Who is Javier Molins, artistic director of the Centro de Arte Hortensia Herrero?

Javier Molins is the artistic director of the Centro de Arte Hortensia Herrero, housed in the Palacio de Valeriola and opened to the public on 11 November 2023, with works by more than 50 artists, including Anselm Kiefer and Georg Baselitz. Birth, childhood and family are not covered in the sources consulted.

He holds a doctorate in Fine Arts from the UPV and a journalism degree from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He was director of the Marlborough Gallery in Madrid, then director of communications and development at the IVAM, and an art critic for ABC and Cambio 16. He credits himself with more than 35 solo exhibitions (Picasso, Miró, Sean Scully, Manolo Valdés, Jaume Plensa, Equipo Crónica), and has been a visiting lecturer at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

He has been Hortensia Herrero's artistic adviser since they met in December 2013, at the opening of "Sorolla and America" at the Meadows Museum in Dallas.

He wrote the book "Artistas en los campos nazis" ("Artists in the Nazi camps," 3rd prize at the Spanish culture ministry's book awards, 2019), and directed the documentaries "Cézanne visto por Cézanne" (Thyssen Museum, 2014) and "Valdés como pretexto" (selected for the Cannes Film Market, 2011).

"El buen comisario debe ser como un director de cine: su trabajo no debe ser demasiado visible, pero debe permitir que las obras sean las protagonistas" ("A good curator should be like a film director: the work shouldn't be too visible, but it should let the pieces be the stars"), (Valencia Plaza / Alicante Plaza).

Photo credit: photo by Binkin82 (2023), CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, Wikimedia Commons.