Miró and the United States @ Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona + The Phillips Collection, Washington DC - A Major Exhibition

Miró and the United States

Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona

10 October 2025 – 22 February 2026

The Phillips Collection, Washington 

21 March – 5 July 2026

The Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona, in collaboration with The Phillips Collection in Washington, presents a new and revealing exhibition entitled Miró and the United States, which highlights the intense, bidirectional and intergenerational relationship between Joan Miró and his contemporaries in North America. While it is well known that many North American artists were inspired by Miró, it is less well known that he was also inspired by North American art, particularly gestural, action and large format painting. This exchange and creative flow spanned continents and generations and is one of the central themes of the exhibition, which is part of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Fundació Joan Miró. Coming from a Spain devastated by the Franco dictatorship, the United States represented for Joan Miró not only art, but also a country of large open horizons, hope, democracy, future and endless possibilities.

Miró and the United States brings together an outstanding selection of paintings, drawings, sculptures, prints, films and archival documents from American and European collections, as well as new studies by renowned specialists on Miró’s artistic evolution.

Miró and the United States is a unique exhibition because it offers a fresh look at Miró’s place in modern art, a reading that places the North American context at its heart. In other words, rather than focusing on the French context, which is essential for understanding his work from the 1920s and 1930s onwards, the show situates the United States as a pivotal territory in the evolution of Joan Miró’s artistic language, his international recognition and his connections with other artists. The United States enabled Joan Miró to undertake large-scale public projects – such as the sculpture Moon, Sun and One Star, made for Chicago – that would have been unfeasible in Spain at the time. The open and experimental environment of the United States helped Miró to consolidate his creative freedom and international recognition.

The exhibition therefore showcases key moments in Miró’s career in the USA: his two retrospectives in New York (in 1941 and 1959), his seven visits between 1947 and 1968, and also the pivotal role played by his dealer, Pierre Matisse, as well as the support of various American institutions and collectors.

The exhibition is a unique event as it displays 138 works from American and European collections as well as those from the Fundació Joan Miró’s own holdings, including both works by Joan Miró and approximately forty other artists. The selection is based on known connections and intergenerational relationships of admiration, including the likes of Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Helen Frankenthaler, Arshile Gorky, Lee Krasner, Alice Trumbull Mason, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, among many others. This artistic conversation demonstrates how Miró’s legacy continues to live on.

Based on years of research, the exhibition re-examines the established narratives about Miró’s position in the history of art through the selection of artists who feature in it. The different sections of Miró and the United States explore this relationship between Joan Miró and forty-nine contemporary artists from different generations. The exhibition also includes many artists who, despite not being originally from the country, moved or went there temporarily to develop part of their artistic careers. Driven by immigration, exile, the search for opportunities or cultural exchange, these creators played a decisive role in shaping the diverse and international North American art scene.

Although it has become commonplace, the fact that the centre of the art world shifted from Paris to New York is historically grounded. The global upheaval of the Second World War led to many European artists and intellectuals being exiled to the United States, fostering the emergence of North American Abstract Expressionism. This geopolitical and cultural shift was examined in a pioneering manner by Serge Guilbaut in How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art (1985), in which he argues how New York appropriated the symbolic leadership of modern art.

Joan Miró witnessed and participated in the shift of artistic capital from Paris to New York in the period immediately following the turbulent years of the Second World War. This geopolitical and cultural reconfiguration, which may have once seemed distant, now resonates with an urgency and topicality that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago. One of the major attractions of Miró and the United States is the curatorial proposal, which brings together works and artists that reveal connections between Miró and the North American art scene that have never been seen before. The exhibition also offers the public an exceptional opportunity to view works that have never previously been exhibited in Spain, including Lee Krasner’s The Seasons, which is on loan from the Whitney Museum for the first time.

Another exhibition highlight is the presence of Miró's Mural Painting, 20 March 1961 (1961), a monumental work that was exhibited several times in the 1960s: in 1961 at the Galerie Maeght in Paris and the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York, and in 1964 in London and Zurich as part of the Miró retrospective organised by Roland Penrose. Since then, once Josep Lluís Sert had donated the mural to the Harvard Art Museums, this is the first time they have authorised its loan for an exhibition in Europe, a fact that makes its presence in the Miró and the United States exhibition a truly exceptional event.

Moreover, in an unprecedented move, the first two works that Joan Miró exhibited in the United States are reunited for the first time: Le Renversement (1924) and Painting (1926), which were originally presented at the Brooklyn Museum.

As part of Miró and the United States, the Fundació Joan Miró is presenting 22 pochoirs on paper of Constellations, dated 1959. Like the original Constellations of 1940-1941, they were conceived by Joan Miró so that they could be viewed from both sides. While these pieces have been previously exhibited in other settings, this is the first time they have been displayed according to this original, double-sided design, exactly as the artist had intended. This unprecedented curatorial commitment recovers his original vision, offering the public a fresh look at the formal freedom and experimental spirit that define his work.

Alongside important works admired by Joan Miró, such as Jackson Pollock's Number 14, are more surprising dialogues, such as that with Janet Sobel, whose Illusion of Solidity (1945) shows her to be the precursor of the dripping technique One of the exhibition’s crowning works is Lee Krasner’s The Seasons, a piece of imposing dimensions and sublime visual and emotional impact that is travelling to Spain for the first time. The exhibition also sheds light on female artists who had to use male pseudonyms to gain recognition, such as Henrietta Myers (Peter Miller) and Corinne Michelle West (Michael West).

The Miró and the United States exhibition arrives at a particularly opportune moment, filling a clear need in Miró’s artistic story. It transports us to another time and place – full of light, curiosity and risk – when art was a bold commitment to a better future. Amidst a 20th century marked by repression and instability, contact with the United States represented a source of creative energy and openness for Joan Miró, a democratic and dynamic horizon full of artistic opportunities. Miró actively engaged in dialogue with the North American artistic community, which became a place of inspiration and transformation. This fruitful exchange not only renewed his career, but also reinforced his ability to connect with a world in motion, full of contrasts and possibilities. The exhibition therefore invites us to look back and move forward with hope, to continue taking risks and to believe in the power of art as a tool for change and expanding horizons.

Miró and the United States

© Courtesy Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona

The exhibition is accompanied by the publication Miró and the United States, available in Catalan, Spanish and English. It includes texts by renowned Miró curators and specialists: Dawn Ades, Beatriz Cordero Martín, Marko Daniel, Matthew Gale, Patricia Juncosa, Robert Lubar Messeri, Teresa Montaner, Dolors Rodríguez Roig, Élisa Sclaunick, Elsa Smithgall and Anne Umland.

The Miró and the United States exhibition, co-organised with The Phillips Collection in Washington, will also be on show there from 21 March to 5 July 2026.

Curatorship: Marko Daniel, Matthew Gale and Dolors Rodríguez Roig from the Fundació Joan Miró, in collaboration with Elsa Smithgall from The Phillips Collection

FUNDACIO JOAN MIRO, BARCELONA

www.fmirobcn.org

Carlos Motta @ MACBA, Barcelona - Exhibition "Pleas of Resistance"

Carlos Motta. Pleas of Resistance

MACBA, Barcelona

21 February – 26 October 2025

CARLOS MOTTA

Untitled Self-Portrait, #4, 2019

© Carlos Motta

Pleas of Resistance is the first major European museum exhibition dedicated to Colombian artist CARLOS MOTTA (Bogota, 1978). A resident of New York for many years, the artist began his career in the 1990s and is an important figure in contemporary art. The artist’s work can only be understood through his commitment to social and political movements, specifically the politics of gender identity and sexuality and, above all, his staunch commitment to giving voice to dissident expressions in the face of dominant normative discourses. This point permeates all of his work, which pivots on two dialogical axes: intersectionality and queerness.

The MACBA exhibition acknowledges the relevance of Motta’s projects and discourses on issues of violence, domination, religion and politics. It does so with pieces that address discrimination in increasingly conservative political environments (such as in the United States), the plight of undocumented immigrants around the world, and Latin American decolonization projects.

Pleas of Resistance covers more than twenty-five years of the artist’s practice, in which his early explorations of photographic self-portraiture are exhibited alongside his most recent performances and video installations. The exhibition focuses on the rigor of Motta’s artistic research, on his continuous questioning of the archive – its violence and silencing, its fears and desires. Motta’s work challenges the imposition of Eurocentric epistemologies – from the time of the conquest and colonial period in the Americas to the present day – and considers the legacy of religion as a perpetrator and disruptive vehicle of coloniality.

Pleas of Resistance provides a unique opportunity for an in-depth look at Motta’s work and some of the pieces that have made him an important reference for both artistic and political activism, such as We Who Feel Differently (2012), which addresses the LGTBI+ movement; Legacy (2019), which reflects upon the impact of AIDS; Air of Life (2023), a collaborative multimedia installation that examines experiences of marginalization and the intersectional repercussions of colonialism; the installation When I Leave This World (2022), which shows the performance of a person who adopts an animal aesthetic; and Nefandus (2013), a video trilogy that investigates pre-Hispanic and colonial homoeroticism, one of which is part of the MACBA collection.

Alongside the exhibition, the museum hosts a new edition of La Internacional Queer/Cuir: a series of debates, lectures, live art, music and performance presented at MACBA, coordinated by the public programmes area. The past and present HIV/AIDS pandemic will be the common thread, with a focus on Global South perspectives. A publication compiling the contributions of the eight previous editions of La Internacional Queer as well as this new edition will be published upon the exhibition’s conclusion.

Carlos Motta. Pleas of Resistance is curated by Agustín Pérez-Rubio in collaboration with María Berríos.

MACBA

Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona

Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona

Plaça dels Àngels, 1, Ciutat Vella, 08001 Barcelona

www.macba.cat

Artist Tuan Andrew Nguyen @ Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona - "Tuan Andrew Nguyen Our Ghosts Live in the Future" - Exhibition by the winner of the 2023 Joan Miró Prize (8th edition)

Tuan Andrew Nguyen 

Our Ghosts Live in the Future

Exhibition by the winner of the 

2023 Joan Miró Prize (8th edition)

Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona

10 May - 24 September 2024

Tuan Andrew Nguyen, 2023 Joan Miró Prize

Photo Pep Herrero © Fundació Joan Miró

Tuan Andrew Nguyen

The Specter of Ancestors Becoming, 2019

Still - 4-channel video installation: colour, 7.1 surround sound; 

28 minutes; dimensions variable

Courtesy the artist

Tuan Andrew Nguyen

A Sullen Moon Behind Lit Mountain Tops, 2023

Image credits: Dan Bradica

Courtesy the artist 

The Fundació Joan Miró presents the first solo exhibition in Spain by Vietnamese-American artist TUAN ANDREW NGUYEN (Saigon, 1976), winner of the eighth edition of the Joan Miró Prize. The show includes some of his most poignant recent video installations, as well as a selection of his sculptures made out of fragments of bombs and artillery shells from the Vietnam War.

Tuan Andrew Nguyen and his family emigrated to the United States as refugees after the end of the war and he uses his artistic practice to interweave his own personal story through the history of his country of birth. This exhibition explores the ways in which conflicts from the second half of the 20th century have impacted not only the people who lived through them but also their descendants.

The show gets under way with three sculptures inspired by the mobiles of American artist Alexander Calder, a close friend of Joan Miró who was also an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War. In stark contrast to Calder’s pieces, however, Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s mobiles are made out of fragments of bombs and artillery shells from the lengthy and devastating Vietnam War. In this context, Nguyen’s sculptures are more explosions than formal exercises in art. Moreover, they are also sound pieces, tuned to emit certain frequencies with healing properties. Imbued with deep symbolic meaning, they resonate with the Buddhist idea of the transformative power of compassion.

Tuan Andrew Nguyen

The Unburied Sounds of a Troubled Horizon, 2022

Still, Single-channel video, 4k anamorphic, 

5.1 surround sound, 60min.

Courtesy the artist

Tuan Andrew Nguyen

Because No One Living Will Listen / 

Người Sống Chẳng Ai Nghe, 2023

Still Two-channel 4K video, stereo

Courtesy the artist 

The next three works are video installations linked to the material and personal consequences of the Vietnam War. The first gives a voice to an old unexploded bomb that is about to be detonated fifty years after being dropped. Indeed, throughout Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s audiovisual projects, ostensibly inanimate objects often find a way to tell their own stories as key players in the unfolding endeavour of processing collective trauma. The second installation is a feature film about a mother and daughter struggling to make a living from the scrapyard business they inherited from the father. The daughter salvages metal from the remnants of bombs—the Vietnamese landscape is still studded with unexploded ordnance—to craft uncanny hanging sculptures. One day she accidentally stumbles into the realisation that she must surely be the reincarnation of Alexander Calder. A young Buddhist monk, inspired by the figure of Thich Nhat Hanh, teaches her about the healing properties of sound, which she then applies in her work to help her mother overcome her posttraumatic stress disorder.

The exhibition concludes with one of Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s projects linked to the stories of families of non-French soldiers sent by the French colonial administration to fight in Vietnam in what became known as the First Indochina War (1946–1954). In Because No One Living Will Listen, a Vietnamese woman writes a heartfelt letter to her father, a Moroccan soldier in the French army who died when she was a baby. She tells him about the path her life has taken and confesses how disoriented she feels at not fully belonging anywhere—a feeling shared by many other descendants of mixed couples who have to find ways of juggling hybrid cultural identities and integrating their ancestors’ legacy into their own lives.

Our Ghosts Live in the Future gives Spanish audiences the first opportunity to experience Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s work in person and gain an appreciation of his artistic vision and committed interest in exploring social and historical issues thrown up by the destabilising effects of colonial legacies. In addition, repeated references in his pieces offer up rereadings of the work of American artist and antiwar activist Alexander Calder, a close friend of Joan Miró and Josep Lluís Sert whose presence is keenly felt in the Fundació Joan Miró Collection. Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s practice resonates with the museum’s collection and with Joan Miró’s legacy as an artist with similarly strong ties to his native country.

The show not only offers a survey of Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s work but also provides a unique insight into his artistic vision and staunch commitment to social and historical concerns that run through the core of his artistic narrative. It includes a previously unseen piece fashioned out of reused war ordnance made at the artist’s studio in Ho Chi Minh City. Like the sculptures presented at the beginning of the show, this piece is inspired by one of Alexander Calder’s mobiles, in this case The Corcovado, a large-scale sculpture that forms part of the Fundació Joan Miró Collection. At both the start and end of the exhibition, Tuan Andrew Nguyen engages with key figures in Western modern art who helped shape the dominant artistic narrative of the 20th century.

Tuan Andrew Nguyen, 2023 Joan Miró Prize

Photo Pep Herrero © Fundació Joan Miró

TUAN ANDREW NGUYEN is an artist from Saigon, Vietnam who lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City. His works explore the power of memory and its potential to act as a form of political resistance. His practice is fuelled by research and a commitment to communities that have faced traumas caused by colonialism, war and displacement. Through his continuous attempts to engage with vanishing or vanquished historical memory, Tuan Andrew Nguyen explores the erasures that the colonial project has brought to bear on certain parts of the world. He works between various mediums but devotes much of his attention towards producing moving-image works and sculpture.

Tuan Andrew Nguyen received a BFA from the University of California, Irvine in 1999 and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 2004. He has been the recipient of several awards in both film and visual arts, including grants from Art Matters and VIA Art Fund. Radiant Remembrance, the artist’s first U.S. solo museum exhibition, was on view at the New Museum in New York from June 29 - September 17, 2023. His work has been featured in several international exhibitions, including the Aichi Triennial, Whitney Biennial in New York, Biennale de Dakar, Sharjah Biennial and the Berlin Biennale. His work is included in the permanent collections of institutions including Carré d’Art, Nîmes, France; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; SFMoMA, San Francisco, CA; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY.

Curated by Martina Millà, head of exhibitions at the Fundació Joan Miró

FUNDACIÓ JOAN MIRÓ | BARCELONA

Parc de Montjuïc, 08038 Barcelona 

www.fmirobcn.org 

Ekin Kee Charles - Han Nefkens Foundation - Loop Barcelona Video Art Production Grant 2022

Ekin Kee Charles

Han Nefkens Foundation - Loop Barcelona Video Art Production Grant 2022

EKIN KEE CHARLES

EKIN KEE CHARLES (Malaysia, 1996) is the winner of the Han Nefkens Foundation - Loop Barcelona Video Art Production Grant 2022, in collaboration with the Fundació Joan Miró, MoCA TAIPEI; ILHAM, Kuala Lumpur, Center d’Art Contemporain, Genève; Art Hub Copenhagen and Inside-Out Art Museum, Beijing.

Ekin Kee Charles - “Being born and brought up in the inland area of Sabah has been the biggest blessing in my life. No matter where I am in life I will always be the village girl that I am. Growing up, I have always wanted to leave my village but now I want nothing more than to go back. The personality, the environment, the community has made such an impact on me and I only realised that when I left. The land that has shaped me has so much character and stories and I wish to share the beauty that I see with others. This opportunity given by The Han Nefkens Foundation to showcase the beauty that I see is a big milestone. It means that more people from different dynamics will be able to appreciate the life that is rarely shined upon and I am very thankful and honoured. I want more people to appreciate where they come from, similar to how I appreciate my community and tradition through the works that I make.”

Established in 2018, the Han Nefkens Foundation - LOOP Barcelona Video Art Production Grant 2022 in collaboration with Fundació Joan Miró has established itself as a tool for increasing contemporary artistic production in the video art field. The Grant involves the production of a video art work. Ekin Kee Charles will receive $15,000 for the production of a new work to be completed by the end of November 2023 and to be presented at the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona in 2024, during LOOP Festival. At a later stage, the new production will also be presented at MoCA TAIPEI; ILHAM, Kuala Lumpur, Center d’Art Contemporain, Genève; Art Hub Copenhagen and Inside-Out Art Museum, Beijing. The Han Nefkens Foundation will receive a long-term loan of the produced artwork for presentation at art institutions worldwide with whom the Foundation collaborates with. In order to consolidate the candidates’ career, the Grant appraises emerging promising artists, who are 40 years old or less, of Asian nationality or living in Asia and who have established a solid trajectory, but have not had the opportunity to exhibit extensively. To achieve this, ten internationally recognized art critics and curators (nominated by all the partner institutions) carry out the scouting process. Through this exercise, the curators will expand the selected artist’s network of contacts as well as discover and get closer to lesser-known video art works and thus, promote this discipline.

Han Nefkens - "I was touched by the sensitivity of Ekin's work. It's clear that what she shows us is close to her heart. I am therefore delighted that, together with the six art institutions that participate in this grant, we will work with this young and promising artist from the periphery who is firmly on her way to develop her unique voice."

The Jury for the 2022 edition of the Grant was chaired by Han Nefkens and consisted of Emilio Alvarez, Founder LOOP Barcelona; Marko Daniel, Director Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona; Carol Yinghua Lu, Director Inside-Out Art Museum, Beijing; Hua-Tzu Chan - Deputy Supervisor of Research Department, MoCA TAIPEI; Jacob Fabricius, Director, Art Hub Copenhagen; Rahel Joseph, Director, ILHAM, Kuala Lumpur and Andrea Bellini, Director, Centre d’Art Contemporain, Genève. The judging took place in the presence of: Hilde Teerlinck, General Director of the Han Nefkens Foundation and Alessandra Biscaro, Coordinator of the Han Nefkens Foundation. The Jury stated:

"We were delighted to select Ekin Kee Charles. Her profound video works explore in an unassuming way the societal pressures that women face every day. We all agreed that her work speaks clearly of a specific place and moment, while at the same time transcending - by virtue of its deep connection with the local - any particular culture, region or country. Her works combine this universality with a sensitive and poetic approach, offering a space for critical contemplation. We look forward to following her next steps."

EKIN KEE CHARLES is a young filmmaker from Kota Marudu, Sabah in Malaysia. She graduated from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak with a bachelor in Cinematography in 2019. Upon graduating, she ventured into the filmmaking industry to sharpen her filmmaking skills. Ekin has set the goal to tell stories coming from her community, to share what life is like in her suburban area and the love she feels for her community. Ekin Kee Charles is an alumnus of an exchange program for film students in Japan held by The Japan Foundation Asia Center under the program ....and Action! Asia 4 (2018) where she directed and co-wrote a short film ‘Your Shirt, My Socks’. The short film was a part of the SEAShorts |Next New Wave (Malaysia) under the program Love Letter from Japan. Your Shirt, My Socks also won the Best Short Film award at the 14th Mini Film Festival (Malaysia). In 2019, she took home the Grand Prize Winner Award of the 13th Edition BMW Shorties with her winning short film ‘PACE’, thus making her the youngest Grand Prize winner, at the age of 23 and the first East Malaysian director that has won the title to date. She also won the Best Editing Award and was nominated for Best Screenplay and Best Director. ‘PACE’ was also a part of several film festivals such as Minikino Bali Film Week and was in Cinebah 2021, a program that showcases a new wave of Sabahan filmmakers. Her latest short film credited as director & writer, ‘Rama-Rama’ funded by BMW Shorties has been a part of Clermont Ferrand Short Film Market Pick 2022 (France), 14th Cinema Rehiyon 2022 (Philippines) and Next New Wave | SEAShorts 2022 (Malaysia).

The initial selection of ten artists formally presented to the jury was made by the following scouts: Boliang Shen; Christina Li; Hyo Gyoung Jeon; Yee I-Lann; James Luigi Tana; Sau Bin Yap; Seolhui Lee; Sherith Arasakulasuriya; Shuang Li; Vanini Belarmino; Xue Tan.

The shortlist of seven artists, whose proposals were then shared and discussed by the final jury was:

- Boloho (collective), China

- Bo Wang, 1982, China

- Ekin Kee Charles, 1996, Malaysia

- Rui An Ho, 1990, Singapore

- Tao Hui, 1987, China

- Yoonsuk Jung, 1981, South Korea

- Zuqiang Peng, 1992, China

Fundació Joan Miró

Parc de Montjuic, 08038 Barcelona

www.fmirobcn.org

Paul Klee and the Secrets of Nature @ Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona

Paul Klee and the Secrets of Nature

Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona

October 21, 2022 - February 12, 2023

Paul Klee

Glühende Landschaft [Glowing Lanscape], 1919

Oil on cardboard, 40,5 x 30,5 cm

Private collection, Switzerland

For the artist, dialogue with nature remains a conditio sine qua non.

The artist is a man, himself nature and a part of nature in natural space.

Paul Klee

Ways to Study Nature, 1923

Throughout his life, the Swiss-born German artist PAUL KLEE (1879-1940) felt an undying fascination for the observation of nature. For him, the contemplation of natural phenomena was an art in its own right, which allowed him to go beyond the world of the apparent in order to understand their intrinsic dynamics and to create works based on them.

Curated by Martina Millà, head of exhibitions at the Fundació Joan Miró, the exhibition Paul Klee and the Secrets of Nature examines the link the artist had with the natural environment, in which he found not only a field of study and a pedagogical model, but also a source of inspiration and a vital refuge. In collaboration with the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern and with advice from its chief curator, Fabienne Eggelhöfer, the show also aims to demonstrate just how important the exploration of natural phenomena was for the formation and development of an artist like Paul Klee, one of the most outstanding artists of the European avant-garde and perhaps one of the most surprising ones to rediscover through the lens of nature itself.

The exhibition unfolds into four areas that propose a chronological journey through Paul Klee’s holistic view of nature, from his formative stage right up to his final artistic one. The Zentrum Paul Klee’s collection is the most important archive of the artist’s drawings and pictorial works. The Zentrum Paul Klee also conserves his library and the natural objects that interested him and accompanied his research. The bulk of the more than 200 pieces on display in the exhibition are from these holdings, while the rest are contributions from other outstanding international private collections and institutions. Within the context of the current revision of the canon and as part of the effort to recover the names and careers of artists silenced by the official account of the history of art, each section includes a work by a woman artist, of whom some were contemporaneous with Paul Klee, such as Gabriele Münter (1877-1962), Emma Kunz (1892-1963) and Maruja Mallo (1902-1995), while others were or are aligned with some of his artistic approaches, such as Sandra Knecht (Switzerland, 1968).

This project falls within the framework of a line of exhibitions organised in collaboration with other monographic museums of major artists of the avant-gardes. Based on the Fundació Joan Miró’s holdings, the links between the two institutions will also result in a Miró exhibition focusing mainly on the large format works that were made possible by the artist’s new studio in Palma de Mallorca from 1956, which the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern will host from January to May 2023.

In his formative years, Paul Klee’s curiosity for the origin of form and of artistic expression led him to meticulously study his most immediate environments: the outskirts of Bern and the family garden. The plants, animals, landscapes, geological formations and atmospheric and physical phenomena that he examined in his various places of residence and also while on excursions and trips strengthened his relationship with nature and had an impact on his unique poetics. The first area of the show presents the importance of the study of nature to the discovery of this artistic personality based on early drawings done between 1883 and 1911, among which is his first documented drawing, done when he was just four years old. In this selection, Klee dialogues with two major artistic legacies: naturalist drawing, which he was taught during his school years and which shaped his ability to pay attention to the visible; and classical culture and its internal order, which he discovered during his trip to Italy in 1901, filtered by the reading of J. W. von Goethe, and which encouraged him to disentangle the even more complex order inherent to the natural world.

Paul Klee’s interest in discovering the dynamics of nature, and the grammar of art that he began to elaborate from his observations, gradually developed in the years between the First World War and his arrival at the Bauhaus as a teacher. ‘Trip to Tunisia, and the First World War. Nature as an Enigma and an Escape (1912-1920)’ is the title of the second area of the show, which brings together oil paintings, watercolours and drawings, in which the contemplation of nature became a visionary instrument for coping with the tough moments that he had the misfortune to endure. Standing out in this room are works like Glühende Landschaft (Glowing Landscape, 1919), an example of Klee’s total landscape, where the artist aimed to represent not only the motif, but also the connectivity of organic, atmospheric and geological elements. Belonging to the same historical context as these is another oil painting included in this area: Abstrakt (Abstract, 1914) by the German artist Gabriele Münter, a member of the avant-garde group Der blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) of which Paul Klee also formed part during his time in Munich, until the outbreak of the First World War.

This baggage and his careful reading of books like The Metamorphosis of Plants by J. W. von Goethe together served as the basis for his courses at the Bauhaus, during the years of theoretical consolidation of the first avant-gardes. Entitled ‘Teaching at the Bauhaus. The Analysis of Natural Phenomena (1921-1931)’, the third area of the show presents around 70 pieces, among which are works, pedagogical materials and collections of natural objects such as preserved plant specimens and seashells, which provided him with a field of study. His works from this period and his theoretical compendium both manifest his reflections stemming from his contemplation of the internal laws of nature – movement, growth, recurrence, conformation, which he turned into the basis of his creative process and teaching programme. When Klee taught these notions at home, he would often invite students to spend time observing fish in his aquarium, just as he would do. To evoke the philosophy of these teachings, the design of this exhibition space reconstructs Klee’s aquarium by displaying works containing fish. The works brought together in this area have already transcended the apparent aspects of nature in order to compose themselves according to their internal principles, and that is what he encouraged his students to look for. Obeying these laws are titles like Vor dem Blitz (Before the Blitz, 1923), Klang der südlichen Flora (Harmony of Southern Flora, 1927) and Gemischtes Wetter (Unsettled Weather, 1929), where nature is represented by its constituent forces. These works dialogue with one of the characteristic geometric drawings by the Swiss artist and healer Emma Kunz, whose practices precisely flowed from using the energy underlying matter.

Finally, in his last stage, Paul Klee carried on working on these topics in a mature synthesis. They also became an artistic refuge when faced with the challenge of living the latter years of his life with a degenerative disease. So, the area ‘Synthesis and Identification. The Last Period (1932-1940)’ shows how, in the final stretch of Klee’s life, which was highly productive despite his fragile state of health, his understanding of the principles of nature and his communion with it reached the peak of their expression. All of this is clear to see in works like Der Winter kommt (Winter is Coming, 1939), where he uses his fingers to paint, arriving at his so sought-after transcendence of the dualism between subject and object: is body becoming one with nature through the pictorial medium.

The artist of today is more than an improved camera; he is more complex, richer and wider. He is a creature on the Earth and a creature within the whole, that is to say, a creature on a star among stars.

Paul Klee

Ways to Study Nature, 1923

Also presented in the last room is Protozoarios (Protozoans, 1981), a later work by the Spanish surrealist painter Maruja Mallo, who was interested in portraying the potentiality of natural shapes – flowers, shells, fruit or fantastical hybridisations of living organisms – and, like Paul Klee, continued painting them right to the very end. 

Sandra Knecht

My Land is Your Land Dark Night (Home Is a Foreign Place), 2022

Pigment print on cotton paper, 152 x 110 x 6 cm

Artist's collection

© Sandra Knecht

The exhibition concludes with an installation by the contemporary Swiss artist Sandra Knecht. She was born in the same canton as Klee and advocates rural life as part of her practice. To establish a dialogue with Paul Klee, Knecht makes a reflection on the disease that the artist suffered from, understood as a natural process. The resulting installation is entitled Dark Night (Home is a Foreign Place) and includes photographs, sculptures and an audiovisual piece referring to the natural world and rural tradition, as well as drawings by Klee, and photographs by Francesc Català-Roca of the natural objects that abounded in Joan Miró’s studio. Pro Helvetia has participated in Sandra Knecht’s project as a collaborating institution.

By examining the artist’s special experience of natural phenomena, the exhibition Paul Klee and the Secrets of Nature also offers visitors an insight into how contemporary society has constructed its view of the natural world. 

In the words of its curator, Martina Millà: ‘at a time when, facing imminent planetary collapse, there is speculation about survival strategies […] we would like to see this project as an exercise that can help us reposition ourselves by revisiting that period which marked the start of the problematisation of our gaze and of our current understanding of the phenomena of nature. Visitors can find a great opportunity to rethink their relationship with artistic practices connected with the agenda of modernity and with a planet subjected to an unstoppable process of ecosystem and biodiversity destruction; a planet that has nevertheless been the sounding board and a canvas on which human creativity has been unleashed.’

Paul Klee and the Secrets of Nature

Exhibition Catalogue

Paul Klee and the Secrets of Nature is accompanied by a catalogue that reproduces a broad selection of the show’s works and includes a curatorial text by Martina Millà and an essay signed by Fabienne Eggelhöfer. The catalogue is completed by a conversation between Myriam Dössenger, a researcher at the Zentrum Paul Klee, and the artist Sandra Knecht, as well as a pedagogical manifesto written by Paul Klee in 1923 entitled Ways to Study Nature. This catalogue is available in english and in spanish.

An exhibition organised and produced by the Fundació Joan Miró in collaboration with the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern.

Curated by Martina Millà, head of exhibitions at the Fundació Joan Miró, in collaboration with Fabienne Eggelhöfer, chief curator at the Zentrum Paul Klee.

This exhibition is sponsored by the Fundación BBVA.

Fundació Joan Miró

Parc de Montjuïc, 08038 Barcelona

fmirobcn.org

Patrick Faigenbaum and Joan Roca @ La Virreina Centre de la Imatge, Barcelona

Patrick Faigenbaum and Joan Roca: Barcelona, Besòs View
La Virreina Centre de la Imatge, Barcelona
Through 4 February 2018

Barcelona, Besòs View is the outcome of an unusual collaboration between a photographer and a geographer to produce a unique “urban portrait”. Undertaken in Barcelona and Paris, it is a testimony about the transformation of the eastern waterfront of the city of Barcelona in the early years of 21st century, looking from the periphery—the Besòs River—towards the centre.

The first photographs were taken in 1999, and the last in 2007. It aspired to do much more than simply expose a zone of the city or a community: it was about offering a synthetic and general representation of an urban development process as pictured in the minds of the citizens, but from a peripheral perspective, that of the neighbourhoods on the north-eastern waterfront.

According to Joan Roca, “constructing a vision that was locally rooted—but not “localist”—has been a way of contributing to a new perception of the ‘local’ and the ‘global’”.

La Virreina Centre de la Imatge
Palau de la Virreina
La Rambla, 99. 08002 Barcelona
http://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/lavirreina/en/

Paula Rego @ La Virreina Image Centre, Barcelona

Paula Rego: Family Sayings
La Virreina Image Centre, Barcelona
8 July - 8 October 2017

Heir to Goya’s expressionism and Hogarth’s mordant wit, the work of Paula Rego (Lisbon, 1935) has, over more than half a century, built an enduring fable on human nature. The artist’s paintings and drawings explore in detail how women organise spaces of historical disobedience against the cultural imaginaries imposed by the patriarchy.

The work of Paula Rego could be read as a great fable on human behaviour. Thus, the connections between dominion and dependency, anger in response to social injustices, the persecution of irreverent bodies and sexuality constrained by conservative moral standards are subjects that reappear cyclically in her paintings and imbue them with a certain existential character. In addition, Rego’s works establish an acerbic dialogue with history and the immediate present; they dispute the cultural legacy of the patriarchy; and they speak out against the aggressions perpetrated by the hierarchies of power. Over the course of her career lasting more than half a century, she has—through metaphors and broadsides, and by combining literary tales and personal experiences—created an energetic and anti-normative imaginary peopled with beings that leap from stupor to indiscipline, from coldness to violence.

Paula Rego’s artistic evolution is a veritable melting pot of disparities and reformulations. Her early pieces use an abstract language akin to that of Vieira da Silva and Dubuffet, while her later work, close to the School of London—Bacon, Freud, Kossoff, Auerbach and Andrews, among others—should be seen as heir to the expressionism of Goya and the sarcasm of Hogarth, together with Daumier and Gutiérrez Solana, and in keeping with the unsettling atmospheres of Balthus and the refined obscenity of Klossowski.

Unlike earlier artists, however, Pola Rego is not only more open to other sources outside of painting—for example, the theatre, opera, popular narratives and film—but has also engaged in a kind of far-reaching exploration of the way women have organised their spaces of historical dissidence.

Family Sayings, which takes its title from the novel of the same name by Natalia Ginzburg, is an exhibition that examines six decades of Paula Rego’s work: a period that extends from her drawings of the 1950s to a number of recent projects and which includes her series on the subject of abortion, Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, and Misericordia, by Benito Pérez Galdós, as well as the pieces inspired by the plays of Martin McDonagh.

Curator: Valentín Roma

La Virreina Centre de la Imatge
Palau de la Virreina
La Rambla, 99. 08002 Barcelona
http://ajuntament.barcelona.cat

Cubism and War: The Crystal in the Flame, Picasso Museum, Barcelona

Cubism and War: The Crystal in the Flame

Picasso Museum, Barcelona

20 October, 2016 - 29 January, 2017

Some 80 works are presented, all created in the period spanning from 1913 to 1919. The clear interconnections with the Paris avant-garde from before the war take on new relevance here, along with the consolidation of discoveries made during the war in work completed afterwards.

The feature artists in the exhibition are three foreigners based in France during the period, who due to their citizenship status were not obliged to participate militarily: Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris and Diego Rivera. Furthermore, the vital role of other artists like María Blanchard, Gino Severini and Jacques Lipchitz are explored, along with certain French artists who did not end up fighting, like Henri Laurens and Henri Matisse. These latter ended up doing some of their most experimental work during the period. The exhibition also explores the artistic response of two great cubists who survived their time in the trenches: Georges Braque and Fernand Léger.

During the war itself, from 1914 to 1918, a group of artists in the rearguard responded to the situation by channelling cubism’s burst of energy, linking the previous period of the avant-garde with the conflict itself. This was a highly positive, creative response to the urge to reaffirm a constructive path in the context of the war’s mechanization, responding to a need whose reparative urgency was deep and intense. The evolution of cubism during the Great War (thinking specifically of the movement in Paris itself under the imminent threat of chaos) towards greater control, coherency and integrity as the predominant values in cubist art, is still relevant today, a full century later.

The exhibition curator is Christopher Green, Professor of the History of Art at the Courtauld Institute, a leading art history institution affiliated with the University of London.

PICASSO MUSEUM, BARCELONA

MUSEU PICASSO, BARCELONA

Montcada, 15-23 - 08003 Barcelona

www.museupicassobcn.cat

Michael Snow @ La Virreina Image Centre, Barcelona

Michael Snow: Sequences
La Virreina Image Centre, Barcelona
9 July - 1 November 2015

La Virreina Image Centre devotes a major retrospective to the Canadian artist Michael Snow.

Michael Snow: Sequences exhibits work from throughout his career, including many pieces never seen before in Europe, and reflects the wide range of media he has worked with: music, film, video, painting, sculpture, books and installations.

In all these media he explores the expressive possibilities of sound and image and challenges the vision/representation duality. His creative approach requires the active participation of the spectator, who is invited to see the object, perceive it, become involved with it. His compositions aim to direct attention in different ways and involve the viewer in the creative process. He breaks down boundaries not only by creating crossover pieces—both objects and images—but also by appreciating the space as a visual, plastic and sound element rather than a neutral container for creations.

The exhibition includes a programme of screenings, under the title Michael Snow, Sequences. A retrospective, that features a selection of the artist’s films. His film Wavelength, a landmark of avant-garde filmmaking eager to reflect on its own language, will be shown in the exhibition rooms of La Virreina Image Centre (screenings: 12.30 pm and 6 pm). In keeping with the artist's criteria, the rest of the programme will be screened at the Filmoteca de Catalunya.

Curator: Gloria Moure

MICHAEL SNOW: BIOGRAPHY

Michael Snow was born in 1928 in Toronto, where he currently lives. As a musician, he has played the piano and other instruments both solo and with several ensembles (most frequently with the CCMC of Toronto) in Canada, the United States, Europe and Japan. He has also released a number of recordings. His work as a filmmaker has been screened at festivals worldwide and can be found in several film archives, including the Anthology Film Archives (New York), the Royal Belgian Film Archives (Brussels) and the Austrian Film Museum (Vienna), among others. In 1967 his film Wavelength won the Grand Prize at Exprmntl Experimental Film Festival in Knokke (Belgium), and in 1982 So Is This won a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award.

He is also a painter and sculptor, although since 1962 much of his work has been photography based or holographic. His work in all these media is represented in private and public collections worldwide, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), MoMA (New York), Museum Ludwig (Cologne and Vienna), the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), and the Musée des Beaux-Arts and Musée d’art contemporain (Montreal).

He has created video, film and sound installations, designed books such as Michael Snow / A Survey (1970) and Cover to Cover (1975) and carried out several public sculpture commissions, including Flight Stop at the Eaton Centre and The Audience at Skydome, both in Toronto.

He has had retrospective shows at the Hara Museum of Tokyo (1988), the Cinémathèque Française of Paris (1999), the Anthology Film Archives (New York) and the Institut Lumière (Lyon). In 1994 The Power Plant and the Art Gallery of Ontario, both in Toronto, put on simultaneous shows of his work in all media. Additional retrospective exhibitions have been mounted at the Vancouver Art Gallery (1967 and 1979) and the Musée d’art contemporain (Montreal, 1995), as well as at the Art Gallery of Ontario (Objects of Vision, Toronto, 2012) and at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Michael Snow: Photo-Centric, 2014).

He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1982 and a Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres in 1995 (France). In 2004 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Paris.

La Virreina Centre de la Imatge
Palau de la Virreina
La Rambla, 99. 08002 Barcelona
http://ajuntament.barcelona.cat

Picasso/Dali, Dali/Picasso, Picasso Museum, Barcelona

Picasso/Dalí, Dalí/Picasso

Picasso Museum, Barcelona

20 March - 28 June 2015

The exhibition examines, for the first time, the relationship between two key figures of twentieth-century art. It challenges conventional historical views of the two artists as isolated, mythical and politically opposed figures, who developed their styles independently. The exhibition contains works by Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí (paintings, engravings and sculptures) from over 25 museums of art and private collections from around the world, many of which are only rarely lent out.

There was considerable contact between the two. Picasso supported Dalí during the young artist’s early career and in the 1930s helped organise his trip to America. After the Civil War, Dalí spoke and wrote about Picasso, describing his own works as a homage to him.

Dalí felt great admiration for Picasso but their relationship also involved an element of rivalry. There were a number of critical moments in its development. On his first trip to Paris in spring 1926, Dalí visited Picasso’s studio and viewed the works he was preparing for his next exhibition. On his return, Dalí began work on a major series of paintings that would reflect the impact this artistic encounter had on him.

In 1929 both Dalí and Picasso were exploring the creative and disturbing power of the dreamlike images of surrealism in their works. Between 1930 and 1934 their relationship was tied up with the surrealist movement.

The horrors of the Civil War moved both artists to produce powerful works reflecting theanguish of the human  condition. In the 1950s and afterwards the work of both artists began to look to the great art of the past, focusing on its most distinguished exponents, Velázquez in particular.

The consideration of these key points will follow a prologue based on Dalí’s perception of Picasso via his presence in art exhibitions and art criticism in Barcelona. The historical periods we have referred to will determine the structure of the exhibition, offering perspectives from which we can analyse various aspects of the work of these two twentieth-century masters.

Curated by: Juan José Lahuerta (until 2013) and William Jeffett

Organisation and production: Museu Picasso and Dalí Museum, Saint Petersburg, Florida

With the support of the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, Figueres

PICASSO MUSEUM, BARCELONA

MUSEU PICASSO, BARCELONA

Montcada, 15-23 - 08003 Barcelona

www.museupicassobcn.cat

Ai Weiwei at La Virreina Image Centre, Barcelona

Ai Weiwei: On the Table
La Virreina Image Centre, Barcelona
5 November 2014 - 1 February 2015

On the Table. Ai Weiwei offers a comprehensive view of the artist's life and work through the display of a variety of artworks and materials, set up to match the scale of La Virreina Image Centre.

The exhibition aims to give an idea of the scope of Ai Weiwei's artistic career, from his beginnings in 1980s New York to his present-day status as the best-known and most influential Chinese artist in the world. Work by this media-savvy activist calling for greater freedom in China can now be found in leading contemporary art museums and collections worldwide.

Ai Weiwei makes use of a number of artistic practices, including photography and documentary film, sculpture, design and architecture, in operations that transcend formats and disciplines to create images that infiltrate and propagate through social networks and popular culture. In addition to several key pieces for appreciating this artist’s work, the show at La Virreina Image Centre also presents unseen work, new productions and installations by Ai Weiwei specially designed for this exhibition.

Curator: Rosa Pera

AI WEIWEI

Ai Weiwei is well known for his longstanding confrontation with the Chinese communist government and for his large-scale installations in leading contemporary art museums and events worldwide. He works on a global scale with any format and medium that comes to hand—or simply invents new ones.

A staunch defender in the struggle for freedom, he has used his work as a potent mouthpiece for speaking out against the unseen repression and censorship as China opens up to capitalist markets. As an artist, he strives tirelessly to raise critical awareness in society.

On the Table. Ai Weiwei aims to give a comprehensive overview of his work by exploring some of his best-known pieces alongside previously unseen work. Ai Weiwei makes use of a wide range of techniques—including photography, architecture, video, sculpture, graphic design, installations, objects and music videos, among others—but central to all his work is the role of the image as a construction and vehicle for reality. He then uses this to explore the tensions between truth and lies, evidence and ambiguity, control and freedom, politics, art, power and society.

Ai Weiwei sees art as a device for striking up dialogues within various contexts, comparing and contrasting different traditions and visions, negotiating, dissecting, projecting and sharing: like a table on which we can lay out our credentials and show our cards, discovering what is underneath and, if necessary, turning the tables.

Rosa Pera

La Virreina Image Centre and La Fábrica have prepared a catalogue to accompany the exhibition On the Table. Ai Weiwei. It offers an insightful rereading of the artist’s work and runs to 180 pages, including over 240 pictures of 42 pieces. The idea, design, editing and sequence of images were all personally overseen by Ai Weiwei himself. The catalogue also includes an interview with the artist in his studio in Beijing by Llucià Homs, director of La Virreina Image Centre, and an essay by Rosa Pera, curator of the show, entitled Image and Power in Three Movements and a Device.

La Virreina Centre de la Imatge
Palau de la Virreina
La Rambla, 99. 08002 Barcelona
http://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/lavirreina/en/

Le Corbusier : Barcelona & Madrid exhibition

Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes 

CaixaForum Barcelona, Through 11 May 2014 

CaixaForum Madrid, June-October 2014

Architect, city planner, painter, interior designer, writer, editor, photographer and amateur film-maker. Le Corbusier was a multidisciplinary artist who amazed the world with his creative power and unconventional ideas. Through 215 objects illustrating the full dimensions of his creative processes, the exhibition Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes explores the many facets of an artist regarded today as a key figure in 20th-century architecture. The result is a truly extraordinary experience, the most complete exhibition devoted to the architect in Spain in the last twenty-five years. This comprehensive retrospective traces Le Corbusier’s life and work over a sixty-year career in which he constantly observed, imagined and created landscapes: architectural landscapes, domestic landscapes and found object landscapes. Organised by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) of New York and featuring many pieces loaned by the Fondation Le Corbusier in Paris, the exhibition includes not only models, paintings, plans and photographs, but also four recreations of rooms, complete with their original furniture. The show also focuses on Le Corbusier’s links to the city of Barcelona, as well as featuring several panoramic photographs taken by Richard Pare of some of the architect’s most outstanding projects. 

The most comprehensive retrospective that MoMA has ever devoted to the architect, this show was visited by more than 400,000 people from June to September last year. Following this enormous public success, the exhibition is now on view in Spain where it opened, firstly, at CaixaForum Barcelona and subsequently, from June to October 2014, at the centre’s Madrid counterpart. 

LE CORBUSIER

Courtesy CaixaForum Barcelona

A key figure in 20th-century architecture, Le Corbusier was a pioneer in efforts to improve the homes of the lower classes, proposing new forms of efficient architecture in densely-populated cities. He was also a multidisciplinary artist, for he also practised painting and photography and successfully fused art with architecture.

Le Corbusier (real name Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) was born in the small industrial town of La Chaux-de-Fonds, in the Jura Mountains in Switzerland.In 1917, he established his studio in Paris, from where he worked practically all over the world and, over a professional career spanning six decades, directly or indirectly changed the face of many cities, from South America to India. He became renowned for his poetic and often provocative interpretations of technologies and values in the new machine age, working on some 400 architectural projects and designing 75 buildings in a dozen countries. He also published nearly 40 books and wrote hundreds of articles, including some of the most influential texts in modern culture.

Le Corbusier’s concept of architecture was deeply rooted in nature and the landscape, from the carefully framed view from an open floor plan and the dialogue between growing cities and their geographic territory to the natural panorama in its broadest sense. As the artist he was, he drew and painted almost daily, capturing in his work the spatial connections between nature and buildings in the Swiss mountains, on the Mediterranean coast, in Italy, in the south of France and on the great plains of northern India. For Le Corbusier, the emerging metropolis was also a landscape, one in which a recently reorganised domestic interior could establish relations with a broader orbit of natural and human forces. 

LE CORBUSIER

Courtesy CaixaForum Barcelona

Far from embodying a universal or international architecture, distanced from place, Le Corbusier’s work was rooted in its surroundings, even though the architect sought transformation in order to accommodate new lifestyles in a world characterised by technological change. 

Visitors to this major exhibition will see works ranging from his early years as an artist in the Jura Mountains (Switzerland) to his final days on the Côte d’Azure, passing through Istanbul, Athens, Rome, Paris, Geneva, Moscow, Barcelona, New York and India. All these projects reveal the way in which the architect observed and imagined landscapes throughout his career, using all the artistic media and techniques available to him. The exhibition focuses on four types of landscape: the landscape of found objects; the domestic landscape; the architectural landscape of the modern city; and the landscapes he dreamed for large territories that he was commissioned to plan.

Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes is divided into five sections and features several models, as well as paintings, plans, photographs and documents. Moreover, four interiors created by Le Corbusier have been reconstructed and are displayed with their original furniture. These are: the Maison Blanche; a pavilion for the Villa Church in Ville-d’Avray; the unité d’habitation housing unit in Marseilles; and the cabin in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin where Le Corbusier spent the final days of his life. 

The show forms part of the firmly consolidated exhibition programme that ”la Caixa” Foundation devotes to architecture. This programme goes beyond the focus on particular styles and historic periods to provide visitors with an overview that enhances their understanding of the role that architecture plays in the world around us. Particularly outstanding amongst the shows organised so far are those devoted to such great masters as Mies van der Rohe, Andrea Palladio and Richard Rogers, and recent projects like Building the Revolution: Art and Architecture in Russia 1915-1935 and Towers and Skyscrapers: fromBabel to Dubai.

Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes. Organised by: The Museum of Modern Art of New York (MoMA), in cooperation with the Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris. Produced by: ”la Caixa” Foundation. Curated by: Jean-Louis Cohen, Sheldon H. Solow Professor in the History of Architecture, Institute of Fine Arts, University of New York, and Barry Bergdoll, Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. Place: CaixaForum Barcelona (Av. de Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia, 6-8). Dates: from 29 January to 11 May 2014. CaixaForum Madrid. Dates: June to October 2014.

Photo Exhibition: Danny Lyon, Foto Colectania Foundation, Barcelona

Danny Lyon 
Foto Colectania Foundation, Barcelona 
Through April 17, 2014

The Foto Colectania Foundation, Barcelona, exhibits three iconic series of the photographer DANNY LYON

Danny Lyon is considered one of the most influential and original documentary photographers of the 20th century. His work highlights for the special involvement he demonstrated with the communities he photographed in the United States. With works from the Martin Z. Margulies Collection, the Foto Colectania Foundation exhibits in Barcelona three of his most iconic series, "Conversations with the Dead" (1971) where he reveals the situation of Texas state prisons in the late sixties, "The Bikeriders" (1967), showing the lives of the American Midwest bikers, and "Uptown" (1965), which reflects the life of the immigrant neighborhood in northern Chicago. This exhibition dedicated to Danny Lyon is presented in two consecutive shows at Foto Colectania: "Conversations with the Dead" from the 18th October to the 18th January 2014, and "The Bikeriders" and "Uptown" from the 23th January to the 17th April 2014.

Danny Lyon is one of the main promoters of the "New Journalism" and he is also one of the representatives of the "concerned photographers". As it happens with Robert Frank and William Klein, his series and books, beyond seeking only political commitment, show that the author is more important than the subject. Furthermore, in the case of Danny Lyon the photographic practice as a personal learning process and the desire to live the experiences outside the official story are characteristics reflected in all his work.

Danny Lyon: Conversations with the Dead

through January 18, 2014

DANNY LYON

USA. Huntsville, Texas. 1968. 

Ferguson, a prison farm for young men ages seventeen to twenty one.

© Danny Lyon / Magnum Photos, courtesy Edwyn Houk Gallery, New York

This series composed of 76 photographs illustrates a fourteen month period between 1967 and 1968 in which Danny Lyon photographed six prisons in the state of Texas. The photographer wanted to transmit by his snapshots that the penal system of this state is a symbol for incarceration globally: “I tried with whatever power I had to make a picture of imprisonment as distressing as I knew it to be in reality”.

DANNY LYON

USA. Huntsville, Texas. 1968. 

The Walls is a walled penitentiary, it is the oldest unit of the system and is located near the center of the town of Huntsville. Cell block table. 

© Danny Lyon / Magnum Photos, courtesy Edwyn Houk Gallery, New York

The project, which was done with the full cooperation of the Texas Department of Corrections and was published in 1971, reveals a new and distinctive approach as the images are interspersed with texts from various sources, letters, works by the convicts and even fiction. 

Danny Lyon: The Bikeriders / Uptown 

from January 23 through April 17, 2014

DANNY LYON

USA. Louisville, Kentucky. 1966. 

Crossing the Ohio.

© Danny Lyon / Magnum Photos, courtesy Edwyn Houk Gallery, New York

From January on, Foto Colectania will exhibit another two very emblematic portfolios by Danny Lyon:

The series "The Bikeriders" (whose book was published in 1967), is based on the life of the American midwest bikers from 1963 to 1967. In these four years, Danny Lyon went beyond mere documentation and traveled the roads as a member of the motorcycle club known as the Chicago Outlaws, sharing their lifestyle. The series, which got great popularity in the 60s and 70s, is "an attempt to record and glorify the life of the American bikerider", according to the author. As he says, "(the bikeriders) is the personal record, dealing mostly with bikeriders whom I know and care for. If anything has guided this work beyond the facts of the worlds presented it is what I have come to believe is the spirit of the bikeriders: the spirit of the hand that twists open the throttle on the crackling engines of big bikes and rides them on racetracks or through traffic or, on occasion, into oblivion.” 

DANNY LYON

USA. Chicago. 1965. 

Uptown. Three young men.

© Danny Lyon / Magnum Photos, courtesy Edwyn Houk Gallery, New York

The strength transmitted by Danny Lyon's photographs already exists in his first series as the one made in Chicago’s neighborhood called Uptown, which gives its name to the series "Uptown" (1965). In the mid-60s Lyon portrayed recent immigrants from the Appalachia and the southern America. The photographer describes that his intention was to give visibility to people who never would have it if it was not for his images. In the author's words: “To freeze from time some moments, some gestures, a face, to be looked upon forever or a brief while by those who will never see it if it is not shown. The pictures are not made to disturb people’s consciences but rather to disturb their consciousness. The pictures do not ask you to “help” these people, but something much more difficult; to be briefly and intensely aware of their existence, an existence as real and significant as your own”. 

Fundació Foto Colectania
Julián Romea, 6 - 08017 Barcelona, Spain
www.colectania.es

This Is Not a Love Song at La Virreina Image Centre, Barcelona

This Is Not a Love Song
La Virreina Image Centre, Barcelona
22 May - 13 October 2013

La Virreina Image Centre presents This Is Not a Love Song, an exhibition that sets out to trace the genealogy of the relations between pop music and video-creation from the 1960s to today, with the emphasis on those moments in which there was feedback between the two manifestations as they explored the field of experiment, utopia and political incorrectness.

Since the 1960s, various generations of avant-garde artists have integrated into their production processes elements that are related with the attitudes and imaginaries of pop music. Artists of the calibre of Andy Warhol, Vito Acconci, Dan Graham, Nam June Paik, Joseph Beuys, John Baldessari, Rodney Graham, Tony Oursler, Christian Marclay, Mike Kelley, Douglas Gordon, Jeremy Deller or Damien Hirst, and many more, down to today, have approached this genre in some of their most outstanding works, sometimes even collaborating with different rock bands or recording their own albums. Similarly, leading musicians such as John Lennon, David Bowie, Pete Townshend, Syd Barret, Brian Eno, Alan Vega, David Byrne, Laurie Anderson and members of essential bands of the last two decades, like Sonic Youth, REM, Blur, or Franz Ferdinand all trained at art school before becoming professional musicians.

From this approach and bearing in mind that the origins of video-art run almost parallel to those of pop music, the project is divided into two sections:

1- Pop and video-creation. Shared genealogies

This section includes more than 30 significant works in the history of video art and experimental film from the 1960s to 2013 that are formally and conceptually related to the iconographies of pop and rock, with works by Andy Warhol, Nam June Paik, Yayoi Kusama. Dan Graham, Tony Oursler, Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Christian Marclay, Douglas Gordon, Candice Breitz, Jeremy Deller, Mark Leckey, Jon Mikel Euba, Largen & Bread and others.

2- Music for your eyes. Visual arts and the aesthetics of the videoclip

This section is a journey through the history of the musical videoclip to review the careers of the most important authors of the last 40 years and their connections with contemporary visual arts and cinema and includes a programme of music videos by artists like Andy Warhol, Tony Oursler, Judith Barry, Robert Longo, Joan Morey, Damien Hirst, Ana Laura Aláez, Carles Congost, Pipilotti Rist, Dara Birnbaum, Joseph Beuys, Adel Abidin, Hugo Alonso, Charles Atlas, Marc Bijl, Olaf Breuning, Charley Case, Cheryl Donegan, Jorge Galindo i Santiago Sierra, Jesús Hernández, Bjørn Melhus, César Pesquera, John Sanborn, Kit Fitzgerald (Antarctica), etc.

Curator: F. Javier Panera

 This is Not a Love Song: Interfaces between Visual Arts and Pop Music

Exhibition Catalogue

Exhibition co-produced by Screen Projects / La Virreina Centre de la Imatge / Primavera Sound

La Virreina Centre de la Imatge
Palau de la Virreina
La Rambla, 99 - 08002 Barcelona
http://lavirreina.bcn.cat/