Poetry in the MACBA collection

Barcelona,

At the end of 2022, the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art launched, under the title “Prelude. Poetic intention”, a series of exhibitions curated by Elvira Dyangani Ose, Antònia M. Perelló Ferrer, Claudia Segura Campins and Patrícia Sorroche and aimed, in addition to revisiting the centre’s collection, at reflecting on the relationships between works of art and the museographic contexts that house them and on a possible future for museums in which all exhibition discourse is subordinated to the poetics and energy of the pieces.

The latest episode of this project can now be seen in its galleries until April of next year, and forges new narratives and forms of presentation, underlining another of the initial purposes of these exhibitions: inviting viewers to establish their own links with these works and to devise their own path around them. Compared to previous installations, works by established or mid-career national and international artists have been added, such as Adrián Balseca, Danica Dakic, Younès Rahmoun, Katia Kameli, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Daniel G. Andújar, Antoni Llena, Mireia Sallarès, Sinéad Spelman, Cabello/Carceller, Pepe Espaliú, Miguel Benlloch, Lenora de Barros, Ariadna Guiteras, Ramon Guillén-Balmes, Susy Gómez, Oriol Vilapuig, Eulàlia Valldosera, Lucia Nogueira, Lola Lasurt, Lara Fluxà, Rosemarie Trockel, Oussama Tabti, Carmen Calvo, Ana Prada, Eva Lootz, Charo Pradas, Helena Vinent, Dieter Roth, Teresa Solar Abboud, Dora García, Marcel Broodthaers, Francesc Torres, Joan Brossa, Antoni Tàpies and Lucía C. Pino, as well as a new creation by Eva Fábregas, which had its starting point in Oozing (2023-2024), co-produced with the Botín Foundation of Santander. Conceived as an inflatable sculpture whose volumes, shape and scale can alter the individual’s perception of themselves and their environment, it is the second specific creation in this interpretation of the MACBA collections; the first was the installation A wallby Luz Broto, in process until the closing of this exhibition.

MACBA Collection. Prelude. Poetic intention. Photography: Miquel Coll, 2024

Taking up the idea of the philosopher and poet Édouard Glissant regarding the possibility that, in the context of the museum, the works could be contemplated for themselves, with their energy, desire and pictorial intention, pieces have been selected that either revoke the usual framework of an art centre, or involve the physical participation of the spectator and between which, in any case, alternative modes of relationship can be devised.

The first chapter of the exhibition focuses on the compositions that most clearly require the viewer’s movement or decision-making, as well as recalling the possibilities of time to unfold and the cyclical nature of rituals; this section includes videos by Adrián Balseca, Katia Kameli and Danica Dakić and the installation 77 (2014), by Younès Rahmoun, composed of seventy-seven lamps that refer to the same number of branches of faith within the Islamic religion.

The second episode of this new Prelude The exhibition features works that highlight the surprise and poetry that can be found in the very everyday, far from artificiality and close to the intimate, although at times without losing a certain hermeticism. These are works by Broodthaers, Francesc Torres, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Daniel G. Andújar, Dora García, Oriol Vilapuig, Dieter Roth, Joan Brossa, Oussama Tabti and Tàpies that, at times, suggest reflections on the links between silence and the word and on the exercise of naming.

The third section is properly named Poetic intention and alludes to the notion of subject and to the subjectivity from which it is possible to understand the body and desire; it draws on compositions by Antoni Llena, Mireia Sallarès, Sinéad Spelman, Cabello/Carceller, Pepe Espaliú, Miguel Benlloch, Lenora de Barros, Lucía C. Pino, Ariadna Guiteras, Ramon Guillen-Balmes, Susy Gómez, Eulalia Valldosera, Lucia Nogueira, Lola Lasurt, Lara Fluxà, Rosemarie Trockel, Carmen Calvo, Ana Prada, Eva Lootz, Charo Pradas and Helena Vinent. This section emphasizes the importance of giving space in museums to microhistories in their dialogue with modernity.

Finally, in the MACBA tower we will see Tunnel Boring Machine (2022), by Teresa Solar, a sculpture that was presented in 2022 at the Venice Art Biennale, as part of the exhibition “The Milk of Dreams”, and which was added to its collection that same year (the Madrid native will exhibit “Sueño máquina de pájaro” at this same center from October).

The aforementioned installation A wall (2022-2024), by Luz Broto, proposes an architectural extension of some pillars, in a gesture that represents a kind of material disruption of the museum’s boundaries and which will close the usual access to its rooms for two weeks in January 2025, meaning that viewers will have to transit through the Raval building in a different way.