SUN, SEA... SCULPTURE

“We are in the magic business,” declares gallerist Iwan Wirth, sounding every inch the showman. Today, the works he shows at Hauser & Wirth, the acclaimed art gallery he cofounded with his wife and mother-in-law almost 30 years ago, beguile viewers at outposts in major art capitals, including New York, Los Angeles, London and Hong Kong, as well as places where collectors might spend their downtime, such as Gstaad and the Hamptons. But, arguably, the gallery’s real magic trick is the ability to create a contemporary art scene where you’d least expect one. Which is what has brought me to Isla del Rey, a tiny island inside one of the world’s largest natural harbors, at Mahón on the Spanish Balearic island of Menorca.

Here, in a former naval hospital’s barracks and outbuildings reachable by a short ferry ride from Mahón, Hauser & Wirth will unveil its latest project: an art center with 11,300 square feet of exhibition space and an outdoor sculpture trail, along with a restaurant, a shop and a garden with indigenous flowers planted by Piet Oudolf of High Line fame. One of Louise Bourgeois’s signature giant spiders now reigns over the patio, an abstract piece from the Spanish Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida stands in a small grove overlooking the harbor, and