He Balearic government and the Toni Catany Foundation have inaugurated the Toni Catany International Center of Photography, which opens its doors this Sunday with a photographic exhibition of Michael Kenna and the Mallorcan artist.
As reported by the Executive in a press release, the president Francina Armengol attended this Saturday the official opening of the International Center of Photography Toni Catany (Ciftc), a public facility managed by the Toni Catany Foundation, to which the Government will enter as patron.
Armengol assured that “this Saturday the dream of Toni Catany comes true, a sensitive and generous man as his legacy shows.” The president conveyed her “immense gratitude to her friends to whom she left the mission of making this center a reality, especially to Antoni Garau, Miquel Bezares, María del Mar Bonet and Lluís Segura», and advanced that «now is the time to give content and meaning to this center, so on Monday the Government will enter the Foundation and give it all its support».
The regional leader has highlighted the work carried out, in a transversal way, from the Government with the Foundation, to build and open a building that honors the memory of the Mallorcan photographer and that will become a reference center in the culture of the Balearic Islands. The participation of the Executive is specified with a ten-year agreement, with an annual contribution from the autonomous community of 500,000 euros.
The Foundation, for its part, will be responsible for organizing the activities of a high-level cultural institution dedicated to the work of Catany and the dissemination of photographic culture. He will also contribute his knowledge and experience in artistic and cultural management, and will transfer to the Center, located in Lucmajorall the author’s photographic archive.
The Toni Catany International Photography Center, financed with statutory funds from the Ministry of Tourism and Government funds, officially opens its doors this Sunday, March 19, with the exhibition, also inaugurated this Saturday, Michael Kenna – Toni Catany / Confluències, by Alain D’Hooghe and Antoni Garau. The exhibition consists of 70 photographs by Kenna and 35 by Catany, which dialogue around six themes: still life, statues, the nude, Southeast Asia, Mallorca and Venice.
The inaugural exhibition advances the concept of transferences, on which the program planned for this year will be based: the exchanges between the work of Catany and disciplines such as music, photography, dance, architecture, cinema, painting, sculpture or poetry.
The inaugurated center has been built on the basis of the birthplace of the photographer llucmajorer and also integrates the photographer’s homes Thomas Montserrat and a third called Sa Trinxa.
It is distributed in basement, ground floor, first and second floor. The basement is divided into a workshop, some warehouses, a temporary exhibition room and some technical rooms; the ground floor is used for reception and lobby, temporary exhibition hall and photography workshop classrooms; the first floor consists of a permanent exhibition hall, a library, an archive and a consultation room; and the second has offices and an archive.
It has a constructed area of 1,650 square meters. This project, by the architect Josep Lluís Mateo, has been conceived as a space integrated into the urban environment. The houses of Catany and Montserrat are linked by a large central courtyard, which is also generally accessible from the street and the initial meeting space for visitors.
In addition, the architect is committed to the use of traditional materials from the area, such as the stone and the seaand also introduces elements of sustainability and energy efficiency.
The Center will bring together the collection of 100,000 negatives and slides and 2,000 copies of the photographer’s images, in addition to the 300 photographs by other authors that were part of his collection and the Tomàs Montserrat collection. It will be a space to preserve and disseminate the artistic legacy of Toni Catany, create a reference cultural space in terms of photography and contribute to alleviating the deficit of cultural facilities in the Balearic Islands in the field of audiovisual arts.
The event was attended by the Minister of European Funds, University and Culture, Michael Company; the Vice President and Minister of Energy Transition, Productive Sectors and Democratic Memory, Juan Pedro Yllanes; the Minister of the Presidency, Public Function and Equality, Mercedes Garrido; the Director General of Culture, Catalina Solivellas; and members of the Toni Catany Foundation as Miquel Bezares, Antoni Garau, Maria del Mar Bonet or Lluís Seguraamong others.
