What's Showing in Art: Barcelona
The best exhibit I've seen in a while, anywhere, was at the Centre de Cultura Contemporanea de Barcelona. I happened upon this museum not really by design, but more so to maximize the value of the combination "Articket" I bought earlier in the day at Fundacio Joan Miro. The Museu Picasso turned out to be free Sunday afternoons, so I needed another venue to go to in order to feel like I was getting my money's worth.
Well CCCB turned out to be free today as well! But what luck to come across it. The venue hosts films and musical performances, but what I saw were two excellent exhibits. The first, "The Jazz Century," started out looking like a history of Jazz exhibit, but ended up involving all forms of art like painting and graphic design that intersected with Jazz. (On view through October 18) The second exhibit, "Quinquis, Gangs of the 80s" was a knockout. It also started out like it was going to be a review of a genre of Spanish films of the 80s that depicted the life of juvenile delinquents, but turned out to be an investigation into the causes of this generation of delinquents (relocation of slums to communities of modern high rises, which turned out to lack education, transportation, and sanitary systems), and also an exploration into youth culture in general in the 80s. Part film history, part pop culture review, part sociology, this was a thoroughly satisfying show (On view through September 6)
Earlier in the day, I paid a visit to Fundacio Joan Miro. For some reason I underestimated the popularity of Miro (he is one of my favorite artists but I didn't think he was for many others), so I was surprised when the wait to get in was like half an hour. It's undergoing renovations so the permanent collection was just about the only thing on view. I love Miro but the museum fell short in terms of tracing the artist's development and putting it in context.
Across from Museu Picasso (the best part was seeing all of the studies Picasso did for Las Meninas), there was Disseny Hub Barcelona, a design museum. I was pretty excited to see it, especially because its exhibition was about souvenirs. But I felt like it included too many objects separated into too many themes that it eventually included everything under the sun. The same critique I have of Paola Antonelli-curated exhibits at MoMA. Maybe it's a challenge for design curators everywhere, but I hope some will be able to rise to the challenge of curating. (On view through December 13)
