The first vice-president of the Diputació de València, Natalia Enguix, visited yesterday the facilities of the Miquel Navarro Foundation´s Workshop House in Mislata, after its recent refurbishment thanks to the financial support of the provincial council.
Accompanied by the mayor of Mislata and president of the Foundation, Carlos Fernández Bielsa, the sculptor Miquel Navarro himself and members of the Foundation’s board of trustees, Enguix toured the different spaces that will soon be opened to the public as a museum-workshop.
During the visit, the vice-president had the opportunity to see first-hand the rooms that will house exhibitions of the artist’s work and that of other contemporary creators, as well as becoming the venue for artistic and cultural activities organised by the foundation itself.
‘Today, together with a reference and artist like Miquel Navarro, we seal a pact to make the Foundation shine in all its splendour’, wrote Natalia Enguix in the Mislata Book of Honour, reaffirming her commitment to the cultural development of the city.
For his part, Mayor Carlos Fernández Bielsa expressed his gratitude to the provincial council for ‘this involvement in making it possible for us to rehabilitate these important infrastructures so that in a very short time they can be opened to the public and so that Mislateros and Mislateras and people from abroad can get to know the life and work of Miquel Navarro’.
‘For Mislata, Miquel is our most international artist. The fact that he has a foundation to show his life and work is very important for our city’, recalled Fernández Bielsa, who presented the vice-president of the Diputació with a silkscreen print by Miquel Navarro as a protocolary gift from the City Council.
Diputació de València has already allocated 676,000 euros to the renovation of the Workshop House, in addition to a contribution of 40,000 euros for its operation. In this new legislature, it is planned to complete the works with an additional investment of 100,000 euros, as well as to support the activity of the Foundation with 75,000 euros more.
Visibly moved, Miquel Navarro expressed his gratitude for the institutional support received: ‘I am happy, of course. The tenderness in my heart moves me’. His Workshop House is thus emerging as a new cultural centre of reference in the province, where heritage, art and the living memory of one of the most important sculptors on the contemporary Spanish scene come together.
Images: Mislata City Council
