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Modern and present - Turn of the Century in the Macba Collection

This new MACBA exhibition establishes the thesis that the emergence of the modern aesthetic in a cultural context starts on the 1950's, and not in the first half of the twentieth century. From this time and until the 1980's, the practice of art and blossoming of new material forms should be considered essentially related with architecture and design.

The MACBA Collection, which includes works that are owned by various public and private agencies Catalan, Spanish and European, is the backbone of the MACBA and works as a table of genetic code and testing for the Museum project. The concept is based on a collection that intends to expand public services and it is structured according to the needs of narrative projects. It is not only referred to an inert material wealth, but is identified with the desire to be an engine of ideas.

From a qualitative standpoint, the Collection is not an exhaustive finished background on a certain period of recent history, but a living organism that feeds on the discussions and questions generated by this presentation. From present to past, artists from different generations and backgrounds are gathered here in themed environments that break the linearity of chronological sequence.

The MACBA wants to emphasize on how a new aesthetic was developed from various creative fields in which the first signs of architectural rationalism coexisted with the rise of an informalist painting that, after neglecting the influence of surrealism, began a long journey of consideration and resurrected in the 1980's. In parallel, the neorealist photography provided a counterpoint to the urban and social landscapes in relation to the pictorial space. The late rationalism in architecture became distant from its founding precepts, and its expression was critical with the concept “Tabula rasa” that proposed to build a new world without relation with tradition. The Team 10, an international group of architects that included José Antonio Coderch, developed this critique of orthodox modernism and contributed to "regionalize" architectural concepts where also can be found traces of Italian theorists Sartoris, Ponti and Zevi, which extended to the practice of design.

Antoni Bonet was the architect chosen by the family Gomis-Bertrand to build their house on a farm land known as La Ricarda, close to Barcelona. The house became not only an excellent example of modern domestic architecture in the country, but also a real center of far-reaching cultural radiation of great importance, and was visited by John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Josep Maria Mestres Quadreny, Joan Brossa, Anna M. Ricci, Joan Prats, Moses Villèlia and many others. The owner, Ricard Gomis, along with Joan Prats, was a founder member of Club 49, an entity born in Barcelona in 1949. Together with the Association of Current Artists (AAA), the Club 49 played an important role early in the first but ephemeral Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona.

The exhibition includes works by Thomas Bayrle, Bestué-Vives, Richard Hamilton, Marcel Broodthaers, Nigel Henderson, Eduardo Paolozzi, Antoni and Joan Pedragosa and also an important collection of works on paper by Friedrich Kiesler, one of the fathers of experimental design. Also new works from Marcel Broodthaers, Öyvind Fahlström and Gego are present in the exhibition.

The relationship between object, image, speech and vision form a permanent leitmotiv in this exhibition that also allows contrasting works of artists of different generations and backgrounds.
This exhibition curated by Bartomeu Marí and Antonia Maria Perelló, and organized and produced by: Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), doubles the usual exhibition surface used will be opened till September 4 at the MACBA Museum at the Plaça dels Angels.