The Foto Colectania foundation was born thanks to Mario Rotllant's determination to create a photography collection that he believed was missing in Spain, with the dual objective of preserving and promoting the country's professionals, and of asserting this artistic discipline, making it known to the public and helping them to familiarize themselves with it. "I am a collector by nature," Rotllant acknowledges at the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the entity he presides over. "I feel very proud of the work done by the entire team, who are dedicated and in love with their project. They have gone through moments of glory and suffering," says this businessman, executive, and advisor to the family group Cobega ---owned by the Daurella family---, a reference shareholder of the European bottler Coca-Cola Europacific Partners.
From beginnings where they had to "put their feet on the ground and start little by little," the collection that Rotllant envisioned in the early 2000s has managed to compile over 3,000 photographs from more than 80 authors over all these years, to which another 1,000 must be added with the copies and negatives donated by Paco Gómez at the foundation's origins, details the entity's director, Pepe Font de Mora. The foundation chose to focus on preserving certain authors to be able to collect their entire trajectory with enough photographs. The first two photographs to become part of the collection were by Madrid-born Chema Madoz, to whom one of this year's exhibitions will be dedicated in the summer, accompanied by another of the collection's creators, the Portuguese Helena Almedia, explains artistic director Irene de Mendoza.
The anniversary will also allow, precisely, to discover in person the camera that houses the Foto Colectania collection with guided tours, led by its coordinator, Violeta Cañigueral. The photographs that have been archived are not usually the protagonists of the exhibitions hosted by the entity at its headquarters on Paseo Picasso, since it is more focused on making them travel the world so that other countries can discover the talent, especially Spanish, but also Portuguese. With this vocation, 500 photos leave the archive each year to be protagonists of exhibitions, with a total of 130 itinerant, national and international exhibitions, organized to fulfill this function.
20 years later, the collection is not closed, Rotllant emphasizes. In recent times, spending on the purchase of more pieces had been contained, focusing on being able to continue organizing exhibitions and "infecting more collectors," exceeding seventy temporary exhibitions held in Barcelona. National authors such as Joan Colom, Leopoldo Pomés, Laia Abril, and Txema Salvans have been some of its protagonists, as well as international figures of the stature of Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Vivian Maier, Saul Leiter, Weegee, and Mary Ellen Mark.
However, the birthday also brings a change in policy in this regard, after having already achieved good levels of budgetary balance, also consolidated with contributions from the 500 members and friends of the entity and collaborators such as Fundación Banco Sabadell and Fundación Damm. The president of Foto Colectania points out that a new stage is now opening that will allow the archive to be strengthened. To do this, the current small board of trustees will be replaced by one with more members, who will provide resources and be responsible for making decisions about the future of the entity. Rotllant wants it to be a diverse board with between eight and 14 members. The expansion of the collection will continue to focus on Spanish and Portuguese photographers, and will serve to fill gaps in the archive in certain periods, as well as to include younger artists.
Although photography has gained weight since the foundation was created and has been revalued, Spanish artists still have as a pending subject to make themselves known and are far from having the popularity they deserve, with very powerful authors who are not sufficiently valued, De Mendoza laments. The crisis, which arrived when this discipline was beginning to emerge, also did not help, Font de Mora adds. "We still have to make a great effort to make Spanish photography known abroad," explains the president of Foto Colectania. However, once Spanish photography crosses its borders and is explained, it is liked, Rotllant emphasizes, as happened with the exhibition organized about La Movida that reached the Rencontres d'Arles Festival in 2019.
From Julián Romea to Paseo Picasso
One of the most notable episodes in these twenty years has been the relocation of the headquarters that opened its doors in January 2002, located on Julián Romea street, in Gràcia. It passed the baton to the one on Paseo Picasso in 2017, after the first one became too small and did not comply with new safety regulations. "It was starting to work against us," Rotllant recalls.The new headquarters also did not come without difficulties, with the need to adapt the old establishment La Comercial de Guarnicionería, dedicated to the sale of equestrian articles. The premises, with heritage protection, were rehabilitated to become an exhibition space by the architect Jaume Pons and the interior designerPilar Líbano.Despite this, Rotllant makes a good assessment of the change. "It has given us another dimension," he remarks, taking into account that visits doubled in the first year of opening. Nor was it fulfilled that more tourists would come, maintaining the predominance of local visitors.
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