“If you look at the depths of your heart, you can read the heart of the Spaniards,” wrote the Magnate, philanthropist and American Hispanic Archer M. Huntington during his first excursion to Spain, in 1894. A few years after that trip, Huntington, a passionate of Spanish art and everything related to the Iberian Peninsula, founded the Hispanic Society of America in the neighborhood of Washington Heights, north of Manhattan. With more than half a million objects, including works by El Greco, Velázquez, Goya and other great teachers, the museum has just celebrated its 120 years of history turned into the flagship of Hispanic American culture in the United States.
Guillaume Kientz (Strasbourg, 45 years old), its director, appointed in 2020, has been in charge of the reopening of the institution after almost seven long years of reforms and is the brain of a new Hispanic, more dynamic and closer to Spain. “There is no bridge from Calatrava that one A New York with Spain, but we can build cultural bridges,” says Kientz in a perfect Spaniard who learned in the streets of Madrid and that, he explains, has perfected since he lives in the Harlem. “In the next few years we will give more visibility to Hispanic in Spain,” he announces during the conversation with El País in the halls of James Costs and her husband, Michael Smith, in Madrid. Costs, former USBAJATOR OF THE STATES IN SPAIN AND MEMBER OF THE BOARDS OF THE HISPANIC, GOVERED THIS WEEK TO THE US AND INTERNATIONAL PATRONES OF THE NEYERCINE INSTITUTION IN HIS CASA MADRILEÑA AS A GOLDEN HOUSE OF A JOURNEY OF A JOURNEY IN NORTH OF SPAIN IN WHICH THE HUNSY OF THE
The meeting also served to hold the announcement of an imminent long -term collaboration agreement with the Generalitat Valenciana that will allow Spain to bring part of the collection of works by Joaquín Sorolla that until now sleep in the deposits of the Hispanic in Washington Heights. This collaboration will culminate in a space in Valencia, hometown of Sorolla, which will house important paintings of the artist ceded by the American Museum. “We want to give the best light to these paintings, and what better light than that of Valencia?” Says Kientz.
Ask. How many Sorolla works does Hispanic Society have?
Answer. We have a collection of 243 works.
P. How many of those paintings will be ceded to the Generalitat Valenciana?
R. We still don’t have the definitive list. We are working with the help of Blanca Pons-Sorolla, Sorolla great-grandson and one of the greatest experts in his work.
P. The 14 panels of Vision of Spain Could they be part of this assignment?
R. No, he will not leave Hispanic Society. Vision of Spain It is a monument. The monuments do not move, they are visited.
P. Is the possibility that the Hispanic open a headquarters in Valencia?
R. No, it will not be a museum that we are going to manage directly. Our space is in New York and there we have enough work.
P. Will Hispanic give the works to the Generalitat in rent? Will it be a rent?
R. It will be like a marriage. We are working on an agreement under a concept that Americans like Win-Win. That is, it will be positive for everyone.
P. Is there already a date for that “wedding”?
R. Not yet, we are working on the contract. But we agree on the conditions and important details. You just have to translate it into legal language.
P. But will it formalize this year?
R. Yes, we want to sign as soon as possible. We have a team of American and Spanish lawyers and the Generalitat Valenciana has its own legal team. Everyone is working on it.
P. Did Trump’s new tariff policies affect the agreement?
R. I hope not. We are discovering every day how this new world is developing.
P. Sorolla is still a great stranger in the United States?
R. When it was first exhibited, in the international exhibition organized in 1909, it was an incredible success. The exhibition lasted a month and passed through the Hispanic Society rooms more than 160,000 visitors. The museum had to be open until 11 at night due to the long lines. Then, like all the figurative art of that moment, Sorolla lost a lot of her prestige in America, but is recovering it again. Now the Metropolitan is organizing a great Sargent exhibition, which is the American sorolla, and is being very successful. We just finished an exhibition of sorolla in the Norton Museum of Palm Beach that had a great reception. Sorolla likes people, he is a painter who unites and puts people agree. That is very important right now. We need consensus to build.
P. The Hispanic is far from the circuit of the great Museums of New York. Is that an inconvenience?
R. In my view, we have a very good location, in a very interesting cultural neighborhood. We are close to the cloisters of the Metropolitan Museum, Hamilton’s house, of the house where George Washington, College’s University and City College lived. And a little above is the botanical garden. We are creating a network for people to realize everything they can do in the northern area of Manhattan.
P. The Spaniards know Hispanic very well. Do New Yorkers know her just as well?
R. A little less because we were closed for almost seven years and New York is a city that goes very fast. Before people put a goal to go to Hispanic once every five years to always see the same thing: Velázquez, El Greco, Goya, Sorolla … Now, after the reopening of 2023, we have a very dynamic exposure policy. Every three or four months, we organize experiences. The next three years will make fashion signs in autumn. The next fall will be about fashion in the Golden Age, in 2026 on the mantilla, and in 2027 on the Manila shawl. And every spring we invite an artist to dialogue with our works.
P. You were conservative of Spanish art in the Louvre, one of the largest museums in the world. Is it easier to manage a small museum like Hispanic?
R. This is a small institution, but in turn very large. We have a collection of almost 800,000 objects. It’s a lot, it’s immense. As we are little, we have to work more, but we are also more agile.
P. Hispanic culture has been treated for a long time as something marginal in the United States. Is that changing?
R. I don’t know if as something marginal. In the United States you eat a lot of Spanish food, a lot of Spanish wine is drink, the sign of the dollar is Spanish … The problem is that the American does not realize the influence of Spain in its culture. People forgot that a little and I don’t explain very well why.
P. You, like more than 60 million people in the United States, speak Spanish perfectly. Is the time for Spanish?
R. Within just over half of the population of the United States will speak Spanish. Our programs are already done in English and Spanish to help families maintain language in their linguistic heritage. In the United States many continue to see Spanish as a second language, but I begin to see a paradigm shift. Many new leaders are Spanish speakers and are changing the rules of the game. Look at Bad Bunny, Rosalia or the case of actress Eva Longoria, who is learning a lost language.
P. But the average American does not know where Spain is.
R. I do not agree. The people I know love Spain. But maybe I’m wrong.
P. Trump said in his last campaign that Latinos want to be called “Hispanics.”
R. Words have political uses. Of course “Hispano” is closer to Spain, because Hispania was the ancient name of the Peninsula and “Latino” is a term that came much later. But in the end the important thing is not the words. What people counts is.
P. Is there any figure like Huntington in the United States, a patron of the Spanish culture of that size?
R. There are very important Spanish art and Latin art collectors, although I do not know if someone with the dedication so in love with Spain. But we can look for it.
P. For a few years there is some revisionism about how Huntington acquired his collection. Are they studying it?
R. That is very interesting. I, as a conservative of Spanish painting in the Louvre, often found a feeling of discomfort by the Spaniards for the theme of the Napoleonic invasion and the war of independence. They told me: “The French looted us.” And it was very fair, because that happened. But I have never felt anything similar with respect to Huntington. On the contrary, people receive us here with love and see Hispanic as a declaration of love for Spain. And that is for a reason: Huntington always had immense respect for Spain, for the Spanish people and for the Spanish heritage and never wanted to remove things from Spain. In a newspaper he said that the paintings are like birds, that they should not bother or get them out of their trees. And he said that those who have lost their tree had to be saved, that a new tree had to be proportional. Hispanic Society is a tree that shelters the lost paintings of Spanish art.
