0:12 let’s go ahead and hold them up and then i’m going to try to determine exactly
0:25 where we start the line the stairwell
0:27 I’m Virginia Shore chief curator of the office of art in embassies at the US
0:32 Department of State michael smith partner of the American ambassador to
0:38 Spain andorra James Kostas working with Virginia is about my desire to promote
0:44 American culture and and the arts in spain in the distance between the the
0:51 most ambitious loan exhibition that we’ve ever worked on and collaborating
0:56 with Michael and James was incredible and open many doors for the program is
1:02 over 80 works of art from Spanish and American lenders institutions galleries
1:08 artists foundations with negotiating the loans who are trying to stick within the
1:13 budget and make this happen and it took a long time and in addition to taking a
1:19 long time we had a lot of hurdles to
1:28 we’ve had many kindnesses that are beyond the average borrowing from a
1:33 corporate collection or borrowing a piece with people who are actually
1:37 personally involved in the decision to lend to us we are happy to cooperate
1:42 with this to our 10 verses program because we can’t forget that obviously
1:48 one of them made a rose particularly of this museum is the the social role that
1:55 we play mean that your legs change between distant countries it’s such a
2:00 sign of respect
2:02 they were bringing all this extraordinary Spanish are into the
2:04 American Embassy i think also to bring so much amazing American art to Spain to
2:11 be accessed by Spanish students and all of our visitors was an incredibly rich
2:16 opportunity to further this incredible relationship we have intellectually and
2:21 certainly culturally the sense of this art is for us to be able to build a
2:24 relationship with Spain so first and foremost we want people to come in and
2:28 have a conversation about art I spend most of my day having conversations that
2:34 are related to policy economics security and defence cooperation
2:39 so when you have an opportunity to spend some time to focus away from that and
2:44 use art as a way to build the relationship I think that is really what
2:48 we’re trying to to make happy
2:51 hola oh thank you all so much for coming already embassies is not just to
2:57 decorate the house it’s to really it’s to really create a dialogue on every
3:01 level of society which we’ve done we’ve had school children we’ve had curators
3:06 we had leaders it always is the thing that people talk about it’s always the
3:10 thing that starts dialing it always this thing that starts a conversation you’re
3:14 really relying on the patriotism where the curiosity often with artists are
3:20 really relying on people to say you can take my extraordinarily expensive thing
3:25 and take it to a foreign country and habits for ultimately a couple of years
3:30 without that goodwill it wouldn’t work
3:34 it’s a public-private partnership and these are artists who are committed
3:38 cultural diplomacy everything in this exhibition is online to trace the rich
3:45 history of Spain’s influence on American artists we turn to the Hispanic society
3:50 of america john singer sargent was one of the prominent American artist who
3:54 actually worked in Spain and it’s a way of sharing their work with spanish
3:59 audiences it’s an ideal collaboration of sharing us art and spanish culture in
4:06 one place i love it i have never seen all these works that’s why you i was
4:11 very happy to come because I knew the artists but if you don’t see them here
4:16 maybe if you don’t go to this date you can see him
4:20 people come up to us all the time and talk about how one of the first times
4:24 they ever saw wonderful American art was an American Embassy somewhere in the
4:29 world its soft power but its its power and its impactful AC half the works are
4:35 by Spanish artists and then that’s when it all makes sense the ambition of the
4:40 program to bring together both cultures and make it all about bringing both
4:44 cultures together amongst the major contemporary Spanish artists in this
4:50 exhibition is a sculptor Christina Iglesias is a vision
4:55 of the water as a source
5:00 I an embassy is a space that belongs to another country and is here so i’m also
5:10 interested in showing my work which is part of my culture and the culture of
5:17 this country its diverse canvas we have artists black white spanish american the
5:25 diversity of this collection i think is going to be very evident as people walk
5:29 through there are several iconic works in this exhibition but Glenn ligands
5:36 double america i would pinpoint as maybe the nexus and also represents the
5:42 broader picture and Michael and James idea for the show highlighting diversity
5:48 the piece is really about the word what that word means to various viewers both
5:59 here in America and abroad and I was thinking about how American democracy
6:04 has always had the sense of opposition’s of tremendous promise and also
6:10 tremendous amount of things wrong things that need to be fixed to be worked on me
6:17 and interesting medium because it is a sculptural and i don’t think that i
6:23 really do sculpture but i use language a lot so it’s a way of to using language
6:28 in the sculptural manner the arden MZ program is an interesting way to think
6:35 about the breadth of American culture
6:39 embassies in most people’s imaginations are the places that you go to get your
6:44 passport or get a visa they don’t think of it as sites of culture but i think
6:50 they are sites of culture
6:51 wow it’s amazing they can be outpost of American ideas and values and I think
6:59 the more art is in those spaces that sort of broad is the idea of what
7:06 America is or what it could be renowned art photographer catherine opie was
7:14 asked to contribute images from her recent series on objects from the home
7:18 of Elizabeth Taylor one of the things that happens as an international artists
7:24 is that there is a point in which you are representing your own country and
7:30 I’m so grateful that the art embassy program is is around and has survived
7:35 for so long because art is a bridge
7:38 it’s a bridge that allows communication and conversation to take place where
7:44 sometimes other bridges are more difficult to be built in that way
7:53 doing great
7:59 spain is always an interesting context because especially as a painter some of
8:04 my favorite painters most influential painters come from Spain is going on
8:07 that schedule work with big questions and we’re engaged in what’s happening in
8:12 the world around us and I think that even you need this context and it’s
8:17 impressive that there’s this program is very committed to this form of
8:21 expression i think it’s fantastic
8:30 when we started on this incredible journey Virginia I sitting in her office
8:34 with books of artists that we aspire to have in his collection we had no idea
8:39 that this would become such an incredibly impactful thing to the
8:43 culture of this embassy in to Madrid to realize how that dialogue that narrative
8:50 that story of all these artists coming together and in this context is an
8:55 amazing amazing thing
8:56 art is a way of making communication between cultures see because i think
9:01 it’s easy to talk about a painting that about politics or economics that maybe
9:06 I’m more control and she and topics i really think that it’s given James an
9:11 incredible platform as an ambassador to start a variety of dialogue variety
9:16 conversations not just about art not just about culture but about our past
9:21 and our future and our shared road ahead we have this great opportunity available
9:25 to us to our embassies and I’m just thrilled to be able to open these doors
9:29 this is America space here in Spain and i find it the most common denominator to
9:34 be able to get people together to make friends through this experience of art