Fundación Botín
Fundación Botín has been a supporter of CIMAM since 2012. Since then, Ms. Paloma Botín, a Member of the Board of Fundación Botín and her team, have been actively supporting CIMAM. It was a privilege to attend in November 2016 a visit to the construction site of Centro Botín in Santander before its opening in June 2017. This was part of the post-conference tour program organized to Santander, San Sebastian, and Bilbao, after the CIMAM Annual Conference held in Barcelona. The commitment and continued support received by Fundación Botín throughout the years have an enormous impact on CIMAM’s activities. It provides the means and the confidence to continue developing the mission and principles that CIMAM represents. We are excited to share with the members of CIMAM the motivation and purpose of the Fundación Botín in supporting the development of art and culture.
December 2020
What is your activity's nature, and through what actions and projects are you linked to the world of culture and art?
Core to the mission and activity of Fundación Botín is art in all its forms. The foundation has supported emerging talents in all creative fields since its founding, with a specific focus on visual arts since the early 1990s.
To date, the most important project of the foundation is Centro Botín. Inaugurated in June 2017, the Renzo Piano-designed building houses the art and culture programs of the foundation, as well as education and interpretation programs and related workshops. Its purpose is to generate social development and wealth, making the most of the potential of the arts, to foster creativity.
What are your company's values, mission, and vision, and at what level does modern and contemporary art intervene as a channel or platform to communicate your value proposition?
Fundación Botín was established in 1964 by Marcelino Botín Sanz de Sautuola and his wife, Carmen Yllera, to promote social growth in Cantabria. Its mission is to contribute to the overall development of society, detecting and supporting the creative talent within it and exploring new ways of generating cultural, social, and economic wealth.
Fundación Botín organizes programs in the realms of art and culture, education, science, and rural development. It has also created a Trends Observatory to gain in-depth knowledge of society and discover key factors to help generate wealth and guide development, which also drives talent detection and development programs in the social and public sectors.
What is your mission to support the art sector and contemporary art museums in particular, and what results would you like to see your contribution achieve in the future?
The visual arts program of Fundación Botín is predicated by the will to support the professional growth of emerging artists, and to provide the public with exhibitions and publications of the utmost quality, primarily in the field of Modern and Contemporary art. It has also presented regularly exhibitions dedicated to ancient art to the exploration of specific aspects of art history.
Launched in 1992, the foundation’s Visual Arts Grant program aims at supporting artists in the production of a new project or a professional training project abroad. Up to 8 grants are awarded each year by a professional jury composed of two artists and two other art professionals. The work produced by grantees during the course of the grant period is then exhibited at Centro Botín and eventually acquired for the Fundación Botín collection.
Since 1993, Fundación Botín also invites - at least once a year - an artist of international repute to direct a Visual Arts Workshop in Santander. The 10-day event brings together a roster of 15 young artists from all over the world, selected by the workshop director. The foundation also invites that same artist to present her/his work at Centro Botín, and acquires work for its collection.
Which of CIMAM´s projects are most suited to developing your action plan to support the sector of museums and collections of modern and contemporary art?
Professional gatherings are essential for the dissemination of knowledge and to foster partnerships, which are increasingly important to carry out ambitious projects and disseminate the work of artists from all cultural backgrounds around the world. In that sense, the Annual Conference is key.
The role of CIMAM in establishing guidelines and its capacity of watchdog is also essential to guarantee that institutions worldwide abide by operating principles of the highest standards.
The recent development of the webinars series has also proved excellent and truly inspiring.