On 26 March 2025 Espasa publishing house organised a press launch of its latest publication: Quisiera crear un jardín (y verlo crecer), a book by Vicente Todolí. It is a very personal reflection on the circumstances and issues that capture his attention and shape both his life and professional trajectory: from Valencia to New York, Porto, London or Milan, discovering artists and organising exhibitions, to return to the fields by the Mediterranean and recover his roots, literally, by discovering the ‘art’ of growing olive and citrus trees.
“I like to define this orchard as a museum, as a museum garden where a multi-sensory tour and experience takes place. It is designed as a visit that appeals to all the senses and imposes a rhythm. It is a living museum, where it is not necessary to periodically renew the presentation of the collection because it changes every moment. And it all began with the purchase of several plots of land to avoid a housing development”, says Vicente Todolí.
Vicente Todolí is a benchmark in contemporary art, a prestigious curator who has gone from the artistic direction of some of the world’s greatest museums, such as the Tate Modern Gallery, to growing more than 500 varieties of citrus fruit in Palmera, his home town. A ‘man of renaissance spirit’, vocationally curious, he researches and documents everything that moves him, whether it be art or the land.
In this autobiography, he presents us with rapid and accurate analyses of art, museums and the artists themselves, curious, biographical narratives, full of life. And his return home to reconstruct the memory of his family and contribute to reconstructing the genesis of the Valencian territory. Here he has created the private orchard with the largest number of citrus varieties planted on earth.
