As part of the events for the centenary year of his death, the Museum of Art of Girona presents Modest Urgell (Barcelona, 1839-1919), with all his complexity and contradictions.
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Lotte Reiniger: artist of the shadows
CaixaForum restores the figure of the animation pioneer Lotte Reiniger with a session of animated stories and live music by pianist Josep Maria Baldomà.
Life in modern cities
The exhibition “Camera and City. Urban Life in Photography and Film” at the CaixaForum Barcelona brings together 244 pieces by 80 photographers and filmmakers, made between 1910 and 2010. Together they form a kind of visual essay or reflection through still and moving images.
Museum of the Empordà: Disquieting de Juana
Pasear por la última exposición de Eudald de Juana en el Museu de l’Empordà (Figueres) es como transitar un sueño; da la sensación de que sus esculturas nos observan y que, de repente, sean capaces de desvanecerse.
Museum of La Garrotxa: exhibiting is participating
The Museum of La Garrotxa, in Olot, has organized an exposition in which the neighbors choose the pieces to exhibit.
Museum of Lleida: reclaiming the Baroque
The Museum of Lleida has undertaken a makeover of its Renaissance and Baroque halls. This has offered the chance to do justice to and get a better understanding of the Catalan Baroque which has so far been the subject of little public knowledge.
New life for Fabra & Coats
The Open Factory will bring together all the activities that Fabra & Coats – Art Factory and Contemporary Art Centre in Barcelona has organised for the Sant Andreu neighbourhood festival, which will enjoy their high point at the Open Door event on 30 November.
Reus Museum: If you can’t draw it, then you don’t understand it
Reus Museum is showing a selection of the best drawings in its collections, with works by Fortuny, Gaudí and Casas among them, but at the same time the exhibition invites us to reflect on drawing as a phenomenon in itself.
Papanek, Design, Politics and Militant DIY
The Barcelona Design Museum shows a large retrospective centred on the designer, theorist and activist Victor Papanek (1923-1998).
Morera Museum: future inventory
In two to three years’ time the Jaume Morera Art Museum in Lleida will open in its final location: the old palace of justice. Its director, Jesús Navarro, tell us what the new museum will be like.
Llorenç Balsach: when Sabadell was at the centre of culture
The Museu d’Art de Sabadell devotes a revealing exhibition to the figure of Llorenç Balsach Grau (1922-1993), industrialist, painter, patron and collector.
Mirador Gallery: Catalonia as a mirage
A exhibition at the Apel·les Fenosa Foundation in El Vendrell recuperates the memory of the Mirador gallery in Paris – a space for Catalan culture in exile in post-war Paris.
Abyss or Refuge?
The exhibition Freefall at the CaixaForum Barcelona explores the situation of uncertainty, concern and sometimes even panic which many people are suffering during these times of structural crisis.
Joaquim Capdevila: precious metals as artistic expression
Joaquim Capdevila has reinvented jewels as a means of artistic expression. The Design Museum of Barcelona is showing a retrospective.
The Magic Tricks of Bill Viola
The art of Bill Viola (Nova York, 1951) has got a hypnotic quality so intense that it fascinates and annoys in equal measure: the same is true for the mystical and spiritual substrata of his work.
The Opera Makes History
CaixaForum Barcelona tells us the story of modern Europe through eight operas. This is a high fidelity exhibition that has to be visited using the audio guide.
Solsona to give new life to the paintings of Sant Quirze de Pedret
In Solsona the paintings of Sant Quirze de Pedret are the star pieces of the museum situated inside the impressive Neoclassical building of the Episcopal Palace, next to the cathedral.
The Modern Art Museum of Tarragona: a hundred years with Julio Antonio
The Modern Art Museum of Tarragona (MAMT) has the best collection of sculptures by Julio Antonio. The centenary of his death is a great opportunity to discover the work of this artist who is difficult to classify.
MAC: Cerdanyola has a lot to celebrate!
The Art Museum of Cerdanyola (MAC) is celebrating its tenth anniversary and the declaration of the “Dames de Cerdanyola” stained glass panels as Items of national Cultural Interest. This is a great occasion to discover its treasures.
Marès, Straight out of a Novel
The Marès Museum in Barcelona has organised a literary walk through the “sentimental museum” – a route through its collections via the Catalan literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Manresa 2022: Baroque is the future
Manresa County Museum will be completely renovated in 2022 to make it a reference for works of Catalan Baroque art. Meanwhile there are two small exhibitions that are worth a visit.
MEV: Medieval and Digital
The Episcopal Museum of Vic (MEV) holds an extraordinary collection of Romanic and Gothic art. But it has something even better: its sensitivity to teaching about the collection. When a museum does not know how to talk about its works, it should probably close.
The Prado in Vilanova i la Geltrú
The Víctor Balaguer Library and Museum shows its extraordinary collection of works from the Prado Museum in Madrid on the occasion of the bicentenary of the Prado.
Valls: the capital of love for art
The city of Valls has 24,000 inhabitants. Its museum, 2,000 works, which make up an interesting selection of the last 150 years of Catalan art.
Buster Keaton: slapstick and jazz at the CaixaForum Barcelona
December Quintet puts jazz on “The pale face” (1922) by Buster Keaton, at CaixaForum Barcelona. This is the fun sessions “Listen to the silent movies”, aimed at the family audience.
Abelló-Dalí – a tale of friendship
The Abelló Museum in Mollet del Vallès is one of the artistic treasures that you have to rediscover from time to time.
The Marès Museum Rediscovers Marès the Sculptor
Did you know that Frederic Marès is the sculptor with the greatest presence in the public space in Barcelona? Plaça Catalunya, Diagonal and even inside Santa Maria del Mar and the Palace of the Catalan Government, for example.
Shadow, Splendour and Melancholy in Catalan Art
The exhibition “Realism(s) in Catalonia 1917-1936” explores how some artists opted for a renovation of their artistic language without renouncing figuration.
The Enigma of Visibility
”la Caixa” exhibits its collection of contemporary paintings.
Prince, nothing compares to the original
Prince once said that with all the unpublished material in his mythical musical and visual ‘vault’ he could make an album a year for a century.
The Sleepwalking Antique Dealer
Dominique Lambert is twenty years old and lives in Paris. His mother, Isabelle, is a well-known psychiatrist and his father, Christophe an antique dealer or cronopio.
Miró-Gaudí-Gomis: when looks cross
This exhibition, which has been organised using the collection of foundation, looks at the aesthetic and creative affinities of Gaudí and Miró as seen through the Joaquim Gomis.
Frank Horvat: “Please don’t smile”
The Espais Volart of the Vila Casas Foundation is showing “Please don’t smile”, by the photographer Frank Horvat who, having worked relentlessly during his professional life, now offers a collection of photographs taken in the field of fashion in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.
Renau: art and revolution
The anthological exhibition by Valencian Josep Renau (1907-1982) – poster-maker for the revolution – arrives in Barcelona. Introducing the international avant-gardes to Spain in the 1920s and 30s and a reference for the Catalan left in the 1970s, his criticism of American society is alarmingly modern.
Beauty XXL
On 27 June Soler y Llach will put up for auction some incredible posters from the Josep Torné collection. These are masterpieces in the world of postermaking by artists as big as Josep Renau, Ricard Opisso, Capiello, Cassandre, A. de Riquer, Ramon Casas and Segrelles.
Gino Rubert: Altarpieces and Earthly Delights of the 21st Century
Gino Rubert’s new exhibition at Galería Senda succeeds in transmitting an exceptional sensation of freedom.
Two Geniuses Face to Face: Fages and Dalí
You can never really read the work of Salvador Dalí without knowing the literary legacy of Carles Fages de Climent. This is shown by Dalí expert Josep Playà in his book, “Fages Dalí, geniuses and friends”.
Agreements and the Fight for Culture
When we talk of culture some people think that we are treading the terrain of the utopian or, even worse, the luxurious and dispensable. Opposing ideologies resign culture, in an opposing but similar way, to private initiative.
The Polyptych of the Vallès
“Vallès: manufacturing pasts, manufacturing futures” is a project in which Claudio Zulian uses the memory of the working class of the county of Vallès – an area historically and politically affiliated to the so-called “red belt” of Barcelona.
In the name of Picasso
This show in the Barcelona museum reinterprets the different facets of the artist from the point of view of ten contemporary creators. The political Picasso, the passionate Picasso and the intellectual Picasso, all covered in the story which unfolds under the curatorship of Rosa Martinez.
Lluís Hortalà or the trickery of the gaze
When you visit the Lluís Hortalà exhibition at Tecla Sala in L’Hospitalet you have to be ready for a double set of rules: those of the eye, subjected to the logical trickery of trompe-l’oeil, and those of the concept, articulated in the solid story about the exhibition by Oriol Fontdevila. But one step at a time.
Richard Learoyd, unsettling and monumental
Learoyd’s photographs are made in a very original way. It is not that he has a camera in his studio but his camera is a room in his studio.
Antoni Fabrés: Recovery Operation
The MNAC, being the national museum that it is, had the job of rescuing the wok of Antoni Fabrés – a versatile and effective artist who moved on from the academic and Orientalist approach of his early works.
Franco the Painter
All political leaders have had an artistic hobby: President Clinton played the sax, Nero the lyre, Alphonse XIII was an adult film producer and Franco liked painting.
The past chapter in La Capella
Entitled “Cerrar abriendo” (Close by opening), the sixth scene of “La Capella 25 Years After”, an exhibition in instalments which has told the story of this centre dedicated to emerging art since the month of January, through the artists that have exhibited there.
Churchill, Hitler, Eisenhower… painters
Everyone knows them as some of the most central characters in history, capable of pulling the strings during the Second World War…but when they had a moment all three would settle down to do a spot of relaxing painting as if they had never hurt a fly.
A Brief Encyclopaedia of Forgers
If right now you were looking at a factitious “Encyclopaedia of Well-known Forgers of Art”, the contents page would include creators as famous as Michelangelo and Picasso.
From a Cigarette Lighter to a Portable Lamp: the Design Museum revitalises its collection
Did you know that the refillable plastic Clipper lighter, which is sold all over the world, was designed by Enric Sardà in the early 1970s? Or that the cuddly Tous teddy bear was created by Rosa Maria Oriol in 1985 with no intention of it becoming a jewellery icon?
Unknown sisters
Clichés about the affinity between Italy and Spain aside, it is true that cultural and artistic exchanges between the two countries are less intense than one might expect. In Barcelona, an exhibition, an urban installation, workshops and other initiative are an attempt to redress this lack of reciprocal recognition.
Portraits by August Sander: appearances that don’t deceive?
The August Sander retrospective at La Virreina is exceptional in its rigorous respect for the original structure of the major project the photographer worked on during the early 1900s: People of the 20th Century.
In Combat for the Love of Art
Anyone who enters the exhibition Cinc anys a les trinxeres (Five years in the trenches) by Jesús Galdón, kind of phylacterical mirror hanging on the wall, is immediately reflected in the doorway of the El Quadern Robat gallery.
Portrait of a Venetian Lady
One of the dreams of any antiquarian-cronopio is to have a famous client visit their shop and buy everything. The possibilities are minimal but, in this business, like in life, it could happen. In fact, it did happen to a colleague of mine the day that…
Where is the Catalan Jeff Koons?
On 15 May Jeff Koons’ work “Rabbit” (1986) was sold at Christie’s in New York for 91 million dollars.
Time is on the side of the vanquished
Just when the United States once again demonstrate their untamed meddling in the internal affairs of South America and when Pedro Sánchez recognises and legitimates a self-proclaimed president in Venezuela, Macba is opening the necessary and timely exhibition Undefined territories. Perspectives on colonial legacies.
Looking Towards the Heavens from the Refuge of Art
This walk through the magnificent and sadly posthumous exhibition by Jordi Fulla at Can Framis is a silent one. It couldn’t be any other way.
The Pluralistic Imaginary of La Capella
Global cities, futuristic dystopias and universal figures of the literary and linguistic imaginary all come together in La Capella in a group show with ten heterogeneous proposals around the idea of layers or of accumulated time.
Aesthetic as anaesthesia
He’s an international photographer with an impeccable reputation, and I’ve asked him a favour, as a friend: to accompany me to the World Press Photo Exhibition (WPPh). I’m interested in his personal vision of the tragedy. Because the WPPh is one big tragedy: in the photos almost no one is smiling.
The Other Catalans of the Biennale
There is life beyond the pavilion. The Catalan art scene in Venice nudge their way into institutional projects for the Biennale and also parallel initiatives.
Halloween at the Museum
There is a day for everything but if you want to attract young people you have to celebrate at night. And that is exactly what the “Museums Night” – the cool and fun version of the formal “Museums Day” – does.
Watch out for the Statues!
Pedro Azara’s project for the Catalonia Pavilion at the Venice Biennale confronts the viewer with their own emotional weakness with a series of visceral reactions of love and hate provoked by the images.
Memory, Pain… and Poletiquette
Mauthausen was again news. We talked about the weight of memory with Jesús Galdón, the author of the plaque that, through emptiness, recalls the victims of Nazi barbarism.
Exorcism on Paper
Fourteen works on paper are exhibited at N2 gallery by eleven outstanding artists, united by their “aesthetic tendencies broken by war, interior exile, different attempts to preserve their creative freedom and the dawning following the start of democracy”.
Girona Pays Homage to Pioneering Photographer Valentí Fargnoli
What is it about turn of the century photographs that means we always love them? Three exhibitions revisit the collection of Valentí Fargnoli, he son of Italians settled in Girona who left valuable ethnographic work and heritage photography.
Twinkles and surprises
The world of art galleries is picking up, but more than that it is experiencing profound change. Not only are new galleries opening, but there are changes in the format, the business model, the planning and also the audiences.
The Invisible Magic of Quantum Physics
The ambitious exhibition “Quantum” which is showing at the CCCB attempts to explain the theory of quantum physics, including a dialogue between science and art.
Overflowing cities: too much mass tourism in Barcelona?
Who hasn’t flown to another European city on a budget flight and then stayed in an AirBnB? Who has never done “acritical tourism” or “place consumption” for a couple of days? It is not easy to raise the debate about the excess of tourism without falling into contradictions.
First Scan of an Illegal Abortion
Laia Abril has made the problem of illegal abortion universal and contemporary through her artistic project “On Abortion”, which is currently being shown at the Foto Colectania Foundation in Barcelona.
Damià Campeny in Mataró
“Reflextions. The Work of Damià Campeny”, at Ca l’Arenas of Mataró, is a show that emphasises the artist’s working method and his context.
10 Instructions for Bidding at Auction
Do you think buying art at an auction is easy? Well, you are wrong. Artur Ramon, who is an expert in the field, gives you ten basic tips to, at least, not make a fool of yourself in an auction.
Max Beckmann: paradise lost and the strangeness of exile
Max Beckmann’s lost paradise was not a Utopia, but a certain desirable and possible harmony, one that was destroyed by imperialist urges.
The Emotional Geography of Miró
Mas Miró in Mont-roig del Camp completes the “Miró triangle” – a kind of emotional cartography of the artist.
Mutant Scenes at La Capella
La Capella is celebrating its 25th anniversary as a space for the promotion of emerging art. And it is doing so in episodes. Here we have the fourth.
10 Recommended Art Books
Essays, anthologies, guides, anecdotes, graphic novels…2019 has a host of bibliographic novelties on the topic of art. And the day of Sant Jordi is the perfect excuse to buy one (or more) of them. Here are our recommendations.
Three Art Books for a Desert Island (and 2)
In anticipation of the Day of the book for Sant Jordi, we asked our “Mirador de les Arts” contributors which three art books they would take with them on a desert island. Their answers are surprising.
Three Art Books for a Desert Island (1)
In anticipation of the Day of the book for Sant Jordi, we asked our “Mirador de les Arts” contributors which three books they would take with them on a desert island. Their answers are surprising.
Mechanism of Detachment
“Absències”, a small retrospective of work by Ramon Guillen-Balmes is on show at the Busquets Space of the Massana School of Art and Design.
Van Gogh: stuck half way
The exhibition “Meet Van Gogh” is marketed as an immersive experience – and it is not.
The (double) Secret of Víctor Silva
A mysterious artist named Víctor Silva is exhibiting a series of small format painting at the Víctor Saavedra gallery, accompanied by their photographic reproductions in monumental proportions. Why?
Shall We Go on a Gallery Crawl?
When was the last time you stepped inside an art gallery? Can you name, from memory, the names of three art galleries in your town or city? Don’t worry, there is still time to retake the test.
CaboSanRoque take their interpretation of Joan Brossa around Catalonia
CaboSanRoque is always on the move. Their sound installation No em va fer Joan Brossa, which explores some of the poets least known work from the approach of sound, continues its tour.
Sweetly soft…
…comfortable, resistent, easy to wash. This is how , in the seventies, the new textile fabrics from the Mataró manufacturers were advertised. Mataró was a city specialising in the new textile modes and today exhibits its industrial heritage in the old Can Marfà factory.
Jordi Baron and snatches of time
Jordi Baron Rubí is an antiques dealer (third generation), collector of antique photos, and fine-art photographer. Each one of these facets feeds in to the other two.
The Erratic Life of Art and Culture in Public Education
In a society where the vast majority of creators are involved in activities of mediation or education, the lack of weight that humanistic and art subjects carry in regulated education is surprising.
Uri Geller and Salvador Dalí: a paranormal friendship
Not many people know that Uri Geller and Salvador Dalí met in Barcelona and kept in touch for quite some time. One painted the first bent spoon and the other bent spoons using the powers of the mind. Paranormal surrealism?
Miralda unfurls his Lay Lamb of God again at the MNAC
Almost twenty-five years on, and Miralda is returning to Oval Room of the National Art Museum of Catalonia with his giant tapestry.
Gabriel Cualladó is ours
As often happens with good books and films, the exhibition by Gabriel Cualladó at the Catalunya La Pedrera Foundation stays with you for some time after your visit.
Berenice Abbott: Absolutely Modern
A wide-ranging retrospective at the Fundación Mapfre’s Barcelona gallery highlights the North American photographer’s commitment to freedom, modernity and creativity.
Xavier Vendrell: singular double cronopio
Xavier Vendrell in a Baudelairian chercheur who does not wander around the Paris Spleen but around the Encants flea market in Barcelona.
What to do about Brother Josep Maria de Vera?
Only very recently we have discovered the name of a now deceased Capuchin monk who was based in Barcelona and formed part of the considerable list of clerics recently accused of sexual crimes with children.
Sex, books and the lumpen
What connects gimp masks and an abandoned library? The Pink Panther and a blow-up doll? All is revealed in Evaristo Benítez’s exhibition “Décalage”, at Galeria Contrast.
Design is not Culture: or at least that is what they say
During these last few days we have discovered who the National Culture Awards 2019 will go to. Congratulations to all the prize-winners. And no, this year once again not a single designer among them.
AIDS Anarchive, documents that fill gaps
Intersexuals, radicalised people, homosexuals, guerrillas, HIV victims. We can say that thanks to the exhibit “AIDS Anarchive”, organised by the Documentation Centre of the MACBA, the museum is we are filling the gap.
Emotional Microvisits
The so-called microvisits to the “Poetics of Emotion” exhibition, which are offered by the CaixaForum every weekend, without the need for reservation and at no additional cost, are a simple and easy way to get closer to contemporary art.
The 1976 Venice Biennale as a Symptom
The cultural control of the Spanish and Catalan Communist parties took the baton from the window-dressing politics of Francoism. In the midst of the transition to democracy, the 1976 Venice Biennale bore clear witness to this.
Louise Bourgeois: a lesson in survival and freedom
Survival and vulnerability but also courage and freedom. This is the message that all Louise Bourgeois’ work exudes and for me she is one of the best artists of the twentieth century, out of both men and women.
I have been, I am and I will always be a Surrealist
That is how Juan Batlle Planas defines himself in an interview in the newspaper Clarín in 1965, just a couple of years before his death. In the Art Museum of Girona you can see the first exhibition of this artist – Argentinean but with his origins in the Empordà.
Political art. A Tricky balance
A few years ago I was able to visit the Proa Foundation in Buenos Aires. Ai Weiwei was exhibiting. The exhibit was called “Inoculación” and consisted of a large number of political works presented as a project of public and social intervention, as dissident art.
The cultivation of irrelevance or the sweet comfort of mediocrity
I’m in the grip of a simian rage, and I hope this is obvious from the tone in which this article is written.
Roi Soleil: the limits of power
The eye of the camera has no compassion: regardless of whether you put in front of it. In the case of “Roi Soleil” Albert Serra once again opts for the agonising body of Louis XIV, embodied by another mythical body –that of Lluís Serrat, alias Sanxini, who he has used in almost all of his projects.
Digital Invasion of the Museums
Gamification is just one way of applying new digital technology to the museum and heritage sector.