Librarie Marian Goodman is pleased to present an exhibition of works made to benefit the Todolí Citrus Foundation. Titled The Citrus Project and curated by Lucía Muñoz Iglesias, the exhibition is comprised of a portfolio of works by 14 artists who have worked closely with Vicente Todolí in his role as a preeminent curator: Mirosław Bałka, Tacita Dean, Nan Goldin, Paul Graham, Carsten Höller, Roni Horn, Cristina Iglesias, Ragnar Kartansson, Julie Mehretu, Cildo Meireles, Matt Mullican, Antoni Muntadas, Philippe Parreno, and Julião Sarmento.
In the small town of Palmera, Spain, a dedicated commitment to preserving nature is taking place at the Todolí Citrus Foundation. The foundation, founded in 2013 by Vicente Todolí, is a 50.000m2 orchard that holds 480 varieties of citrus, making it the world’s biggest private collection of citrus planted on land. It is also home to a lab where extensive research is conducted in regard to the agricultural, environmental, historical, culinary, and industrial issues related to the universe of citrus. The foundation is located in the region of Valencia, an area of Spain which boasts one of the world’s most ideal conditions for the growth of this fruit, along with a vast history of its commercial trade.
Todolí, world-renowned for his stellar career in art curation, began his journey with IVAM in Valencia, Spain, then as founding director of Museu Serralves in Porto, Portugal, and later as director of London’s Tate Modern from its third year in existence, 2003, until 2010, playing a key role in this prestigious institution. Today he is the Artistic Director of the Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan, the President of the Advisory Committee to the Botín Foundation and Art Center in Santander, and an adviser to Inelcom Collection and Bombas Gens Art Center. While engaging in the constant development of art projects around the world, he decided to establish his base in Palmera, the small Mediterranean town where he was born, to grow and construct his most ambitious project yet: The Todolí Citrus Foundation.
The Foundation, a project of recuperation of land, nature, and tradition, was founded on a cultivated plot of land that belonged to Todolí’s father, as part of a family legacy spanning five generations. Todolí, aware that the surrounding area was at risk of being taken over by the tourism industry, convinced his neighbors to sell him their small plots. Slowly, the surrounding land was recuperated and restored for its original purpose: to flourish.
The orchard is not meant to be experienced as a celebration of its ecological success, but rather as a garden to traverse and explore. Its design was inspired by the Persian gardens, where the greenery enclosed within the country’s palaces historically resembled the closest thing to paradise on earth, complete with fountains, ponds and singing birds. The vegetation within these gardens was created to symbolize the three stages of life: youth, maturity and old age. Bearing this credo in mind, the Todolí Citrus Foundation has become a place in which to try to observe time and understand its role in preserving the rhythms of nature.
"The concept of time gives rhythm to all arts. Trying to understand time has always been the basis of culture…When you create a garden like this one, you do so for the future, so that others can enjoy it,” says Todolí.
In the hope of assuring a long life to this lush paradise, a group of artist and friends have joined to create The Citrus Project: a collection of artworks by those who have collaborated with Todolí throughout their careers. This collective undertaking was designed to maintain a dialogue for audiences to observe and appreciate nature within art, to cultivate metaphorical gardens within their mind.
This portfolio of works serves as an homage to the land, to its poetry and its materiality, to its romance and its solitude, to the curiosity of experimentation, to the acceptance of not fully understanding, to the joy of playing, to constant search, to repetition and to randomness. To the sentiment of belonging, to those who came before us and to the passing of time.
The Citrus Project exists as a living, breathing reminder of our relationship with nature and invites us to appreciate and encourage its rhythms
