The Hortensia Herrero Foundation inaugurated the Ron Arad 720º exhibition on June 3, 2022—an immersive art installation by Israeli designer and architect Ron Arad, which was located at La Marina de València until August 28 of the same year. Ron Arad 720º is a proposal that combines art and technology through a monumental structure, known as Curtain Call, featuring projections by renowned artists such as Mat Collishaw, Peter Greenaway, and Javier Mariscal.
The piece, designed by Ron Arad, takes the form of a circular curtain eight meters high. Made up of 5,600 silicone rods suspended from an 18-meter-diameter ring, it allows images to be projected and viewed both from inside and outside. The result is a 360-degree immersive and multisensory experience in which the audience becomes both creator and spectator of the artwork.
The installation features a total of five video projections. Transformer and Sordid Earth are contributions from British artist Mat Collishaw. One of these works, created specifically for the exhibition, immerses the viewer in a journey through Valencia’s Fallas festival, with scenes of the cremà and fireworks. Colours are always beautiful, by designer Javier Mariscal, is a projection of typographic shapes followed by animated characters—such as the mascot Cobi—dancing to the rhythm of flamenco guitarist Niño Josele. The Greenaway & Greenaway brothers devised a film that fractures images and reflects them again across the giant screen. The exhibition begins with an introductory video inspired by iconic images of Valencia.
Ron Arad
Ron Arad is a renowned designer and architect born in Tel Aviv in 1951. After studying at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, he moved to England to study architecture. He rose to fame in the 1980s when, while searching for scrap metal for a sculpture, he came across the seats of a Rover car and turned them into the first recycled armchair—the iconic Rover Chair. That chance discovery marked the beginning of a career that would make him one of the most famous designers in the world.
In 1989, he founded his own studio together with Caroline Thorman, and a few years later he presented the flexible Bookworm bookshelf—one of his most well-known pieces, produced industrially by Kartell. He has led the Design Department at London’s prestigious Royal College of Art and taught at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Hochschule für angewandte Kunst). In 2011, he received the London Design Week Medal for Design Excellence, and in 2013 he was named Honorary Academician at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.
He has exhibited in major museums such as the MoMA in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and has designed pieces for brands such as VITRA, Kartell, Moroso, Driade, Fiam, Alessi, Cappellini, WMF, Magis, and Cassina.