Contemporary art in Barcelona is MACBA. The Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona stands at the heart of the Catalan capital in a Richard Meier building that is itself a work of art. It is located in touching distance of the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), an reference point for lovers of 20th and 21st century art and culture.
MACBA, which was started in 1995, has established itself internationally as a model in contemporary art. Its collection of 5,500 works, allows a journey to be traced through the main artistic references of today. Beginning with materic abstraction from the 1950s, incorporating works of the European pop art and of the avant-garde of the 1960s and '70s. There are also works around the photographic figurative representation and minimalist sculpture.
Among the most important pieces you can see: Dins el roig, by Albert Ràfols-Casamada; Between the Frames: The Forum, by Antoni Muntadas; La saison des pluies II, by Miquel Barceló; Rinzen, by Antoni Tàpies; Beschwingte Bindungen, by Paul Klee; Thames Circles, by Richard Long, and Atomic Kiss, by Joan Rabascall, among others.
The Girona Art Museum, founded in 1976, could not have chosen a better setting than the Episcopal Palace, from the 12th and 16th centuries, to host its collection. The museum has the third most important collection of Romanesque and Gothic art in Catalonia. The jewel in the crown is the portable altar from the monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes, made of stone and wood covered with silver.
Notable also from the medieval collection is the polychrome Romanesque beam from the Monastery of Sant Miquel de Cruïlles, one of the few preserved in Europe. Or the Virgin of Besalú, considered one of the best Gothic examples of its kind. Names such as Bernat Martorell and Lluís Borrassà also have presence there.
But the art collection of the Girona Art Museum goes beyond the Middle Ages. It consists of 8,500 objects that span from the Greek colonies up to the twentieth century.Specifically, this last period also has a presence in the Museum with works by Joaquim Vayreda, Santiago Rusiñol and Ramon Martí i Alsina.
Devoted to the culture of the object, the Museu del Disseny de Barcelona (Design Museum of Barcelona) offers visitors unique collections formed of more than 70,000 pieces which cover, in chronological order, items from the 4th century BC to the present day. The object and all that it means to society is the common denominator of all collections: from its conception, creation and production up to its use according to the period.
Contemplating many of the pieces of the museum is to return, often, to the everyday environment: the Montesa Impala motorcycle, the poster of the opening of the Camp Nou or the Olympic mascot Cobi, among many others, are objects that appeal directly to the sentimental memory of the spectator.
The vast wealth of the new museum in Barcelona is formed by the merger of the collections of the Museu de les Arts Decoratives (decorative arts), the Museu de Ceràmica (ceramics), the Museu Tèxtil i d'Indumentària (textiles and clothing), and the Gabinet de les Arts Gràfiques (graphic arts).
But if the content is outstanding, its container, the Museu del Disseny itself, is not far behind: the building, designed by the MBM team of architects and popularly known as the la grapadora (the stapler), is already a new icon of the contemporary architecture of the city.
There are several institutions and archives that preserve the photographic heritage of Catalonia. One of the most important collections is that of the Centre Excursionista de Catalunya, with 750,000 images of hiking and mountaineering, but also featuring the artistic and architectural heritage and daily life throughout the country. For its volume and variety, also notable is the collection of the Institut d’Estudis Fotogràfics de Catalunya with nearly 800,000 photographs.
In the Biblioteca de Catalunya there are photographic documents 250,000 archived, ranging from the mid-19th century to the present day. One of the stand outs is the Josep Salvany collection with 10,000 images of Catalan landscapes and popular culture.
The history of photography, from its beginnings up to the more contemporary production, is what informs the collection of the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, with 40,000 examples from notable photographers such as Pere Casas Abarca, Agustí Centelles, Pere Català Pic, Francesc Català Roca, Colita, Joan Fontcuberta, Pere Formiguera, Oriol Maspons, Kim Manresa, Josep Masana and Joan Colom. The MACBA also has, for example, the bequest of Xavier Miserachs.
And for its part, in the personal collections of the Arxiu Nacional de Catalunya one can find works of photographers such as Josep Gaspar, els Brangulí, Gabriel Casas i Galobardes, Bert i Claret or Frederic Cuyàs.
Without forgetting its link with the traditional and popular festivals, the Fira de Teatre al Carrer de Tàrrega (Tàrrega Street Theatre Festival) has become a benchmark for its commitment to theatrical innovation and quality and is todayone of the most important European markets for the performing arts.
The success of the street shows that the Comediants company organised in 1980 was the seed of the Fira del Teatre al Carrer de Tàrrega which, just a year later, was turned into an annual event.
For the historian and theatre critic Xavier Fàbregas, one of the creators of the project, it was necessary to take back the street as a space for creative activities and at the same time renew the popular and traditional festivals. This is why the early shows were directly linked to popular culture.
With the creation of the Municipal Public Foundation Board and the department of programmers, and the commissioning of theatrical professionals for the artistic direction, the Fira del Teatre al Carrer de Tàrrega started to become professional and it turned itself into a national and international market for sales and recruitment for Catalan theatrical shows. It has always been noted for incorporating new trends and techniques and languages which are increasingly visual and contemporary.
From the early daguerreotype to current media and distribution channels, Catalan photography has been at the forefront of a revolution lasting a little less than two centuries.
Months after the daguerreotype appeared in France (1839), Ramon Alabern became the first Catalan to take pictures with this new invention. Soon after, photographers such as José Martínez Sánchez and Juan Martí, bore witness to the Industrial Revolution.
At the end of the 19th century, the first Catalan artistic photographers appeared (Joan Vilatobà, Miquel Renom and Pere Casas Abarca), approaching Symbolism and Impressionism, while the second generation followed Pictorialism (Joaquim Pla and Claudi Carbonell). The Avant-gardism also came to Catalan photography, and the work of professionals such as Pere Català Pic and Gabriel Casas meant an artistic and technical revolution.
It was not until the 1950s that tradition of documentary photography was reawoken. A new generation (Francesc Català Roca, Ramon Masats, Xavier Miserachs, Oriol Maspons, Joan Colom, Leopoldo Pomés, Colita and Eugeni Forcano) showed reality both critically and ironically.
In the seventies and eighties, the dissemination and cultural prestige of the photograph increased, finally reaching the museums. With the arrival of the digital era, its use was further democratised.
During the second half of the 20th century, Barcelona experienced the largest urban expansion in its history.
The "Barcelona model" was born in the eighties thanks to the collaboration of the democratic institutions and architects such as Oriol Bohigas. From this period are the Parc de l'Espanya Industrial (Peña i Rius) or the Moll de la Fusta (Solà-Morales).
But the pinnacle of Catalan urban planning started with the choice of Barcelona as the host city for the 1992 Olympic Games. La intervenció a l’anella olímpica de Montjuïc inclou la restauració de l’Estadi Olímpic i les Piscines Picornell i la construcció del Palau Sant Jordi (Isozaki). The Vila Olímpica (Martorell-Bohigas-Mackay) brought the city to the sea with the construction of the Port Olímpic. Other examples of Olympic architecture are the Torre de Collserola (Foster), the Montjuïc Communications Tower (Calatrava) or the Hotel Arts (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill).
With the Fòrum Universal de les Cultures (2004), the Diagonal was extended to the sea, and the Centre Internacional de Convencions (Mateo), the Forum Building (Herzog and de Meuron) and the large photovoltaic panel (Martínez Lapeña and Torres) were built.
As for post-Forum, highlights include the spectacular displays of authorial architecture such as the Torre Agbar (Nouvel) or the Edifici Gas Natural (Miralles and Tagliabue).
The Catalan journal Dau al Set (1948) and the artistic group of the same name are considered the most important manifestations of the post-war avant-garde.
The vast majority of its founding members (the poet and playwright Joan Brossa, the philosopher Arnau Puig and the painters Joan Ponç, Antoni Tàpies, Modest Cuixart and Joan-Josep Tharrats) lived in the same neighbourhood of Barcelona, and linked the disagreement with the repressive ideological situation and the limited creative possibilities of the period. They also shared a great creativity, sensitivity and sense of action.
The name of the magazine played with the idea of the impossible (Dau al Set meaning the seventh face of a dice that has only six), and expressed the intention of the group, located between the negation and confusion of Dadaism and the liberating creative expression of Surrealism.
The political circumstances hindered the desire of Dau al Set to influence the social environment, and the freedom of expression of its members was above all creative and artistic. As well, they fought to prevent the expressive forms established by the regime, they showed that repression can not stifle creativity and they were the triggers for new attitudes of free expression.
During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), artistic demonstrations in Catalonia adopted modern media such as posters and documentary photography.
The vehicle of slogans for awareness and mobilisation, posters stand out for their artistic creativity and techniques during this period.
Some of the most active poster artists were Josep Renau (Hoy más que nunca: Victoria), Martí Bas i Blasi (Feu tancs, tancs, tancs...), Jaume Solà (Unió és força), Lleó Arnau (Assassins!), Carles Fontserè (Llibertat!), Lorenzo Goñi (I tu... què has fet per la victòria?), Pere Català Pic (Aixafem el feixisme), Antoni Clavé (Catalans!... 11 de setembre), Lluís Garcia Falgàs (Informeu-vos dels que lluiten al front), Enrique Ballesteros "Henry" (Voy a luchar por tu porvenir) and Paco Ribera (Diada de la Dona Antifeixista).
Documentary photography offers a testimony of the reality both at the front and in the rearguard during the Civil War. Catalan photojournalists such as Agustí Centelles, Josep Maria Sagarra or Carlos Pérez de Rozas portrayed the daily life of the conflict side-by-side with the foreign professionals such as Robert Capa or Gerda Tardo, creators of legendary images.
As a result of the confiscations in the 19th century, a large part of the artistic heritage of the church was dispersed or privatised.With the Catalan Renaixença (Catalonia's cultural renaissance) efforts were made to recover and protect this entire legacy through initiatives such as the Museu de Lleida Diocesà i Comarcal, (Diocesan and Regional Museum of Lleida), founded in 1893, following the example of the Museu Episcopal de Vic. Today, the museum manages an important artistic legacy from the lands of the West and from the ancient Diocese of Lleida, which covers the period from prehistory to the modern age.
In 2007 the new branch was opened that set out the criteria of the site.There are certain outstanding exhibits that must not be missed during the tour of the museum. These include the head of a Roman satyr, altar frontals from the 13th century and sculptural fragments of the Seu Vella. From the Renaissance and Baroque, works by the painter Pere Nunyes, sculptures by Gabriel Joly and Damià Forment and several works by the painter Antonio Viladomat.
Highlights of the permanent collection include two unique pieces: the chess game of 10th -11th century by Sant Pere d’Àger and the Mare de Déu de Bellpuig de les Avellanes, one of the most important examples of Catalan Gothic heritage
