kids encyclopedia robot

Museo Vostell Malpartida facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts
Quick facts for kids
Museo Vostell Malpartida
Museo Vostell Malpartida, 2015.jpg
Museo Vostell Malpartida, aerial view, 2015.
Established 1976; 49 years ago (1976)
Location Malpartida de Cáceres, Spain
Type Art museum
Collections Wolf Vostell, Fluxus & Conceptual art
Founder Wolf Vostell & Mercedes Vostell
Architect Javier Manso Rapado

The Museo Vostell Malpartida is an art museum in the Spanish village of Malpartida de Cáceres. This village is west of Cáceres in the region called Extremadura. The museum is all about the art of a German artist named Wolf Vostell. He was a painter and sculptor. He was also known for his work in Fluxus and Happening art.

The museum is currently led by Mercedes Vostell for its art, and José Antonio Agúndez García for its general management. Wolf Vostell and Mercedes Vostell started the museum together in 1976.

History of the Museum

In 1976, Wolf Vostell created a sculpture in a place called Los Barruecos. He used his own black Opel Admiral car from 1970 for this artwork. He had traveled around Extremadura with his family in this car. The sculpture was named VOAEX (Journey in the Upper Extremadura).

Two years later, in 1978, he made another sculpture called The dead who is thirsty (El Muerto que tiene Sed). The VOAEX sculpture was officially opened on October 30, 1976. This date also marks the start of the Museo Vostell Malpartida.

The museum covers a large area, about 14,000 square meters. Part of the museum used to be a washhouse. In the 18th and 19th centuries, people used this washhouse to clean wool. They used water from the Barruecos de Abajo pond. The building had different rooms for activities like shearing sheep and weighing wool.

Since 1988, the German Goethe-Institut has worked with the museum. This partnership began when Manuel Heredia helped Wolf Vostell find 20 Sanglas motorcycles. These motorcycles were for a sculpture by Salvador Dalí called The end of the Parzival. Since then, the Goethe-Institut has helped with special exhibitions, concerts, and book releases at the museum.

In 1994, the government of Extremadura helped to fix up all the museum buildings. After Wolf Vostell passed away in 1998, Mercedes Vostell became the artistic director. In 2005, the government bought Wolf Vostell's personal archive for the museum. This archive is now a key part of the museum. It helps art experts, journalists, students, and anyone interested in art learn more.

In 2016, the Museo Vostell Malpartida had 47,376 visitors. In 2017, National Geographic Society in Spain said it was one of the top 10 must-see museums in the country. The museum also won the Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts in 2018 from the Spanish Government.

Art Collections and Exhibitions

How the Museum is Set Up

The museum has four main parts. Three parts show permanent collections. These are from Wolf and Mercedes Vostell, and from an Italian art collector named Gino Di Maggio. Gino Di Maggio collected art specifically from Fluxus artists. Fluxus was an art movement where artists used everyday objects and actions to create art.

The fourth part of the museum has temporary exhibitions. These shows change often and feature different Conceptual artists. Conceptual art is art where the idea or concept behind the work is more important than the finished art object.

The museum also has an outdoor exhibition. This is located in the Los Barruecos nature reserve. Here, you can see the sculptures VOAEX (from 1976) and El muerto que tiene Sed (from 1978).

Wolf and Mercedes Vostell Collection

This collection shows many different artworks by Wolf Vostell. It includes five special pieces:

  • Automobile-Fever (Auto-Fieber) (1973)
  • Fluxus-Buick-Piano (1988)
  • Endogene Depression (1975–1978)
  • Requiem for the forgotten (Réquiem por los olvidados) (1986)
  • The Breakfast of Leonardo da Vinci in Berlin (Das Frühstück von Leonardo da Vinci in Berlin) (1998)

The collection also has five sculptures called The Concrete Bulls (Los Toros de Hormigón) (1990). There are four large reliefs named Trashumancia (1993). You can also see paintings like The Burial of the Sardine (El Entierro de la Sardina) (1985), The Billard Girls (Las Chicas del Billar) (1986), Mythos Berlin (1987), and Estrella Seelenfreund (1994).

Other important works include paintings from the El muerto que tiene Sed and VOAEX series. There are also sculpture projects like Icarus and Tanit. These works give a good overview of Vostell's art. You can also see Transmigration III (1958–1959), which has a television set in it. Another work is Foreign mountain (Montaña extranjera) (1958), which was one of Vostell's first works in Extremadura.

In the museum garden, there is a very tall sculpture, 16 meters high. It's by Wolf Vostell and is called Why did the process between Pilate and Jesus take only two minutes? (Por qué el proceso entre Jesús y Pilatos duró solamente dos minutos?) (1996). This sculpture is made from parts of a Russian Mig-21 airplane, two cars, computer monitors, and three pianos.

Fluxus Collection

The Fluxus collection was given to the museum in October 1996. It was a gift from an Italian art collector named Gino Di Maggio. Di Maggio knew many Fluxus artists personally. He collected their works and showed them in his own art spaces.

This collection includes many works related to Fluxus actions and events. It has photographs, videos, manifestos (public statements), and texts. These items help explain the art.

The exhibition has 250 works, including installations, paintings, and sculptures. These are by 31 artists from Europe, North America, and Asia. These artists were active from the late 1950s and 1960s. They were part of the Happening and Fluxus movements. These movements aimed to change art by mixing different art forms and using everyday life. They also wanted to inspire social change.

Fluxus Artists in the Collection

Movies About the Museum

  • 1976: VOAEX, by Ulrike Ottinger.
  • 1982: Wolf Vostell – Mitten am Rande der Welt, (part 1 | part 2) by Jürgen Böttcher.
  • 1994: Traumziele, Zwischen Berlin und Malpartida – auf den Spuren von Wolf Vostell, by Werner Filmer and Ernst – Michael Wingens.
  • 2015: Malpartida Fluxus Village, by María Pérez.
  • 2016: Documentary, by Jesús Alonso Ovejero for RTVE.

Images for kids

  • WolfVostellCarInConcrete

    Wolf Vostell, VOAEX (Journey in the Upper Extremadura), 1976, sculpture in Los Barruecos

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Museo Vostell Malpartida para niños

kids search engine
All content from Kiddle encyclopedia articles (including the article images and facts) can be freely used under Attribution-ShareAlike license, unless stated otherwise. Cite this article:
Museo Vostell Malpartida Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.