The MAS is renovating its rooms and its collection

The Modern and Contemporary Art Museum of Santander (MAS) has reopened its doors with renovated spaces and a new permanent exhibition, showing its collection in chronological order, after the fire it suffered in 2017 and after more than six years of works. The building by the architect Leonardo Rucabado, which has been rehabilitated and is now accessible for people with reduced mobility, inaugurated the new permanent collection last May and tomorrow, Saturday, will celebrate International Museum Day with guided tours. During the closing years, the MAS has continued its activity with the collaboration of the Caja Cantabria Foundation, with which it has organized joint exhibitions and which has kept in its warehouses the more than 3,500 works from the municipal museum's collections.

Both institutions have expressed their desire to continue collaborating in this new stage during the rolling presentation of the permanent exhibition, which includes 299 works by 148 artists, almost half of whom are from Cantabria, in a chronological tour of the four floors

As explained by the director, Salvador Carretero, the exhibition can be visited from the ground floor, where works of the 21st century are displayed, to the highest, where the jewel of the collection, the portrait of Ferdinand VII who painted Goya on behalf of Santander City Council in 1814. Or vice versa, if you prefer a "more academic" route.

The MAS thus recovers the museographic criteria for organizing its collection that it followed from 1993 to 2003, when it opted for "iconographic criteria" when showing its holdings, Carretero pointed out.

During the visit, the viewer will be able to see works by Cantabrian artists such as Riancho, Egusquiza, Iturrino, Blanchard, Cossío, De la Foz, Navarro Baldeweg, Fernando Bermejo or Juan Uslé. One of the rooms of the MAS hosts a small temporary exhibition with five works by this artist and proposes the reunion of the scattered leaves of his "Blue Triptych", which was exhibited at the museum 40 years ago, in this reopening. It also exhibits works by national artists such as Oteiza and Miró and international artists, especially from the last decades.

The mayor, Gema Igual, recalled that there are plans to expand the museum and, when asked if a new MAS commission will be formed, she replied that everything will be announced "at the right time".

Regarding the exhibition offer of the permanent collection, the MAS reopens its facilities with the MAS-2024 project. Permanent Collection, selection of many of his best works. It is a museographic, scientific and technical proposal with much of the most important of our collections, always led by Goya's emblematic portrait of Ferdinand VII. It is presented by highlighting this heritage proposal through the exhibition of the majority of collections of Cantabrian artists or those linked to the region. This has a primary meaning for the MAS, in accordance with the decentralized nature of the museum, Gordian knot of the institution, presentation of a collection developed by a curatorial work team (Carretero, Lahoz, Méndez, Polo, Zamanillo) .