Inside a Spanish Supermarket Magnate’s Art-Filled Valencian Palace

Opening a private museum is never an easy endeavor. Yet Hortensia Herrero’s seven-year, $42 million restoration of a 17th-century Valencian palace might rank among the more ambitious undertakings of its kind in recent years.

Upon entering the Centro de Arte Hortensia Herrero (CAHH), it becomes quickly apparent that the billionaire businesswoman and vice president of Spain’s ubiquitous Mercadona supermarket (which she helped build with her husband, Jan Roig) does not do things by halves. Suspended within its grand entrance hall is a site-specific installation by the Argentinian artist Tomás Saraceno: Titled Corona Australis 38.89 (2023), the piece is made up of six cubic “clouds” that reverberate neon hues across the museum’s five stories. It’s one of six site-specific pieces commissioned for the space, which comprises more than 100 works by some 50 artists.