Tough legal skirmishes are going on between a small but highly respected museum and entrepreneurs pressing for new infrastructure for transport and tourism on Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands.
The Fundación César Manrique (FCM) is locked in battle with the local mayor and hotel developers against whom it has lodged more than 40 objections (denuncias).
It is rare for a cultural institution to take on such challenges, but the FCM is acting according to its statutes and the passionate beliefs of its artist-founder. César Manrique, who fought in dictator Franco's forces as a young man, trained as a painter in Madrid after the second world war and settled in New York in 1964. He embraced abstract expressionism as well as striking up friendships with Andy Warhol and wealthy patrons such as Nelson Rockefeller.
In 1966 the artist returned to Lanzarote for good. He soon realised that mass commercial tourism as well as economic change could overwhelm the Canary Islands indigenous culture and fragile eco-systems. He was determined that what he called the 'catastrophe' already blighting coastal areas on mainland Spain should not happen at home.
Manrique did not oppose tourism per se but sought to protect and enhance the awesome volcanic terrain and rural villages that give Lanzarote its unique character. His aim was to form 'a total vision of the island', to influence public opinion and further appreciation of the island's particular ecology and the culture intimately connected with it.
Until his death in a car crash in 1992, Manrique was a dynamo of creative activity; 'total art', as he termed it. He led a pioneering study of local vernacular building styles. He designed tourist facilities within Lanzarote's volcanic national park, which was declared a Biosphere Reserve in 1993 by Unesco.
He transformed historic monuments such as the San José fort on Arrecife's seafront for use as a modern art gallery. Here, as in all his projects, landscaping, lighting, visitor facilities and sign-posting are seamlessly integrated into the whole concept.
In 1982 he and a group of friends set up a foundation, officially inaugurated ten years later, as a private, non-profit, self-financed cultural body. Its headquarters is in Tahíche, a few miles north of Arrecife, Lanzarote's main port town.
The building hovers over five volcanic bubbles, which are part of the museum. Windows frame cacti gardens and lava field moonscapes. The complex houses the artist's collection of 20th century abstract art, plus administrative and archive areas, comprising a floor space of 1,800 sq metres, plus 1,200 sq metres of terraces and gardens.
Fernando Gómez Aguilera has been the director of the museum's activities since its inception. Since December 2005 he has represented the foundation on the newly-constituted Association of Directors of Contemporary Art in Spain, which brings together 15 directors from different parts of the country, providing a 'forum of reflection' for museum and contemporary art centre professionals.
The foundation and its 42 staff are entirely dependent on admission charges at the museum, which is visited by 300,000 people each year, plus income from its three shops. Aguilera says this guarantees complete independence, especially in environmental and territorial issues. 'It keeps us in a constant state of tension and requires a lot of imagination, but it is stimulating,' he says.
The museum sponsors art, poetry, ecological initiatives and cultural and political debate as well as publishing and exhibition activities. A residency programme has hosted international artists such as Axel Hütte, Thomas Joshua Cooper and Hamish Fulton.
Aguilera sees the museum's role as a community mediator, representing its founder's artistic and ecological views. To this end, he edited a selection of texts by Manrique called La Palabra Encendida (The Burning Word), published last year.
He says there is no doubt that the foundation's efforts to preserve the island's biosphere and to secure adherence to the moratoria on excessive tourist expansion agreed by the island authority in 1991, and renewed in 1998, are coming under greater pressure than ever from construction and infrastructure companies.
'Our defence of Manrique's legacy in relation to Lanzarote's terrain and a particular type of tourism is in direct conflict with the greed of tourist promotion and the irresponsibility of councils such as Yaiza - headed by the mayor himself.
'This council puts commercial interests above those of the ecology and citizens of the island, and has built an unsightly, standardised mass tourist zone in Playa Blanca [one of the island's main beach resorts]. Certain well-known companies on the island are attacking the foundation in order to erode its prestige.'
As the battle of 'denuncias' rages, Rita Martín, the director of the Lanzarote Hoteliers Association, told Museums Journal that the FCM's role in relation to the environment was 'very good' and that the moratorium on excessive tourist expansion needed to be maintained. Martín says the conflict between hotel contractors and the FCM is an urban planning issue, not a tourism problem.
One of Lanzarote's most unique landscapes is the 52 sq km of black cinder valley known as La Geria. Its windswept slopes have thousands of dug-out hollows, each containing painstakingly tended Malvasía vines, which produce the island's famous wines. The foundation opposed the widening of the road through the valley in 2004, launching a widely-supported Save La Geria campaign.
According to Aguilera a campaign of dirty tricks and harassment against the foundation ensued. Finally, popular and international support forced the island authority and local mayors to back down and issue a formal apology. The Geria road remains blocked to this day while negotiations continue.
'The FCM is totally opposed to the building of large-scale infrastructures and new motorways on the island,' Aguilera explains. 'We have enough of them.
'Institutional and corporate aggression against us is in response to the objections we have lodged against building plans and tourist licences which infringe the moratorium on expansion. We are a civil observer with resources, energy and commitment, criticising the ecological deterioration of the island and we have unequivocally opposed political and commercial corruption and destabilisation.'
Aguilera says the foundation expresses the unease of a large proportion of the island's citizens and adds there are those who would like to silence it. 'We are not a conventional cultural centre or a conventional museum. Our involvement with things is active and energetic, which does not please the powers that be.'
The Lanzarote island authority, the Cabildo, has carried out major studies on the ecological impact of tourism, which back up many of the FCM's positions. Ana Carrasco, of the Cabildo's Environmental and Biosphere Reserve Department, believes the foundation plays a pivotal role in creating consciousness and in struggling for the implementation of the 1991 Lanzarote Island Land Use Scheme.
'While it does not have legal powers, the FCM is crucial in the way it informs the population and creates awareness about the value of the landscape,' Carrasco says. 'The population took to the streets over the road building plans and many groups supported the foundation, demanding that the authorities back down when they began to blacken its name. There are big question marks over the future, but the crisis can also be an opportunity.'
The battles in the Canary Islands have a significance beyond the local level, as eco-crisis and uncontrolled tourism affect so many of the world's unique cultures, natural and human. This suggests that cultural foundations and museums could play a more significant role in their protection in the future.
Corinna Lotz is a freelance journalist
The Fundación César Manrique (FCM) is locked in battle with the local mayor and hotel developers against whom it has lodged more than 40 objections (denuncias).
It is rare for a cultural institution to take on such challenges, but the FCM is acting according to its statutes and the passionate beliefs of its artist-founder. César Manrique, who fought in dictator Franco's forces as a young man, trained as a painter in Madrid after the second world war and settled in New York in 1964. He embraced abstract expressionism as well as striking up friendships with Andy Warhol and wealthy patrons such as Nelson Rockefeller.
In 1966 the artist returned to Lanzarote for good. He soon realised that mass commercial tourism as well as economic change could overwhelm the Canary Islands indigenous culture and fragile eco-systems. He was determined that what he called the 'catastrophe' already blighting coastal areas on mainland Spain should not happen at home.
Manrique did not oppose tourism per se but sought to protect and enhance the awesome volcanic terrain and rural villages that give Lanzarote its unique character. His aim was to form 'a total vision of the island', to influence public opinion and further appreciation of the island's particular ecology and the culture intimately connected with it.
Until his death in a car crash in 1992, Manrique was a dynamo of creative activity; 'total art', as he termed it. He led a pioneering study of local vernacular building styles. He designed tourist facilities within Lanzarote's volcanic national park, which was declared a Biosphere Reserve in 1993 by Unesco.
He transformed historic monuments such as the San José fort on Arrecife's seafront for use as a modern art gallery. Here, as in all his projects, landscaping, lighting, visitor facilities and sign-posting are seamlessly integrated into the whole concept.
In 1982 he and a group of friends set up a foundation, officially inaugurated ten years later, as a private, non-profit, self-financed cultural body. Its headquarters is in Tahíche, a few miles north of Arrecife, Lanzarote's main port town.
The building hovers over five volcanic bubbles, which are part of the museum. Windows frame cacti gardens and lava field moonscapes. The complex houses the artist's collection of 20th century abstract art, plus administrative and archive areas, comprising a floor space of 1,800 sq metres, plus 1,200 sq metres of terraces and gardens.
Fernando Gómez Aguilera has been the director of the museum's activities since its inception. Since December 2005 he has represented the foundation on the newly-constituted Association of Directors of Contemporary Art in Spain, which brings together 15 directors from different parts of the country, providing a 'forum of reflection' for museum and contemporary art centre professionals.
The foundation and its 42 staff are entirely dependent on admission charges at the museum, which is visited by 300,000 people each year, plus income from its three shops. Aguilera says this guarantees complete independence, especially in environmental and territorial issues. 'It keeps us in a constant state of tension and requires a lot of imagination, but it is stimulating,' he says.
The museum sponsors art, poetry, ecological initiatives and cultural and political debate as well as publishing and exhibition activities. A residency programme has hosted international artists such as Axel Hütte, Thomas Joshua Cooper and Hamish Fulton.
Aguilera sees the museum's role as a community mediator, representing its founder's artistic and ecological views. To this end, he edited a selection of texts by Manrique called La Palabra Encendida (The Burning Word), published last year.
He says there is no doubt that the foundation's efforts to preserve the island's biosphere and to secure adherence to the moratoria on excessive tourist expansion agreed by the island authority in 1991, and renewed in 1998, are coming under greater pressure than ever from construction and infrastructure companies.
'Our defence of Manrique's legacy in relation to Lanzarote's terrain and a particular type of tourism is in direct conflict with the greed of tourist promotion and the irresponsibility of councils such as Yaiza - headed by the mayor himself.
'This council puts commercial interests above those of the ecology and citizens of the island, and has built an unsightly, standardised mass tourist zone in Playa Blanca [one of the island's main beach resorts]. Certain well-known companies on the island are attacking the foundation in order to erode its prestige.'
As the battle of 'denuncias' rages, Rita Martín, the director of the Lanzarote Hoteliers Association, told Museums Journal that the FCM's role in relation to the environment was 'very good' and that the moratorium on excessive tourist expansion needed to be maintained. Martín says the conflict between hotel contractors and the FCM is an urban planning issue, not a tourism problem.
One of Lanzarote's most unique landscapes is the 52 sq km of black cinder valley known as La Geria. Its windswept slopes have thousands of dug-out hollows, each containing painstakingly tended Malvasía vines, which produce the island's famous wines. The foundation opposed the widening of the road through the valley in 2004, launching a widely-supported Save La Geria campaign.
According to Aguilera a campaign of dirty tricks and harassment against the foundation ensued. Finally, popular and international support forced the island authority and local mayors to back down and issue a formal apology. The Geria road remains blocked to this day while negotiations continue.
'The FCM is totally opposed to the building of large-scale infrastructures and new motorways on the island,' Aguilera explains. 'We have enough of them.
'Institutional and corporate aggression against us is in response to the objections we have lodged against building plans and tourist licences which infringe the moratorium on expansion. We are a civil observer with resources, energy and commitment, criticising the ecological deterioration of the island and we have unequivocally opposed political and commercial corruption and destabilisation.'
Aguilera says the foundation expresses the unease of a large proportion of the island's citizens and adds there are those who would like to silence it. 'We are not a conventional cultural centre or a conventional museum. Our involvement with things is active and energetic, which does not please the powers that be.'
The Lanzarote island authority, the Cabildo, has carried out major studies on the ecological impact of tourism, which back up many of the FCM's positions. Ana Carrasco, of the Cabildo's Environmental and Biosphere Reserve Department, believes the foundation plays a pivotal role in creating consciousness and in struggling for the implementation of the 1991 Lanzarote Island Land Use Scheme.
'While it does not have legal powers, the FCM is crucial in the way it informs the population and creates awareness about the value of the landscape,' Carrasco says. 'The population took to the streets over the road building plans and many groups supported the foundation, demanding that the authorities back down when they began to blacken its name. There are big question marks over the future, but the crisis can also be an opportunity.'
The battles in the Canary Islands have a significance beyond the local level, as eco-crisis and uncontrolled tourism affect so many of the world's unique cultures, natural and human. This suggests that cultural foundations and museums could play a more significant role in their protection in the future.
Corinna Lotz is a freelance journalist
