Plastic and visual arts | Page 5 | Cultural Heritage. Goverment of Catalonia.

Plastic and visual arts

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The MHC is a museum designed to stimulate interest in the evolution of Catalan culture. In the Palau de Mar, one of the few conserved buildings of the old port of Barcelona, visitors follow a thought-provoking story that is divided into eight stages, starting in prehistoric times and finishing in the present day to, and taken from a social, economic, political and cultural point of view.

During the tour, you will find objects and documents, historical recreations and audiovisual and interactive scenes, which in an entertaining way, illustrate the history of this nation.

The visitor even gets the opportunity to climb onto the horse of a Lord in the war of the Middles Ages and hide in a trench of the Civil War.

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The CaixaForum is located in the former fàbrica tèxtil Casaramona (Casaramona textile factory) in Montjuïc, which specialised in the manufacture of blankets and towels. This building designed by Josep Puig is an exceptional example of Catalan industrial "modernista" architecture of the early twentieth century. It comprises a set of single-story buildings, a horizontal construction to facilitate the transfer of goods through a system of internal streets that at the same time also served as a firewall.

The building was acquired by Obra Social "la Caixa" in 1963. In 2002, after a restoration and expansion project, it became a cultural centre for Barcelona. It offers social, cultural and educational programming that includes ongoing events such as lectures, film screenings, performances, concerts and family activities.

In addition, a quarter of the total 12,000 m2 building is occupied by ancient, modern and contemporary art exhibitions. It also has an outstanding collection of artistic and documentary art media.

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Montserrat is a symbol for Catalonia and a point of pilgrimage for believers. The main attraction is the Mare de Déu (the mother of God), the patron saint of Catalonia. This Romanesque Virgin is popularly known as La Moreneta, due to the colour of the face and hands, darkened by the smoke of lighted candles.

The monastery was founded in 1025 on the orders of the Abbot Oliba, on top of a small chapel that Guifré el Pilós had donated to the Monastery of Ripoll.

The visit to Montserrat starts at the 16th-century basilica with Romanesque remains and a Gothic structure. Starting from here, the Plaça de Santa Maria, the epicentre, you can go over the whole complex, thanks to the great 19th-century renovation led by Josep Puig i Cadafalch.

Unmissable is the Museum of Montserrat. Its collection began with the materials of the biblical East brought back from his travels by Father Buenaventura Ubach. Since then, the collection has expanded with outstanding works from painters such as Caravaggio, Rusiñol, Casas, Nonell, Picasso, Monet, Sisley, Degas, Pissarro and Dali.

The museum being here is no coincidence. From the 17th century, Montserrat has been a cultural centre of the highest order as demonstrated by the exceptional library with more than 250,000 volumes from the monastery. Notable among the suggested activities is as visit to the Escolania, which is one of the oldest boys' choir schools in Europe, documented since the 14th century.

Near the Abbey, the neighbouring Monestir de Santa Cecília, is still preserved, which currently functions as the Sean Scully Art Space. Notable as well is the Romanesque church, also renovated in the 1930s by Puig i Cadafalch. Few know that this monastery was Abat Oliba’s first choice to extend his domains to Montserrat, but met with refusal of the community.

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Since the 1960s, every year at the beginning of October, the Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya (International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia) arrives punctually, the first in the world dedicated to the fantasy genre and which, over the years, has become an international benchmark. It is the film festival with most prestige and the widest media coverage of those held in Catalonia.

It started in 1968 under the name of the International Week of Fantasy and Horror Movies in Sitges and since then has been held uninterruptedly, offering the thousands of visitors, who flock there each year, film screenings, exhibitions and conferences. The festival has constantly received visits from performers, directors and producers of national and international renown.

The Sitges Film Festival is also the host of the annual awards of the European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation.

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In the old building of the Casa de la Caritat in Barcelona, in a totally modern facility, there is a cultural centre of European renown. It is the Centre of Contemporary Culture (CCCB), which since 1994 has been working on creative research and the production of knowledge. It has, as its central focus, the city and urban culture and aims to link the academic world with creativity and citizenship.

It does this through its own projects. The most significant are the thematic exhibitions, which generate debate and awareness around the issues that shape the present. At the same time, it has also instituted forms of cultural exchange such as international discussions, the CCCB Lab, the Kosmopolis literature platform and the Xcèntric project in experimental cinema. All of these are projects which deal with the culture of the 21st century and the great transformations of the digital age in an integrated manner.

The CCCB has a collection (CCCB Archive and Xcentric Archive) where the documentation related to all the projects that have been realised since its inauguration is stored. This archive has been available to everyone since 2008.

Visiting the Centre of Contemporary Culture is to enter a space for reflection about what urban culture is. The same building, remodelled by Helio Piñón and Albert Viaplana, structured around the Pati de les Dones, brings one in. It is advisable to go up to the observation deck before the end of the visit.

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When she was just a little over 30 years old, the Queen Elisenda de Montcada withdrew from the world, remaining a widow. And she did it in the Monastery of Pedralbes, which she had founded in 1326 in the mountains of Sant Pere Màrtir (Barcelona). She lived there 37 years, with only the claretian nuns and the Gothic architecture for company.

The Monastery of Santa Maria de Pedralbes was built in just 13 months and is noted for its great architectural homogeneity in the Gothic style. The white stones (petras albas), used to build the complex, gave their name to the area: Pedralbes.

Among the jewels of the monastery there is the small chapel of Sant Miquel, which is noted for the fresco and oil paintings (14th century), an exceptional testimony of the Catalan Gothic painting; the Gothic stained-glass windows of the interior of the church (considered the most important in Catalonia both for their antiquity and their good state of preservation) and the cloister. This is one of the largest and most impressive in the world.

Also noteworthy is the tomb of Queen Elisenda. Located between the Church and the cloister, it is a bi-frontal tomb representing her two sides: from the Church she is seen dressed and crowned as a Queen and, from the cloister, she appears as a widow and nun, with the simple Franciscan habit.

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Right next to Vic Cathedral, the Episcopal Museum is a reference point for medieval Catalan art and exhibits masterpieces of painting and sculpture from the Romanesque to the Gothic (between the 12th and 15th centuries). The centre, with a collection of more than 29,000 pieces, specialises in liturgical art.

The large Romanesque collection allows one to follow the precise stylistic and iconographic evolution of the Catalan Romanesque. One of the star exhibits in the Museum is the sculpture group of the Descent from the Cross from Erill la Vall. Discovered on an expedition by the Institute of Catalan Studies to Vall de Boí in 1907, this work of the Master of Erill is considered to be one of the most important sculptural groups of the 12th-century Romanesque in Europe.

Just as notable is the Baldachin from the parish church of Ribes, one of the masterpieces the Museum holds. Other items to consider are the altar frontal from Sant Andreu de Sagàs, the frontal from Sant Pere de Ripoll and the Mother of God from Santa Maria de Lluçà.

Aside from its collection, the Museum is also noted for its modern and innovative museum project. For this, in 2001 it was awarded the National Prize for Cultural Heritage for its contribution to the dissemination of medieval Catalan art.

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The group comprising the Theatre-Museum with the dome and the Torre Galatea (with its façade decorated with manequins, eggs and loaves of crusty bread) is the most emblematic icon of Figueres’ urban landscape.The building itself is considered to be the world's largest surrealist object. But, at the same time, in its interior it houses many masterpieces by Salvador Dalí.

The Theatre-Museum, built on the remains of the former Figueres Theatre, was designed and planned by Dalí himself as his great personal project. Its collection of paintings enables the visitor to go on an artistic tour, starting with the painter’s early work (The Smiling Venus and Port Alguer). Besides this and most importantly, the Museum covers the explosion of surrealism with emblematic works such as the Spectre of Sex-Appeal, Leda Atomica, The Basket of Bread and Galatea of the Spheres.

Also of particular interest is a set of works that Dalí created specifically for his own Museum, such as the Mae West Room, the Wind Palace gallery, the Rainy Cadillac and the painting Gala Nude Watching the Sea which at 18 metres distance appears as President Lincoln.

In 1988 the Loggias Room exhibition area was added, showing the later work of Salvador Dalí, based on scientific experimentation and the study of classical painting.

The Teatre-Museu Dalí in Figueres together with the Castell Gala Dalí de Púbol and the Casa-Museu Salvador Dalí in Portlligat, make up the Dalí triangle of Empordà which enables visitors to immerse themselves in the life and work of one of Catalonia’s most international painters.

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In the middle of Montjuïc, in Barcelona, under the shade of the trees, the white volumes of the Fundació Joan Miró do not go unnoticed. In its interior, it holds more than 14,000 pieces by the surrealist painter, including paintings, sculptures, ceramics and tapestries. One of the most important aspects of the Fundació is that it preserves nearly all Joan Miró’s preparatory sketches, with more than 8,000 drawings, invaluable material for understanding the work of the artist.

The collection was originally created with a donation from Joan Miró himself and has since grown with donations from family, friends and collectors.

Through the Foundation’s collection, you can take a journey through the artistic life of Miró. Starting with his early paintings with their clear influence of Impressionism, Fauvism and French Cubism (Chapel of Sant Joan d'Horta and Portrait of a Young Girl). Progressing on to his fully surrealist phase (The Bottle of Wine) and his well-known collages (Homage to Prats). And ending with his works on the Civil War (Man and Woman in Front of a Pile of Excrement) and his paintings of the constellations.

But the museum is not only notable for the work it houses but also for its architectural and museological concepts. Miró wanted to open a foundation that would look to the future, that would not become a temple of collectors' objects but rather a place of discovery and debate. And with this objective, he asked the architect Josep Lluís Sert to construct a building with its own personality. The result is a piece of architecture that serves as the perfect showcase for the work of the artist.

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A former fisherman's hut in Portlligat, Salvador Dalí moved here in 1930 and continued to work here until 1982. Since its initial construction, the painter began acquiring other similar huts and, over forty years, defined what would be the home as it is today, considered by some as "a true biological structure".

The building, designed by Dalí and Gala, is a labyrinthine structure organised around the so-called "Saló de l'Óssa" (Hall of the Bear). From this central area, the home spreads out through a succession of small rooms connected by corridors, small level changes and culs-de-sac. The rooms have windows of different shapes and sizes but with one common denominator: they frame the Portlligat bay, a place that is a recurring theme in Dalí's work.

The home, which the writer Josep Pla described as "surprising, extraordinary and never seen before" was a refuge where Dalí led "a life of asceticism and isolation" after living for many years in Paris.

In 1982, after Gala's death, Dalí did not return to Portlligat. With the painter's death (1989), in 1994 the house became a small museum areaadapted by the architects Oriol Clos i Costa and José Ramos Illán. Together with the Castell Gala Dalí de Púbol and the Teatre-Museu Dalí in Figueres, make up the Dalí triangle of Empordà