUND ANDORRA WITH ART
Where to sleep
At the ** Hotel A Casa Canut **, because its rooms are inspired by artists such as the painter Raffaello or the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe , and because authentic works of art are cooked in its gastronomic restaurant.
In the Hotel Carlemany Like the old Hostal Valira where the Thyssen is staying, it is a listed building asset of cultural interest , for its granite architecture (which preserves it standing since 1953) and for being a living testimony of the beginnings of thermal tourism. Bring a swimsuit to the spa!
Its rooms are inspired by artists like Raffaello
Where to eat
** Marquet House. ** The business started in 1974 as a gourmet shop, but one day they put up an offer: two oysters and a glass of wine for 250 pesetas ; customers endorsed the proposal and became restaurant and wine bar . They prepare the dishes with the same products that they sell at the counter: Don Bocarte wild bluefin tuna, Carpier smoked salmon, Joselito ham... We recommend the Stroganoff or the Angus steak , and not leave there without having tried the Tarte Tatin . To pair with, its cellar keeps a collection of wine bottles that is unique in the world, where a vertical of Château Lafite Rothschild from 1860 either labels designed by Pablo Picasso . They have two locations: one in the L'Illa Carlemany shopping center, which is always full (if you can get a table, it's ideal for a vermouth and snacks); and another much quieter, near the Thyssen Museum, in the Plaza Co-Prínceps (they say that the Baroness usually frequents it...).
Celler d'En Toni. In addition to being decorated with unparalleled frescoes by the painter José Luis Florit, it is the restaurant where Guillermo Cervera worked before opening the museum, when he was a pastry chef. "He made some great desserts, we miss him so much! There is no one who shaped chocolate the same way; for him, pastry was something artistic." María is a charm, as well as a voice of command that she has been preparing Rossini cannelloni with foie gras for more than fifty years. "Each dish is made with the head and the heart, to satisfy the palate and the spirit." Her father-in-law was a chef at the Ritz in Barcelona, and from him she learned delicacies such as beef shank bourguignon . When it's season, there is no shortage of prawns from Palamós, asparagus from Gabá, artichokes from Prat de Llobregat... "You have to try pota blava chicken at least once in your life!"
mama mary . Restaurant and art gallery. Useless to ask the waiter who is the author of the current exhibition (this privileged information seems to be held exclusively by the head of the room); he also collapses when asked about the best dish on the menu. The pizza chef seems inspired… A carbonara!
Shopping
**Desig(n) ** is much more than an art gallery. "I wanted it to be a cozy and cozy place, where people were not afraid to walk through the door", explains Alix, the soul of this art coffee where teas with ginger and lemon are served between sculptures of Jordi Casamajor and ceramics by Sylvie Delphaut . "Our role as gallery owners is to bring art closer to the public." Abstract painting goes best with one of their homemade chocolate and orange tarts. "A gallery is like any other store: you are not obliged to buy, you can go in just to look if there is something you like or not. It doesn't matter if you don't understand the artist's message or the technique, because here we try to explain it to you." All in all, most of his clients are Americans who buy from him online "Perhaps it's our fault, we've been too elitist…" In the evening the place is transformed into a cocktail-bar with language exchange. "I was born in Andorra, but my parents are British." His long hair and light eyes guarantee him.
Other galleries where you can see and buy art with a reduced tax of 1% (in Spain it is 21% and in France 19.5%) are Pilar Riberaygua, Art al Set, Areté, Espai d'art, Agüí or Angels Gallery.
An open-air museum
Walking down the street, from store to store, we will come across contemporary sculptures such as Dalí's soft clock, the lacemaker by Joseph Viladomat or the luminous poets of James Plensa.
the urban route
The itinerary through granite architecture allows you to discover a type of construction that began in Andorra around 1930. Influenced by Catalan modernism, battering was abandoned and the stone of the facades was left uncovered for decoration. The rocks had to be extracted from the quarries and carved by hand, a hard and complicated job that they carried out until the sixties Andalusian and Galician stonemasons.
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