What should the museum provide: comfort or contemplation? Individual freedom or public decorum? Education or entertainment? These are the questions that Joel Sanders and Diana Fuss pose in the article “Notes from the Museum Bench“. In the midst of the debate on the functions of the museum, redefined at the last ICOM general assembly in…
Read more
Joan Casellas Rrose Sélavy in the Underwater Pyrenees is a performance-talk that was presented “stereoscopically” at the MNAC and in issue number 500 of the magazine L’AVENÇ on 26 March 2023 with an almost magical synchrony. It is a hybrid work that brings together, in a single “communicative bundle”, photography, performance, installation and spoken and…
Read more
Montse Badia Geysers at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya is a curatorial project that brings together four artistic proposals resulting from a research process at this museum. Ro Caminal and Cristina Lucas will present the results of this research in 2022 and Raquel Friera and Núria Güell will do so in the course of 2023. Performative conference…
Read more
Montse Frisach In recent years, archives have taken on a predominant role in contemporary artistic practices. Many artists often work with archive materials or even with the idea of the archive as the central argument of their works. Furthermore, museums and artistic institutions have also become aware that their archives should not just be simple…
Read more
Raúl Gimeno and Sandra Herrera Illustration by Aubrey Beardsley in Salomé: a tragedy in one act (1894). Source: Joaquim Folch i Torres Library Ah! I have kissed thy mouth, Iokanaan. I have kissed thy mouth. There was a bitter taste on thy lips Oscar Wilde Within the collection of the Joaquim Folch i Torres Library…
Read more
The restoration that sheds light on a work affected by the passage of time. Front and back of the Christ and the cross prior to restoration. Photograph by Jordi Calveras. In the post published on 10 June last year reference was made to the many earlier restorations prior to the admission of the Christ and…
Read more
Eduard Vallès 18 November 1939. Camp de la Bota, Barcelona At a quarter to six in the morning Lluís Serra Giribert (Manresa, 1903 – Barcelona, 1939) was executed by firing squad at Camp de la Bota. He was 36. Born in Manresa, he was adopted by a well-to-do family in Horta de Sant Joan (Terra…
Read more
Ro Caminal In the Presence of the Lord, Francesc Masriera, 1891 Looking necessarily means making use of our cultural, socioeconomic and personal heritage to see. The look acts as a technology that disciplines us when interpreting what we see. The spectator, in the first instance, cannot look stripped of that burden that conditions what they…
Read more
Now, that the exhibition of the frescoes of the Herrera Chapel by Annibale Carracci has just finished, we take the opportunity to share some of the experiences and information, the result of observing samples of these paintings under the microscope. Usually, the magnification of the combinations of pigment particles in works of art provide images…
Read more
Dr. Xavier Sierra i Valentí This text is an extract from the article «The altarpiece of Saint Anthony the Abbot, ergotism and the Antonians» that Xavier Serra i Valentí published in Gimbernat: Revista d’Història de la Medicina i de les Ciències de la Salut, 2021, vol. 75, p. 169-180. Altarpiece of Saint Anthony the Abbot,…
Read more
