To mark the 20th anniversary of the UA Museum (MUA), we published a book about the first two decades of this institution. Five years later, we think that our 25th anniversary is a good time to take a closer look at our collection and thank artists, collectors, UA governing teams and teaching staff for believing in the Museum and helping us build a collection that currently contains well over 2,000 works.
While this fact is indeed positive, it has also meant that organising the exhibition was a challenge: due to space limitations, only about a hundred works – less than 5% of the total – could be selected for display.
As you may imagine, it was not easy to decide which works to include and which had to be left out. Ultimately, the selection has been based on the criteria indicated below.
To begin with, quite a few works could not be selected because they were already on display, whether at other UA Museum exhibitions or at a different UA venue. In the first case, there was no problem at all: visitors can still find those pieces at the exhibition “Mucho cuento. Relatos visuales en la colección del MUA” (“An incredible story. Visual accounts in the MUA collection”), the Arcadi Blasco space and the Daniel Escolano collection. As for the works on loan to other UA venues, there was no need to demand their return, as even without them the number of pieces available to choose from was very high anyway.
Each of the artists included in the exhibition could have only one work on display. Exceptions were allowed if the pieces were part of a series and this aspect was essential in order to interpret them.
Another crucial factor was that the selection of works had to be representative of the artistic approaches explored by the UA Museum in different periods, so that visitors could understand the way the collection was being built or what was happening at the Museum at a given time.
Without a doubt, you will be surprised by some of our choices – works that you expected to find but have not been included, and vice versa. In any case, we can assure you that the MUA staff have made the selection with the utmost rigour and integrity, drawing on their in-depth knowledge of the collection and of the UA artistic heritage entrusted to them. I hope you enjoy an exhibition we have poured our heart into.
