After several decades of collecting, Avelino Marín and Luís Leao decided to build a house to preserve and display a significant part of their collection.
It is a unique project by architect Javier Peña Galiano (built between 1999 and 2003), conceived specifically as a House for Two Collectors. The collection comprises more than 1,800 artworks and objects, ranging from ceramics to drawing, from video to photography, and from painting to sculpture and installation. Its interdisciplinary character is reinforced by an impressive roster of artists that brings together historical and contemporary figures, local connections, and major international names.
Following this guiding concept, the Centre del Carme Cultura Contemporània in Valencia has adapted the Carlos Pérez Hall, organizing the works by discipline and/or theme into spaces with generic domestic names: Study, Master Bedroom, Playroom, and Living/Dining Room. From entrance to exit, these four environments reflect a simple interplay of dualities typical of the house itself: public–private, day–night, work–leisure, activity–rest.
In the Study, drawing, printmaking, and serial works form the disciplinary core of the display. Here, it is impossible not to highlight names such as Rembrandt, Édouard Manet, Henri Matisse, Jules Pascin, David Hockney, Paula Rego, Richard Lindner, R. B. Kitaj, Pat Andrea, and Antonio López García.
The Master Bedroom brings together more private and intimate works in which the body—through its erotic, functional, autobiographical, symbolic, and poetic dimensions—takes center stage, while landscape and nature assume supporting roles. Among the artists featured is also our own Laurina Paperina.
In the Playroom, video is the dominant medium. Around a dozen video works are arranged along a trajectory that moves from a certain realism toward a more graphic treatment of the image. Photography unfolds as both testimony and recollection of a historical period marked by the international glamour of the artist-as-star and by the exuberant spirit of Spain’s Movida movement. Finally, the Living/Dining Room is structured around painting as its main axis, complemented occasionally by works in porcelain and ceramics.
Given the enormous number of artworks and the necessarily limited exhibition space, a highly selective approach was required. Only about one hundred works have been chosen to create four distinct environments that, in some way, recreate the diverse and eclectic character of a collection that generously expands into every corner of its extraordinary home.