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25 June 2026 will go down in the history of the Fundació Miquel Navarro. After years of hard work, enthusiasm and institutional commitment, the Casa Taller officially opened its doors in Mislata, becoming the centre from which to preserve, study and promote the legacy of one of the most important sculptors in contemporary Spanish art.

With Miquel Navarro himself and Carlos Fernández Bielsa – the driving force behind the project and president of the foundation in his capacity as mayor of Mislata – acting as hosts, the official ceremony was also attended by the Minister for Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant, representing the national government; and the Regional Secretary for Culture of the Valencian Regional Government, Marta Alonso.

More than 300 people attended this event, which brought together representatives from various institutions, leading figures from the worlds of art, culture and politics, as well as friends, family and neighbours from Mislata, the town where Miquel Navarro was born, still lives and where he has spent much of his artistic career.

The high turnout highlighted the enormous anticipation that the opening of this centre had generated amongst those who have followed the artist’s work for decades.

Following this official launch, the Miquel Navarro Foundation is working on developing a programme of activities and a visiting policy tailored to the venue’s specific characteristics, enabling the public to enjoy the unique nature of its museum offering once the summer is over.

A workshop and a home turned into a museum

The day began with a press preview, during which Miquel Navarro and Carlos Fernández Bielsa personally guided journalists through the premises, which have been designed to offer a comprehensive overview of more than half a century of artistic creation.

The Casa Taller is housed in the same building which, since the 1980s, has been the workplace where Miquel Navarro has conceived and produced some of his most iconic works. 

Far from radically transforming the building, the refurbishment project – funded by the Diputació de València and designed by Nebot Arquitectos – has respected its industrial character, preserving the original architectural features that form part of the site’s history and the artist’s own creative legacy.

The result is a space of around 1,000 square metres that preserves the essence of the workshop whilst incorporating the museographic conditions necessary to ensure the conservation, research and dissemination of the Foundation’s collection. The refurbishment of the building has been made possible thanks to funding from the Diputació de València, as part of its commitment to the conservation of Valencia’s artistic heritage.

Over 400 works offering a journey through an entire career

The permanent collection brings together over 400 works donated by Miquel Navarro himself, allowing visitors to follow, in chronological order, the different stages of an artistic career spanning more than five decades.

Sculptures, photographs, watercolours, drawings, screen prints, paintings, collages and audiovisual works interact with one another to offer a comprehensive insight into the artist’s creative world. In addition, there is a space dedicated to research and documentation, , a gallery for temporary exhibitions —which opens its programme with the exhibition The Moon— as well as the impressive main hall, where some of the most representative monumental sculptures from his career are displayed alongside audiovisual projections and a performance piece created specifically for this space.

“May my work be brought together”

During the presentation, Miquel Navarro explained the profound personal significance of this project. For the artist, the Casa Taller offers the opportunity to keep a fundamental part of his body of work together and to ensure it can be understood in its entirety:

“May my work be brought together, may it not be lost, and may it be possible to interpret it coherently.”

With these words, he summed up the ultimate purpose of an initiative that goes beyond the creation of a museum to become a space in which to understand the evolution of a truly unique artistic language.

The artist himself also revealed that the permanent exhibition will be updated periodically with works held in the centre’s storerooms, and that the centre will also host exhibitions by other artists, thereby fostering dialogue between different generations and artistic disciplines.

A cultural project for the future

During the opening ceremony, Carlos Fernández Bielsa highlighted the significance for Mislata and the Valencian Community of the opening of a museum dedicated to one of Spain’s most internationally renowned artists. He also emphasised the desire for other public authorities to become permanent partners in supporting the Foundation, with a view to consolidating a long-term cultural project.

La Casa Taller was thus conceived as much more than just an exhibition space. It has become a vibrant venue, designed for research, arts education, cultural events and bringing together artists and the public. A space where Miquel Navarro’s legacy remains inextricably linked to the place where it was conceived, and from which it will continue to inspire future generations.

First impressions: a space that stirs the emotions

Among the numerous comments received by the Fundació team following the opening, certain impressions were repeatedly mentioned, clearly summarising the public’s reaction to the visit. Many attendees highlighted that it is “a space full of charm”, emphasising the uniqueness of a place that preserves the artist’s legacy and transforms it into a museum experience.

Others pointed out that “it’s nothing like other museums”, highlighting precisely what makes the Casa Taller unique: its intimate atmosphere, its authenticity and the opportunity to explore Miquel Navarro’s work in the very setting in which it was created.

There were also those who said, with emotion, that “we needed something like this; Miquel deserves it”, a statement that sums up the sentiment shared by many of those present and reflects recognition of an exceptional artistic career, deeply linked to Mislata and the cultural history of our time.

For it is rare for an artist to have the opportunity to open the doors to the very place where they imagined, built and shaped their creative universe. Soon, that universe will be open to the public in Mislata.

Yesterday, the headquarters of Miquel Navarro Foundation hosted the presentation of the catalogue for the 2024 Miquel Navarro Biennial in Mislata, at a meeting conceived as a space for dialogue, reflection and remembrance around one of the municipality’s most important cultural projects.

In this regard, the event served to review and highlight the work carried out in the last edition of the Biennial, as well as to share reflections on its evolution, impact and future prospects. 

The presentation, attended by Miquel Navarro himself, brought together the two curators of the event: Eduardo García Nieto, responsible for the 2024 edition, and Álvaro de los Ángeles, curator of the current edition, who spoke to the audience about the contents of the catalogue and the lines of work that the project encompasses.

Pepi Luján, Councillor for Culture at Mislata Town Council, also took part, showing institutional support for an initiative that is celebrating its tenth anniversary since its revival in 2016 and has established itself as a platform for supporting contemporary creation.

The involvement of Miquel Navarro Foundation in the Mislata Biennial reinforces its vocation to become a space for encounter, reflection and collaboration, actively contributing to the cultural life of Mislata and supporting initiatives that promote creation, critical thinking and dialogue between art and society.

The Mislata Miquel Navarro Biennial: a commitment to contemporary creation

The Mislata Miquel Navarro Biennial is an initiative promoted by the Culture Department of Mislata Town Council, which continues the work carried out between 1985 and 2008 through the ‘Vila de Mislata’ Sculpture and Painting Biennials.

Since its first edition in 2016, the competition has taken the name of the artist born and resident in Mislata, Miquel Navarro, as a tribute and recognition of his career, and has his support in promoting visual arts projects developed by emerging artists from different territories.

The Biennial is organised through open calls for entries, with no restrictions on age, gender or origin, and each edition proposes a specific theme. Currently, the calls for entries focus on Visual Arts with Social Commitment, addressing current issues and alternating with proposals of a different nature.

In collaboration with the City Council of Mislata, the Fundació Miquel Navarro received yesterday the students and teachers of the training cycle of Jewellery Technician of the IES Molí del Sol, located in the same Valencian municipality. 

The visit allowed the group to meet the artist Miquel Navarro first-hand, who accompanied them on an exclusive tour of the rooms of what will be the Foundation’s Museum-Workshop.

These future goldsmiths, who are currently in their first year of the training cycle, have carried out part of their practical work inspired by Valencian artists. Among them, the figure of Miquel Navarro has been especially significant, both for his artistic career and for his unique plastic language. 

For this reason, yesterday’s visit was an enriching experience: they were able to see the works commented on by the artist himself, thus establishing a valuable dialogue between generations.

During the meeting, they also learned about a lesser-known facet of the artist from Mislata: his foray into goldsmithing. From original terracotta models – currently in the Fundació’s collection – Navarro has developed various pieces that transfer his sculptural forms to the field of jewellery, while keeping his artistic imagery intact.

This type of initiative reinforces the Fundació Miquel Navarro’s commitment to artistic education and the dissemination of cultural heritage, opening its spaces to new generations of creators and encouraging the connection between contemporary art and technical training.

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

This month, work is nearing completion on the adaptation of the Mislata facilities that until now have been the main working space of the sculptor Miquel Navarro and which will soon become the Miquel Navarro Foundation’s Workshop House.

In addition to a sculpture workshop, this cultural centre will house temporary exhibitions, as well as educational activities and multidisciplinary proposals for all audiences.

The refurbishment project, financed by Diputación de Valencia with a budget of 676,000 euros, has been designed by the Valencian studio Nebot Arquitectos and is being carried out by the company IN-EX construcción.

The building, which was originally a former drugstore warehouse, has a usable area of 895.12 m² distributed over two floors, including entrances, showrooms, offices, storage and toilets.

On 29 October, the installation of three representative cities by Miquel Navarro was inaugurated at Mobility City in Zaragoza: “City 84-85”, from Miquel Navarro Foundation, “A city in your hands” (1998), from the Generalitat Valenciana, and “Fluid in the city” (2003), which comes from the IVAM (Institut Valencià d’Art Modern).

This installation forms part of the exhibition ‘Metropolis lunar’, curated by the art historian and patron of the Fundació Lola Durán and which has a double venue in the Fundación Ibercaja: the Museo Goya, where, from 3 October, almost forty pieces by the most universal artist of Mislata are on display; and the aforementioned building in the Aragonese capital, which was designed by the prestigious Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid for the International Exposition Zaragoza 2008. 

Under the metallic grids of the so-called ‘Zaha Hadid Bridge’, whose innovative steel and fibreglass structure is shaped like a gladiolus stretched over the river Ebro, visitors will be able to enjoy the three sculptural landscapes by Miquel Navarro, in a perfect fusion of art and avant-garde architecture, until 2 March 2025.

In addition, children will have the opportunity to interact with Navarro’s art, as one of the cities on display, ‘A city in your hands’, which is continually touring the world, has a playful character and its design allows children visiting the exhibition to play and interact with it to create their own city and thus modify the artist’s initial proposal. 

Photo: Ibercaja Foundation

Yesterday, the ‘In short, Miquel Navarro’ film forum series began in Mislata, organised by the Miquel Navarro Foundation in collaboration with Mislata City Council, as a result of an agreement between the two institutions.

The cycle, which will end on 5 December, consists of four sessions in which short films made by Navarro are screened, followed by a discussion with the author, whose audiovisual work is less known to the general public, although it includes an important part of his plastic work. 

The aim of this activity is to promote and raise awareness of the life and work of Miquel Navarro among the different associations and educational groups in the town of Mislata, the artist’s home town and where his house-workshop is located.

The titles chosen for this cycle are ‘Strong as opium’, ‘Human territory’, ‘Eyes’ and ‘Where is my little dog?

The first session, aimed at the Espai Sènior La Fàbrica, was held at the Centre Sociocultural la Fábrica. The following screenings will be held for the Asociación de Mayores Voluntarios de Mislata, the Espai Sénior del Sud and the Espai Sénior El Quint.

Thirteen years after being named Favourite Son of Mislata, his city of birth and residence, the sculptor Miquel Navarro has received the distinction of Adopted Son of Valencia, in an institutional ceremony held on 7 October at the City Hall of the capital of Turia river.

This recognition has been awarded for ‘his national and international relevance and for having contributed to giving the city an image of its own’, taking into account that two of his public sculptures, The Parotet and the Pink Panther (originally, Public Fountain), have become icons for the third largest city in Spain, and that his work has been exhibited in the most important and prestigious museums in the world, such as the Guggenheim in New York, the Pompidou Centre in Paris, or the Lambert Foundation in Brussels’.

The president of the Fundació Miquel Navarro and mayor of Mislata, Carlos Fernández Bielsa, accompanied the sculptor to this ceremony of ‘Honors and Distinctions’, which was held as part of the celebrations for the 9th of October, the Day of the Comunitat Valenciana.

Almost forty works by Miquel Navarro, some of which are part of the heritage of the Fundació Miquel Navarro of the Valencian Community, make up the exhibition ‘Lunar Metropolis’, which opened yesterday at the Goya Museum in Zaragoza and which can be visited until 22 December.

The symbolic duality between the spiritual and the earthly is the focus of this exhibition, which explores Navarro’s most personal universe since the 70s, through towers, moons, references to ancient cultures and universal concepts such as power, fragility and mystery.

In this sense, the curator of ‘Lunar Metropolis’, Lola Durán, highlights the presence of the moon as a ‘metaphor of the unattainable that illuminates the shadows of existence’.

As a whole, the exhibition, which includes some unpublished pieces, is a reflection on the existence of memory and the passing of time. It is also a reflection of the duality between the urban and the rural in Miquel Navarro’s life: from his childhood in Mislata, a town then surrounded by orchards, to the clearer influences of industrial growth with factories and trains. 

These contrasts in Navarro’s work ‘become dialogues between the intimate and the monumental, the ancestral and the contemporary, a dialogue between what is shown and what is hidden, and also between the earthly and the spiritual’.

The exhibition at the Goya Museum will be complemented by the exhibition of three mini-cities in the Mobility City space of the Ibercaja Foundation.

Photo: Goya Museum

Mislata Town Council continues to collaborate with Miquel Navarro Foundation of Comunitat Valenciana, with the aim of promoting knowledge and research in the cultural field, as well as to promote artistic events and activities in the sculptor’s hometown, where he currently lives and works.

Both entities have today signed a collaboration agreement whereby the council allocates a grant of 30,000 euros to the foundation, both for its maintenance costs and for carrying out a series of activities aimed at promoting and publicising the life and work of Miquel Navarro to the different associations and educational groups in Mislata.

These activities include the possibility of a series of guided tours of the renovation work and the adaptation of the headquarters of the Fundació Miquel Navarro, a monitored tour of the public sculptures that the artist has installed in the municipality, and a projection-colloquium of the artist’s audiovisual production in any municipal facility intended for cultural use.

In addition, the foundation undertakes to temporarily lend works by Miquel Navarro to those events organised by Mislata Town Council related to the Visual Arts, in which their exhibition is considered appropriate.

Last March, works began on the adaptation of the sculptor Miquel Navarro´s workshop in Mislata, in order to house the centre-foundation where his artistic legacy will be exhibited and disseminated.

The architectural project has been designed by the Valencian studio Nebot Arquitectos and the execution is being carried out in coordination with the Board of the Miquel Navarro Foundation and the authors of the Museum Plan, David Gimilio Sanz and Jaume Penalba Alarcón.

The works, financed by Diputación de Valencia with a grant of 676,000 euros, will continue throughout the summer and are scheduled for completion in October.

Refurbishment work has begun on the current workshop of the sculptor Miquel Navarro, which will be converted into a multi-purpose centre. In addition to being the headquarters of the Fundació Miquel Navarro, it will exhibit a large part of his work to the public and will host different cultural activities focused both on the dissemination of the figure of the Mislata artist and the promotion of art in general.

Work financed by Diputación de Valencia

The restoration project, designed by the Valencian studio Nebot Arquitectos and directed by Francisco Nebot, is financed by the Diputación de Valencia, through a direct subsidy of 676,000 euros.

Between now and the end of the year, the company IN-EX Construcción will carry out the work that will allow this project to materialise, which includes interior divisions, elimination of architectural barriers, construction of bathrooms, cladding, paving, lighting, installation of air conditioning and equipment, among other actions.

The future Miquel Navarro Museum in Mislata is beginning to take shape. The Museum Plan commissioned by the Miquel Navarro Foundation (MNF) and whose drafting has been completed this month, constitutes a roadmap that will allow the development of the project, guaranteeing its viability and social projection.

The document was drawn up jointly by the doctor in Art History David Gimilo Sanz and the Cultural Heritage technician and museographer Jaume Penalba Alarcón, who have approached the work as a preliminary study in which relevant aspects for the effective implementation of such a significant cultural project in the Valencian Community are dealt with in detail, taking into account the international recognition and projection of Miquel Navarro.

In this sense, the Museological Plan analyses, among other factors, the location and cultural context, the definition of the collections and their typology, the criteria for their conservation and restoration, the conditions of assembly, the management of visits, the menu of services, the programme of activities, human resources, the organisation of security and communication and dissemination.

The aim is to create a museum that not only exhibits and disseminates the work of Miquel Navarro, but also periodically includes temporary exhibitions by other artists and organises events aimed at promoting art from an educational perspective.

In the words of the authors of the study, “this will create a living museum, and not merely a passive container that could lead to a loss of interest on the part of the potential public”.

Prior to the drafting of the Museum Plan, the Miquel Navarro Foundation carried out an exhaustive work of cataloguing the museum’s collection, whose fitting-out work is expected to begin during the first half of next year.

The cycle of guided visits to Miquel Navarro’s workshop in Mislata, which began on November 23, continues this month.

The group of neighbors received today by the sculptor to show them his work space and part of his internationally recognized work come from the plastic arts workshops of the Department of Culture of the Mislata City Council.

This council collaborates with the Fundació Miquel Navarro in the organization of the visits, which not only contributes to fulfilling the objective of promoting knowledge of the work and figure of the famous mislatero artist, but also promotes citizen participation in the foundation project.

Precisely, Miquel Navarro’s workshop, located in the old town of Mislata, will soon be adapted to become a museum, where the more than 500 works donated by the artist to his foundation will be exhibited and various related educational and educational activities will be scheduled. with artistic creation.

The Fundació Miquel Navarro of the Valencian Community has started activities for the public today with the first of a series of guided tours of the sculptor’s workshop, which will take place during these last months of the year.

The objective of these visits, organized by the foundation in collaboration with the Mislata City Council, is that the residents of the town can see the facilities in the Morería neighborhood where its most universal artist works and which will soon be adapted to become a museum .

In this spacious warehouse, which was formerly a drugstore warehouse with art deco reminiscences and which houses a Civil War shelter in its basement, there is currently part of the work donated by Miquel Navarro to the foundation he created in 2020, as well as various tools that the artist usually uses in his creative processes.

The group that has started this cycle of visits is made up of older people from the painting and drawing workshop of the El Sur de Mislata Municipal Home, who have been accompanied on the educational tour by Miquel Navarro himself and by the vice mayor of Mislata and member of the Board of Trustees of the foundation, María Luisa Martínez Mora.

(11-14-2023) The Valencian town of Mislata, Miquel Navarro’s hometown, yesterday hosted the filming of the short documentary film “Fundació Miquel Navarro: origin and destiny of a universal work.”

This audiovisual piece, based on the idea of ​​the local roots of a work that has traveled halfway around the world, will serve as a public presentation letter for the foundation’s project, which was created in 2020 to protect the artistic heritage of Miquel Navarro and promote knowledge of his figure and his work, which has helped to internationalize the culture of the Valencian Community.

The Valencian production company NoSoloClips was in charge of the filming, which includes the testimonies of Miquel Navarro himself and Carlos Fernández Bielsa, president of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees in his capacity as mayor of Mislata.

The locations chosen were the sculptor’s workshop in the Morería neighborhood, the Mislata City Council facilities in the La Fábrica complex and different public spaces in the municipality that have some monumental work by Miquel Navarro, such as “L’Almassil” or “Walker”.

The same production company will carry out the final montage, which can be seen soon on the foundation’s website fundaciomiquelnavarro.es.

This week, the Miquel Navarro Foundation opened its social profiles on LinkedIn , Instagram and Facebook .

Through these social networks, the foundation aims to reach all segments of its target audience by creating a community made up, mainly, of people from inside and outside the Valencian Community who are interested in the world of art and culture, as well as as well as by professionals in the sector.

Apart from reporting on the progress of the Fundació Miquel Navarro project and its activities, the content that will be published in these profiles aims to promote knowledge of the extensive work and the figure of the Mislatero sculptor – National Prize for Plastic Arts – and, at the same time, carry out pedagogical work around contemporary art.

On 6 July, the Governing Board of the Diputación de Valencia approved the award of a direct grant to the Fundació Miquel Navarro for the restoration of the workshop house in Mislata which, until now, had been the sculptor’s workspace.

This aid, amounting to 676,000 euros, is crucial to advance in our project to create a multi-purpose cultural centre that will preserve a large part of Miquel Navarro’s artistic legacy and, at the same time, contribute to disseminating his figure and promoting knowledge of art through different activities open to the public.

The foundation’s board of trustees will soon be deciding on the commissioning of the basic project, execution and project management, with the aim of starting work between the end of this year and the beginning of 2024.