IAA Pablo Serrano - Zaragoza, Spain

Pablo Serrano Collection

Juana Collection

Contemporary art collections of the Goverment  of Aragon
The IAACC Pablo Serrano, boasts more than 1,500 works, including sculptures, drawings, collages, prints and artist's sketchbooks as well as a collection of 3,500 documents. It also houses more than 150 works by Juana Frances together with the artist's documentry legacy and the contemporary art collection of the Goverment of Aragon, with works from acquisitions, donations, deposits and bequests.

In December 1960, Pablo Serrano made public his manifesto for the creation of a free school for the Arts, one of the projects closest to his heart, convinced as he was of the capacity of art to generate new models of knowledge which allow us to better understand ourselves and the world. man, he wrote, is always responsible for the moment in which he lives and should only look back in order to take advantage of the correct decisions of the past.  In keeping with such a statement, the sculptural
career of Pablo Serrano is rooted in an unbreakable creative attitude which always drove him to take on new conquests in a continuous and accelerated process of experimentation, based on such undeniably contemporary concepts as pain, cruelty and death, which he sought to express in his sculpture. This was, without a doubt, the central goal that guided his work and which ran through it with unusual coherence over time.

In 1984, Pablo Serrano set apart of his collection to be donated to the community of Aragon, perhaps
with an eye to realizing his dream of the Free School for the Arts, and in 1986 the artist's heirs carried out his wishes. The Pablo Serrano Museum was opened in 1994, on the site previously occupied by the old workshops of the Pignatelli Jose' Manuel Perez Latorre.  In 1995, the Pablo Serrano museum became the Aragonese  Institute of contemporary Art and Culture - Pablo Serrano (IAACC Pablo Serrano), following another of the artist's goal; the right of all to be participants in the work of art. This idea invites the viewer to become an active agent in the creative act, to involve them in the reading and viewing of discussions and narrations which are necessarily, open, changing, plural and multiple.  Reflection and debate, from the most diverse areas of culture, are the pillars on which knowledge is built.

In March 2011, the extension of the IAACC  Pablo Serrano, also the work of Jose' Manuel Perez Latorre, will be unveiled.  The enlargement  of the physical space will be accompanied by new and renovated proposals, guided by the centre's activities. As well as housing several art collections - those of Pablo Serrano, Juana Frances and the other collections of contemporary art belonging to the Government of Aragon - the IAACC Pablo Serrano aspires to be a meeting place for all voices, with the desire to build a shared cartography which will allow for our self - awareness and for our self-awareness and for our position in the world to be strengthened.

In order to fulfill this goal, the programme of events and activities of the IAACC Pablo Serrano
follows three different lines of work. First is that of contemporary art and culture in Aragon, with monographic and themed exhibitions which, put into context, will allow for a more profound knowledge and dissemination of the centre.s collections. Secondly, national and international projects
will be presented, with a particular emphasis on sculpture. lastly watch groups or observatories will be set up to deal with current themes from the point of view od diverse disciplines. These areas
complete the activities of the IAACC Pablo Serrano, which is firmly committed to providing the best possible conditions for contemporary creativity to take place and flourish.

IAACC Pablo Serrano
Paseo Maria Augustin, 20
50004 Zaragoza