Museo de Arte Contemporáneo

Museums

The middle of the Raval neighbourhood, one of the areas with most character in the city, is the Contemporary Art Museum. Inaugurated in 1980, it turned the project of a local painters´ cooperative group, the Grup d’Elx, and an idea which was first conceived at the end of the 1960s, into a reality. It is located in the building, restored and with two floors added, which housed the City Council of the former Raval de Morería. A Baroque construction of mid-17th century origins with a colonnaded area and a fish market at its western point, under which passes the Calle Mayor of this place of mediaeval origins. Valuable Collection Through the dream of the Grup d’Elx a valuable collection took shape, deeply rooted in the historic and artistic developments of the past sixty years. The great cohesion of the collection, as well as the solidarity and special circumstances associated with its formation, mean that it constitutes an exemplary museum. It has gained widespread recognition within the network of museums and permanent museum collections of the Autonomous Valencian Region. Emblematic and representative figures from the vanguard of Valencian and Spanish art, such as Arcadi Blasco, Juana Francés, Salvador Soria, Toni Miró, Equipo Crónica, Viola, Genovés and Amalia Avia, among others, make up the central body of artists represented in this collection of valuable cultural heritage. It includes the works of many of those who promoted the modernising of Spanish art between the 1940s and 60s of the last century, and who have emerged since the 1980s and up to the present day. Exhibition Centre The museum organizes temporary exhibitions, which are displayed in the nearby Municipal Exhibition Centre, Plaza de San Juan, in front of the church of the same name, alongside exhibitions which are organised by the City Council. In front of this modern building of three floors, there is a sculpture of the painter Sixto Marco, one of the founders of the Grup d’Elx and the museum itself. A charismatic figure, much loved in the city, he died in 2002.