SPANISH ENVIRONMENTS

First published: September 2025

For over two decades, curator and author Jo Farb Hernández has scoured the hidden corners of Spain, uncovering a wealth of long-ignored art environments

“Spain is a marvel of contrasting landscapes, cultures and gastronomy. Thousands of years of successive migration and colonisation – by, among others, the Celts, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks and Romans – led to a breadth of successful global commerce and military power as it experienced alternating periods of tolerance and warfare. The extant built environments that recall those archaic footprints are so widespread and of such high quality that until recent decades there was little, if any, acknowledgment of Spain’s more idiosyncratic constructions – the art environments of self-taught makers. With insufficient funding for the conservation and preservation of even globally important, ancient masterpieces, the very concept of a plan to honour and safeguard these contemporary, almost uncategorisable creations has had no traction.

the garden of María Asunción Rodríguez Rodríguez on Spain’s southern Almería coast, 2016

“Such a plan would require an inventory of these sites, but that did not exist. When I began researching Spanish art environments in 2000, there was little more than anecdotal evidence of their existence, and as I extended my fieldwork I was astonished at the number of truly creative sites that had never before been documented. “In 2013, having created one hefty tome of the work of 45 creator-builders, titled Singular Spaces, I thought I had completed the encyclopedia of Spain’s art environments. However, further exploration of the islands on both sides of the country, along with digging more deeply into urban cores and isolated rural hamlets, revealed the existence of many others.

the front of Rodríguez’s beach-side house on the southern Almería coast, 2016

“There appears to be no real explanation as to why Spain is so richly populated with art environments. However, the passion and energy of the creators is palpable – and so, too, is their amazement and pleasure in what they have accomplished over the years. With little, if any, knowledge of other “singular spaces”, they enjoy total freedom of expression and no pressure to conform to some imagined model.

“My second publication on this theme – Singular Spaces II – is a two-volume set published in 2023 in partnership with the Collection de l’Art Brut, introducing 99 additional art environments around the country, most of which had never been documented rigorously before, if at all. Each fieldwork trip was a new adventure, as I met new artists and deepened my understanding of their corner of the world. And, while every one made me smile or elicited wonder, the following sites were among those that I found most compelling... “