Wikipedia

Vicente Todolí

Vicente Todolí (Valencia, 1958) is a Spanish contemporary art curator who has worked as the director of several museums and art centres internationally, including the Tate Modern in London.

Vicente Todolí
Born1958 (1958)
Palmera, Valencia, Spain
NationalitySpanish
Alma mater
Occupationcurator
Known forFormer director of Tate Modern
Titleartistic director, Pirelli HangarBicocca
Termsince 2012

Education

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After earning a degree in Art History from the University of Valencia, Todoli carried postgraduate studies at Yale University between 1981 and 1982 as a Fulbright Scholar.[1][2] He then went to the City University of New York and was also an intern at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1984–85.[3]

Career

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With a career in the arts sector spanning over 30 years, Todolí was Chief Curator (1986–88) and then artistic director (1988–96) of the Valencia Institute of Modern Art in Spain.[1] In 1996 he was appointed as the founding director of the Serralves Museum in Porto, which opened to the public in 1999 and quickly built an international reputation, becoming also the most visited museum in Portugal.[4][5]

His appointment as Tate Modern Director was announced by the Trustees of Tate in 2002 and he held that position from 2003 until his resignation in 2010.[1][5][6] The press release announcing his resignation quoted him stating that after seven years at IVAM, another seven years at Serralves and further seven years at Tate Modern, it was his intention to take a break at that point.[7] The same press release quoted Sir Nicholas Serota, then Director of the Tate, saying: "Vicente has made an enormous contribution to the success of Tate Modern during his period in London. His distinctive vision has shaped the display of the Collection, while a series of exhibitions has redefined early modernism."[7]

The Guardian also published an editorial praising his work and concluding that his "curiosity, wit, rigour and passion make him a model for future directors of Tate Modern."[8] Some of the major exhibitions he organised at Tate Modern were devoted to Wassily Kandinsky (2006);[9] Josef Albers and László Moholy-Nagy (2006);[10] Salvador Dalí (2007);[11] Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and Francis Picabia (2008);[12] Alexander Rodchenko and Liubov Popova (2009);[13] and Theo Van Doesburg (2010).[14]

Currently, since 2012, Todolí is the artistic director of the Pirelli HangarBicocca gallery in Milan,[15] where he has curated exhibitions of artists such as, for example, Cildo Meireles (2014),[16] Juan Muñoz (2015),[17] Carsten Höller (2016),[18] Kishio Suga (2016–17),[19] Miroslaw Balka (2017),[20] Mario Merz (2018–19),[21] and Maurizio Cattelan (2021-22 co-curated with Roberta Tenconi).[22]

He is also a trustee of the Fundació Per Amor a l'Art, which began to build a contemporary art collection in 2010 under his direction[3] and opened the Bombas Gens Centre d'Art in Valencia in 2017.[23] Since 2003, he has been a member of the Botin Foundation's Visual Arts Advisory Committee and became its president in 2011.[24]

Some of the awards and accolades he has received in recognition of his achievements include the appointed as Chevalier (Knight) of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France), the badge of the Order of Saint James of the Sword (Portugal), and an Honorary Doctorate from the Technical University of Valencia (Spain).

Botanical and gastronomical interests

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In 2012 he established the Todolí Citrus Foundation in Palmera (Valencia), the place where he was born. Its goal is to preserve the genetic diversity and heritage of citrus trees by means of an orchard of more than 400 varieties, .[25][26] He decided to create the foundation during a trip to Perpignan with Ferràn Adria, a world-famous chef and a friend of his,[27] where they visited a private collection of 80 varieties of citrus grown in pots.[28] Apart from the orchard itself, the foundation also has a gastronomical lab, a library, and an ethnobotanical museum.[26]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Tate. "Tate appoints Vicente Todoli as Tate Modern Director – Press Release". Tate. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  2. ^ "Vicente Todoli". The Center for the Humanities. Retrieved 2021-05-23.
  3. ^ a b "Arte". Fundació per Amor a l Art (in European Spanish). 22 March 2021. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  4. ^ Binlot, Ann. "Happy Birthday Serralves Foundation! 5 Not-To-Miss Works At The Porto Institution". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  5. ^ a b "Tate Modern finally appoints a new chief". the Guardian. 2002-05-30. Retrieved 2021-05-21.
  6. ^ "Interview with Tate Modern's new director Vicente Todoli: "Globalisation is the essential spirit of art"". www.theartnewspaper.com. November 2002. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  7. ^ a b Tate. "Director of Tate Modern Concludes Seven Successful Years – Press Release". Tate. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  8. ^ Editorial (2010-03-30). "In praise of ... Vicente Todolí | Editorial". the Guardian. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  9. ^ Tate. "Kandinsky: The path to abstraction – Exhibition at Tate Modern". Tate. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  10. ^ Tate. "Albers and Moholy-Nagy: from the Bauhaus to the New World, room guide, introduction: Introduction". Tate. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  11. ^ Tate. "Dalí at Tate Modern – Exhibition at Tate Modern". Tate. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  12. ^ Tate. "Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia – Exhibition at Tate Modern". Tate. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  13. ^ Tate. "Rodchenko & Popova: Defining Constructivism – Exhibition at Tate Modern". Tate. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  14. ^ Tate. "Van Doesburg and the International Avant-Garde – Exhibition at Tate Modern". Tate. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  15. ^ "About Pirelli HangarBicocca". Pirelli HangarBicocca. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  16. ^ "Cildo Meireles - Cildo Meireles. Installations". Pirelli HangarBicocca. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  17. ^ "Exhibition - Juan Muñoz - Double Bind & Around". Pirelli HangarBicocca. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  18. ^ "Carsten Höller Exhibition: Doubt". Pirelli HangarBicocca. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  19. ^ "Kishio Suga Exhibition: Situations". Pirelli HangarBicocca. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  20. ^ "Miroslaw Balka – Show in Milan – CROSSOVER/S". Pirelli HangarBicocca. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  21. ^ "Mario Merz and Arte Povera". Pirelli HangarBicocca. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  22. ^ "Maurizio Cattelan - Exhibition Breath Ghosts Blind".
  23. ^ Zafra, Ignacio (2017-07-08). "El gran centro de arte que emerge de la decadencia industrial de Valencia". El País (in Spanish). ISSN 1134-6582. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  24. ^ "Vicente Todolí (Presidente de la Comisión Asesora de Artes Plásticas)". Centro Botin (in European Spanish). Retrieved 2021-05-23.
  25. ^ "How high-end cuisine is seeding biodiversity for sustainable food systems". BCFN Foundation: Food and Nutrition Sustainability Index. 2021-01-18. Retrieved 2021-05-23.
  26. ^ a b Pérez-Ventana, Alfonso (2021-05-07). "Vicente Todolí, el hombre que dirigió la Tate Modern y se pasó al activismo cítrico". EL PAÍS (in Spanish). Retrieved 2021-05-23.
  27. ^ "How We Met: Ferran Adrià & Vicente Todoli". The Independent. 2011-10-23. Archived from the original on 2022-08-17. Retrieved 2021-05-23.
  28. ^ Anonym. "The citrus of Vicente Todolí, a journey between botany and cuisine". newsrnd.com. Retrieved 2021-05-23.
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