The artists Julio González and Ignacio Pinazo are two main references in the beginning of modernity in Spain and Valencia, who have been instrumental in shaping the IVAM Collection. Their presence remains a significant element in both the exhibition appearance, with two permanent gallery dedicated to Julio González, as in the research and analysis, with the Ignacio Pinazo Professorship in collaboration with the University of Valencia.

The so called Abstraction Analytics is a concept that would collect from the Russian avant-garde, with Naum Gabo, Nicolas Pesvner, El Lissitzky, Dziga Vertov or Gustav Klucis, and from other European countries, with Frantisek Kupka, László Moholy Nagy, László Péri, Otto Freundlich, Georges Vantogerloo or Jean Hélion, from the first decades of the early twentieth century to the works of Equipo 57, Pablo Palazuelo or Joaquín Torres García, through the Valencian artists Andreu Alfaro, Eusebio Sempere or José Mª Yturralde. The IVAM has one of the most unique collections in Spain of the historical period of avant-gardes (1914-1945).

It includes all works, especially on paper, collage and photography the IVAM has from Dadaists and Surrealists. Among the highlights would be Kurt Schwitters, Raoul Hausmann, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, André Kertész, Óscar Domínguez, Benjamín Palencia or Grete Stern. There are also a number of contemporary artists whose works were linked to these poetics cited, but intermingle with other aesthetic formulations. Is the case of Henri Michaux, Luis Gordillo, Fischli & Weiss or valencian artists Vicente Martinez Sanz and Carmen Calvo, who despite the chronological distance share similar interests in different works.

In this section we find the excellent contributions of Spanish artists Antoni Tàpies, Antonio Saura, Manuel Miralles and Eduardo Chillida, along with the work of international artists such as Lee Krasner, Franz Kline, Hans Hofmann, Ad Reinhardt, Pierre Soulages, Adolph Gottlieb, Karell Apparel, Arnulf Rainer, Per Kirkeby or Valencian artists grouped around the Parpalló Group: Manolo Gil, Monjalés, Doro Balaguer Salvador Soria.

A large group of artists who share a wry look, and who are at the same time critical with the reality that surrounds us. This focus of the IVAM collection would begin in the thirties with the photomontages of John Heartfield, George Grosz or the Valencian Josep Renau. Continue with the works of the sixties and seventies of European and American Pop Art Richard Hamilton, Öyvind Fahlström, Sigmar Polke, Martial Raysse or James Rosenquist; Spanish contributions of Eduardo Arroyo and the so-called Madrid figuration and, especially, the contribution of art made from Valencia that goes from Equipo Realidad, Equipo Crónica, Anzo or Juan Genovés, to certain contemporary pictorial contributions. This shaft is extended to include the so-called New Valencian School of Comic from Daniel Torres to Paco Roca.

This focus has the pretension of structuring both the set of works from the beginning of modernity in the early twentieth century to the present possessed by the IVAM collection. It also seeks to deepen the many artists who currently are working on the same topic. This are the contributions that from photography, painting, sculpture and video have approached the urban space or the debate on the relationship between public and private space as a hub of different artistic and social practices. Take the case of, for example, César Domela, Paul Citroen, George Grosz, Horacio Coppola, William Klein, Lee Friedlander, Gordon Matta Clark, Guillermo Kuitca, Gabriele Basilico, Hannsjörg Voth, Marjetica Potrc’s or the Valencian Miquel Navarro.

It deals with collecting the multiple narratives of artists difficult to classify because they have a very personal speech often linked to topics such as subjective memory, identity play autobiography, poetic senses… His themes of artistic settings are linked to individual symbols and a peculiar structure of their experiences, which has a very significant role in the works of contemporary artists in the IVAM collection as Robert Frank, Bruce Nauman, Christian Boltanski, Cindy Sherman, James Lee Byars, Juan Muñoz or Cristina Iglesias.

A group of artists have been working with technological devices to analyze how the digital revolution is a fact that is present in our daily lives and significantly alters our relationship with world. Or how open ourselves to new on-line creations that are altering our view of reality. In the collection are some examples from pioneers like Dara Birnbaum, Gary Hill and Antoni Muntadas, or Joan Fontcuberta, Dionisio González, José Antonio Orts…