The Púbol Castle, located near the Costa Brava, reopened its doors on March 15th after being closed for a year. The house of Salvador Dalí in Cadaqués, North of the Costa Brava, re-opened on February 12th, after its usual winter break.
‘The Clothed Maja’, ‘the Quitasol’, ‘the Puppet’ or the ‘Witches Flight’ are some of the canvases included in the largest retrospective exhibition on Goya organised in Barcelona in the last 35 years. Held at the Catalan capital’s CaixaForum, the exhibition ‘Goya. Lights and Shadows’ is organised by the social work foundation of the Catalan bank La Caixa and the Prado Museum. 96 pieces of the Aragon master’s work, including oil paintings, drawings and picture cards, will be on display for free until May 24th.
Every year, two temporary exhibitions from the Thyssen collection will be organised in the Catalan coastal town of Sant Feliu de Guíxols, in the Costa Brava, until the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Center for Catalan Painting is built. The first exhibition will be at the Abbot’s Palace, where 60 works will be exhibited in May, combining a selection of Catalan painters and international artists from the 19th and 20th century.
This is the first exhibition unveiled by the new Museum’s director Bernardo Laniado-Romero. ‘A collage before collage’ shows Picasso’s representations in this technique that he officially invented in 1912. It runs from March 6th until June 3rd.
MNAC’s new Director and its new President presented their plan to foster the identity and singularity of a museum known for hosting, among others, the most important collections of Romanesque art in the world. More space, more contemporary artwork and more visitors are the three keywords that will guide the museum’s new stage. Furthermore, the MNAC wants to vindicate its position as Catalonia’s top museum and within the museum’s first division at international level.
‘Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape’ was on show at London’s Tate Modern until September, being one of the must-see exhibitions of the year. Now it arrives at the Fundació Miró in Barcelona. It is the most complete exhibition on one of the most universal Catalan artists of all time, with 170 works on display from public and private collections from all over the world. The exhibition has the double objective of rediscovering Miró’s work and showing his commitment in the era he lived in. Another exhibition on Miró’s posters will run in parallel, focussing on his involvement in Catalan cultural, political and civic initiatives.
The photography exhibition shows the pictures that were found in the so-called ‘Mexican suitcase’, in which original films by Capa, Taro and Seymour had been kept for decades. The exhibition displays not only pictures from the Spanish Civil War, but also the negatives and the manner in which photographers worked. Since the suitcase kept the original films, the contact sheets can be displayed and thus the photos are shown in the order they were taken.
The European Museum of Art houses 20th and 21st Century figurative paintings and sculptures from all over the world. It is located in Barcelona’s Palau Gomis, next to the Picasso Museum. The MEAM belongs to a private institution and aims at becoming a reference within European figurative art’s landscape.
Catalonia’s National Museum of Art (MNAC) hosts the most important collection of Romanesque art in the world. It displays works from the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, and some mural painting ensembles that are unique. After half a year of intense renovation, the Romanesque collection is on show again, with a new narrative.
The new art museum will focus on Catalan painting and will display parts of the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection. The city council approved the excutive project to build the Thyssen Museum. The project will cost 15 million euros (3 less than initially planned) and will restore an old cork factory.
The surrealist Catalan painter Joan Miró will have a museum in the country house he spent parts of his childhood and youth, in Mont-Roig del Camp, next to Tarragona. The family, experts and Barcelona’s Miró Foundation will decide on the exact contents, which will be displayed via permanent and temporary exhibitions.
The MACBA is one of the main European centres for having the work of Matta-Clark. The MACBA Foundation has now received a unique and new collection of Matta-Clark’s work. In 2012, it will hold a temporary exhibition with the work of the American artist, famous for his deconstruction pieces and ‘building cuts’ in the 1970s.
Barcelona’s Picasso Museum and the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres were the top visited museums last year in Catalonia. The Sagrada Família received more than 2.3 million visitors.
An exhibition on the rise and fall of the Catalan industrial and financial bourgeoisie in the 19th century titled ‘Gold Fever’ inaugurates the new CaixaForum in Girona. After the merger with La Caixa, the cultural centre of the former savings bank Caixa Girona has been transformed into the new CaixaForum.
A special exhibition is showing Pablo Picasso’s art with lithography, a printmaking technique he explored. Picasso made a total of 450 pieces using this craft, which he revolutionised. The museum in Barcelona already owns 300 of them.