BARCELONA.- With this exhibition of the
MACBA Collection the Museum enters its third decade. In the last twenty years we have made thirty presentations under various titles. Currently holding 5,452 works, our public collection is among the most important to feature contemporary art in southern Europe and is able to function as a network reflecting multiple discourses. This time, the exhibition MACBA Collection 31 offers some artistic itineraries built around three main areas: experience, time and conflict. Based on these concepts, the works in the exhibition propose itineraries that question various forms of conflict in today’s world, the relation of art with itself, the sensory experimentation of the viewer, corporeality and the experience of time, among others. The exhibition includes 85 works by 50 artists of various generations from around the world, representing a chronological period of over five decades, from 1959 to 2014.
MACBA Collection 31
Experience: ‘...make something which experiences, reacts to its environment, changes, is nonstable...’ proclaims Hans Haacke. He takes the General System Theory by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, which defines living beings as open systems, as the basis for Condensation Cube (1965). This work, included in the exhibition, involves viewers in their physical condition, since their presence alters the temperature differential between the inside and outside of a cube, thus modifying the drops of water that form on the interior walls.
Experimenting with the natural elements and processes, sensory perception and the will to render visible physical changes and phenomena that normally go unnoticed by the human eye have often been the focus of attention in art, as can be seen in this section. The great multisensory installation by Cildo Meireles, exhibited at the Museum for the first time, opens the exhibition. Entrevendo (1970/1994), invites the viewer to live a synesthetic experience by entering a tubular, funnel-shaped structure in which hot air circulates with two ice cubes in the mouth. Accompanying the work in this experiential journey are Àngels Ribé’s interventions, Muntadas’s early works and the Conceptual art of Piero Manzoni and Art & Language, among others.
Time: ‘I do not work with figures, but with ideas and forms. Together with the participants I transform a space and time. [...] Every performance is unique’, says Joan Jonas. Sensory experimentation implies working with the body in a form of art based on action and movement, with time as a decisive factor. Performance became a testing ground for artists such as Jordi Benito, Fina Miralles, Francesc Abad, Carles Pujol, Esther Ferrer and Àngels Ribé, who documented their actions photographically. Joan Jonas was one of the first to film her performances, followed by Vito Acconci, Dan Graham and Gordon Matta-Clark. A few years later, Babette Mangolte incorporated movement as prime artistic material, while the installations of David Lamelas and Hans-Peter Feldmann, and the explorations of Francis Alÿs, Frederic Amat and Martí Anson used time as a field of research.
Conflict: ‘The state’s monopoly on violence is not in decline, it is simply changing its focus’, are the emphatic words of Andreas Siekmann. This last section includes some of the realities afflicting today’s world such as conflict, borders and migration. In the tower of the Meier building, the installation If You See Something... by Krzysztof Wodiczko offers a global picture of conflict through damning accounts of abuses of power. While Carlos Garaicoa, Marcel Broodthaers, Étienne Chambaud and Pere Noguera investigate the idea of walls and maps, Pedro G. Romero, León Ferrari and Alice Creischer recover forms of recent historical violence. Harun Farocki, in his film trilogy, highlights the irruption of military technology into civilian life. In a more physical manner, Mircea Cantor evokes the situation of the displaced, while Allan Sekula portrays the human community that, for a few days, occupied the streets of Seattle in a demonstration against World Trade Organization. Each raises the urgent need to rethink the idea of conflict.
Art that deals with abuses of power in every social structure and the multiple forms of violence is very evident in this exhibition. Contemporary forms of labour and workers’ exploitation are the focus of attention for artists such as Eulàlia Grau, Joaquim Jordà, Octavi Comeron, Adrian Melis and the collectives Grup de Treball and Agustín Parejo School. Social violence forms the background of Aníbal Lopez’s work, while the effects in the public space of the power relations that arose in the 1990s are the subject of Andreas Siekmann’s installation, which closes this part of the exhibition.
MACBA Collection 31 aims to show that we are facing a global world that perpetuates forms of labour associated with inequality and geopolitical conflict. A world challenged by an artistic practice that no longer understands the position of art if not as a critical agent. With this exhibition we set out to emphasise the ability of art to delve into some of the cracks upon which the story of the present is built.
The artists in the exhibition are: Francesc Abad, Vito Acconci, Agustín Parejo School, Francis Alÿs, Frederic Amat, Martí Anson, Art & Language, ASPEN, Jordi Benito, Marcel Broodthaers, Mircea Cantor, Étienne Chambaud, Octavi Comeron, Alice Creischer, Harun Farocki, Hans-Peter Feldmann, León Ferrari, Esther Ferrer, Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Carlos Garaicoa, Luís Gordillo, Dan Graham, Eulàlia Grau, Grup de Treball, Hans Haacke, Joan Jonas, Joaquim Jordà, David Lamelas, Aníbal López, Babette Mangolte, Piero Manzoni, Gordon Matta-Clark, Cildo Meireles, Adrián Melis, Mario Merz, Fina Miralles, Muntadas, Pere Noguera, Carles Pujol, Àngels Ribé, Pedro G. Romero, Allan Sekula, Andreas Siekmann, Takis, Francesc Torres, Lawrence Weiner and Krzysztof Wodiczko.
