Press Release
The relationship between the arts and cinema, the documentary image and
contemporary art will all be present on the 2016-2017 programme, which
includes nine exhibitions
Medieval art from the British Museum, grand
masters from the Thyssen Museum and De
Chirico, among the star attractions at
CaixaForum Barcelona over the new season
•
”la Caixa” Foundation presents the programme for the 2016-2017
season at its cultural centre in Barcelona, a programme marked by
quality and variety, offering something for all audiences.
•
In 2015, the 48 exhibitions presented at the seven CaixaForum
centres received more than 2,1 million visitors. CaixaForum
Barcelona hosted more than 2,400 activities last year, attracting more
than 775,000 visitors.
•
As a result of the partnership established with the British Museum in
2015, we will be able to see The Pillars of Europe. Based on objects
from the British centre’s collections, this ambitious show devoted to
the Middle Ages will focus on some of the key events, personalities
and aspects that helped to form Europe.
•
Coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the opening of the ThyssenBornemisza Museum, CaixaForum Barcelona will present an
exceptional selection of works from the Madrid gallery’s collections,
including such names as Raphael, Rubens, Rembrandt, Cézanne,
Picasso, Chagall and Hopper.
•
Another in-house production, in this case prepared in cooperation
with La Cinémathèque Française, will explore the influence that the
cinema has exercised on fine art —and vice versa— since the
seventh art first emerged 120 years ago.
2
Press Release
•
The season will close with a major retrospective devoted to the
father of “metaphysical painting”: Giorgio de Chirico. This will be
the first exhibition presented in our country featuring works from
the Fondazione Giorgio e Isa de Chirico and the Galleria Nazionale
d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome.
•
Documentary photography will take centre stage in an exhibition
celebrating the twentieth edition of the FotoPres competition and a
show devoted to the latest project by Cristina García Rodero, who
was commissioned by the Foundation to travel to India to document
the role of women in rural communities in Anantapur district.
•
As regards more contemporary art, two shows will be organised
around recent acquisitions of works by the artists Nicolás Paris and
Tony Oursler.
•
The season will also focus on a project in which art plays a vital role
as a tool for social advancement. Balsam and Fugue suggests a
dialogue between works from the ”la Caixa” Collection and art
produced by inmates at prisons in Catalonia.
Barcelona, 6 September 2016. This morning, Elisa Durán, assistant general
manager of ”la Caixa” Banking Foundation, Ignasi Miró, director of culture of
”la Caixa” Banking Foundation, and Valentí Farràs, director of CaixaForum
Barcelona, presented the programme of activities for the coming season at the
Foundation’s social and cultural centre in the Catalan capital.
This year, once more, the programme is governed by a clear principle: the
union between culture and citizenship. The model adopted for CaixaForum,
unique in Spain, revolves around the design and organisation of exhibitions
specifically planned for presentation at the Foundation’s cultural centres. The
CaixaForum experience goes far beyond exhibitions to include a wide range
of activities including music, lectures and debates, social symposia, educational
and family workshops and activities aimed at groups of senior citizens.
CaixaForum manages seven cultural centres in Barcelona, Girona, Lleida,
Tarragona, Palma, Madrid and Saragossa, to which Seville will be added in
February 2017.
3
Press Release
In 2015, ”la Caixa” Foundation presented a total of 48 exhibitions on 30
different themes. The total number of visitors to the network of centres last year
was 2,159,000. CaixaForum Barcelona hosted more than 2,400 activities,
which attracted 775,020 visitors.
For the new season, ”la Caixa” Foundation has designed a global and
innovative programme at its CaixaForum centres, the result of experience,
rigour and the alliances established over decades with leading international
cultural institutions.
From medieval to contemporary art through key names in the history of
painting
The programme for the 2016-2017 season includes a wide range of events that
focus on art from medieval to contemporary times. The season, which includes
both new exhibitions and coproductions with leading international museums,
also focuses on different fields of activity: archaeology, painting, photography,
film and so on.
The first major exhibition in the autumn will feature an exceptional selection of
masterpieces from art history. A Thyssen Never Seen will be presented at
CaixaForum Barcelona to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the opening of
the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid. Since it
first opened its doors in 1992, the museum has
presented a collection that is unique in its panoramic
scope, ranging from the twelfth to the late-twentieth
century.
An exquisite selection of 63 masterpieces —the
largest ever to leave the Madrid gallery —will travel
to Barcelona. The show is designed to enable visitors
to discover the collection whilst abandoning the
chronological approach habitually found in the
exhibition rooms in the Palau de Villahermosa, grouping the works by genre.
The list of artists represented includes Fra Angelico, Raphael, Memling,
Rubens, Rembrandt, Canaletto, Pissarro, Cézanne, Kandinsky, Picasso,
Chagall, Beckman, Hopper and O’Keeffe, among many more.
4
Press Release
The twentieth-century art avant-gardes will also feature in the second major
show of the season. Art and Film. 120 Years of Exchanges will explore the
dialogue that the cinema has maintained with the other visual arts since its very
origins. The show will illustrate this dialogue through numerous examples,
ranging from Monet and the Lumière brothers to David Lynch, as well as
Chaplin, Hitchcock, Duchamp, Léger, Dalí and so on. To this end, the exhibition
will feature a total of some 300 pieces and will be based on the collection
conserved by La Cinémathèque Française as well as featuring many works on
loan from other national and international institutions.
As usual, the 2016-2017 season will also feature an exhibition devoted to the
great cultures of the past, one of ”la Caixa” Foundation’s traditional lines of
activity for exhibitions. This year, the production is entitled The Pillars of
Europe. The Middle Ages at the British Museum.
The Pillars of Europe is the first project to reach the CaixaForum exhibition
rooms as the result of the partnership established between ”la Caixa”
Foundation and the British Museum, signed in London last year, for the joint
organisation of shows over the next four years.
The aim of this exhibition is to explain, through treasures from the British
Museum collections, the period —more than a thousand years— when the
foundations were laid for what we know today as Europe. The show features a
total of 260 objects, many of them on view for the first time, and will also include
pieces loaned by Catalan and Spanish museums and collections in order to
complete the discourse with regard to southern Europe.
One of the major names in the coming season at
CaixaForum Barcelona is that of the Italian artist
Giorgio de Chirico. The World of Giorgio de Chirico
is the title of a complete retrospective devoted to this
painter based on the works from the Fondazione
Giorgio e Isa de Chirico, as well as pieces loaned by
the
Galleria
Nazionale
d'Arte
Moderna
e
Contemporanea in Rome and other international
institutions.
The show traces the entire trajectory of the Italian
artist, from his early metaphysical period, when he
5
Press Release
produced his best-known work, to his work on traditional iconography in later
decades, his technical research into the painting of the grand masters and his
final neo-metaphysical period.
Photography is another practice that is indispensable in programmes of
activities at CaixaForum centres. This year, visitors can see two productions
based on this genre. The first is Cristina García Rodero. Land of Dreams, a
show organised in cooperation with the Vicente Ferrer Foundation. Under the
initiative, the acclaimed photographer Cristina García Rodero was invited to visit
the Anantapur district in India. The result is an exhibition comprising 80
photographs that illustrate the role of women in rural communities in Anantapur,
and illustrate their power to transform life there.
The second project that focuses on the image is FotoPres ”la Caixa”, the
Foundation’s classic photography competition, which celebrates its twentieth
anniversary this season. The result is a collective exhibition featuring the ten
projects that received grants in this latest edition, the work of emerging figures
in the field of documentary photography in our country. These works, seen here
for the first time, share in common their critical approach to contemporary
conflicts, both private and social.
Similarly, contemporary art also features on the CaixaForum Barcelona
programme. Room 2 at CaixaForum Barcelona will host two consecutive shows
that focus on two recent outstanding acquisitions by the ”la Caixa”
Contemporary Art Collection. The first of these, Nicolás Paris. Exercises in
Sowing Lightning, will feature the installation El diálogo, el rumor, la luz, las horas
o (prototipo para material pedagógico) along with other works from the
aforementioned collection, selected by the Colombian artist Nicolás París. Next
will be the turn of the multimedia artist Tony Oursler: CaixaForum will present
L7-L5, the American artist’s first video major installation, produced in 1984,
alongside other videos by Oursler that help to illustrate his approach to his
work.
The CaixaForum Barcelona programme will also include an initiative launched
with the goal of turning an art project into a tool for social transformation and
advancement. Balsam and Fugue. Artistic Creation in the Penitentiary
Institution is an original project that shows how the creative process can
become a tool for the empowerment of vulnerable groups whilst also enabling
6
Press Release
audiences to discover artistic creation outside its usual elitist, stereotypical
domains.
To this end, the show creates a dialogue between works by artists represented
in the ”la Caixa” Collection and pieces produced by inmates at penitentiary
centres in Catalonia. The project explores the dilemmas generated by the
imposition of rules, solitude, the desire for freedom and so on, themes naturally
linked to life in prison.
CaixaForum: much more than an exhibition centre
CaixaForum Barcelona is not only an exhibition space, but is also much more.
Through this centre, ”la Caixa” Foundation seeks to promote art and culture as
tools for social transformation and to help to disseminate the humanities, as well
as fostering debate about ideas, trends and research in today’s society.
Through a huge repertoire of cultural initiatives —including seasons of talks,
workshops, concerts, performing arts productions and film showings— the
Foundation explores the very bases of our culture, suggesting keys to
understanding the great changes that our society is currently undergoing.
This extensive programme includes two particularly exceptional initiatives over
the next few months:
-
Firstly, on October 14 and 15, an international conference to celebrate
the thirtieth anniversary of the ”la Caixa” Collection. Entitled The
Social Responsibility of Building Artistic Heritage, the conference will
invite participants to discuss collecting in context of the present,
globalised art scene. Those taking part will include such experts as María
de Corral, Lars Nittve, Soledad Sevilla and Tania Barson, among others.
-
Secondly, Christmas at RE! is a creative project that will take place
simultaneously at the CaixaForum Barcelona, Saragossa and Madrid
centre over the Christmas holiday period. The goal is to raise awareness
about the waste we generate through an art installation. Precisely at
Christmas, then, the season when we consume most, this initiative is
aimed at activating our critical capacity by encouraging us to think about
what we consume and what we throw away through a creative meditation
on the theme of waste. Basurama, which will make the installations, is a
7
Press Release
group devoted to cultural and environmental research, creation and
production, with particular emphasis on study and action in the field of
production processes, the waste generation that these involve and the
creative possibilities that they suggest. On September 19, the group will
begin to collect materials in order to create the installations from
contributions made by the visitors themselves (plastic bags in Madrid, old
furniture in Saragossa and water bottles in Barcelona). The results will be
on show from December 2.
Besides lectures and family workshops, music will also be present on the
CaixaForum Barcelona programme, with concerts for both adults and children.
Sounds, instruments and styles from all periods in musical history and from all
over the world will be performed in a superb space especially designed to
enable audiences to enjoy music through all five senses.
Through a programme of original productions, the performing arts will also
capture children’s imaginations. Film, too, will be present in the programme,
with seasons parallel to the exhibitions as well as animated movies for younger
spectators. Finally, the family activities at the centre will enable participants of
all ages to discover art in an original and enjoyable way.
CaixaForum Barcelona will also present a new range of activities for schools
groups. Last season, the centre welcomed 61,141 visitors from schools under
the eduCaixa programme. Families, senior citizens and activities with cultural
impact, too, will have a place on the programme, as ”la Caixa” Foundation
promotes a centre for audiences of all ages and levels of education.
8
Press Release
CAIXAFORUM BARCELONA
PROGRAMME PREVIEW
2016-2017
9
Press Release
A Thyssen Never Seen
From 4 November 2016 to 5 February 2017
Edward Hopper, Hotel Room, 1931.
© Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, an
exceptional selection of masterpieces from the Madrid gallery’s collection will
travel to CaixaForum
In 2017, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum of Madrid will celebrate 25 years since the
centre first opened its doors in 1992. Kicking off the programme of events organised to
celebrate this anniversary, and for the first time since the Spanish State acquired the
Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, a large selection of masterpieces from the Thyssen
Museum will be exhibited outside Madrid, travelling to CaixaForum Barcelona.
The exhibition will enable visitors to discover a Museum Thyssen as it has never been
seen in Madrid, based on an original reading of the great masterpieces in the ThyssenBornemisza Collection, according to which they are grouped into five genres: religious
painting, portrait, still life, landscape and urban landscape.
The exhibition will feature 63 works, including eight paintings on loan at the National Art
Museum of Catalonia (MNAC). In short, A Thyssen Never Seen is an anthology of
masterpieces by artists like Fra Angelico, Raphael, Memling, Rubens, Rembrandt,
Canaletto, Pissarro, Cézanne, Kandinsky, Picasso, Chagall, Hopper and O’Keeffe,
among many others.
Curator: Guillermo Solana, artistic director at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum of
Madrid
Organisation: Exhibition organised by ”la Caixa” Foundation with the exceptional
cooperation of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum
10
Press Release
Art and Film.
120 Years of Exchanges
From 16 December 2016 to 26 March 2017
Marcel Duchamp. Rotorelief. 1935. Collection La Cinémathèque française
© State of Marcel Duchamp/VEGAP 2016
What does film owe to the arts? And vice versa? Through more than 300 pieces,
this exhibition explores the links between the cinema and the visual arts
For more than a century, the cinema has been a source of inspiration for the other visual
arts. Similarly, the seventh art has absorbed and filtered the work of the avant-gardes,
often with innovative and surprising results. Art and Film revives several famous
examples, as well as others that are not so well known, to illustrate what the cinema
owes to the other arts and vice versa, based on the collection of twentieth-century art
conserved by La Cinémathèque Française. Organised chronologically, the exhibition
illustrates the dialogue between avant-garde artists and filmmakers over the years.
From Monet and the Lumière brothers to David Lynch, not forgetting Chaplin, Hitchcock,
Godard, Léger, Duchamp, Dalí and so on, right up to Cindy Sherman, this completely
new exhibition brings together some 150 artists and filmmakers through 300 pieces,
ranging from painting, sculpture, engravings, installations and photographs to artists’
books, costumes, posters, models and screened excerpts from 63 films. Art and Film will
also feature many works loaned by Spanish and French collections, such as the Centre
Pompidou, the Musée d’Orsay, the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Lyon, the Musée d’Art
Moderne André Malraux (MuMa) of Le Havre, the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Caen, the
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya
(MNAC), MACBA, Filmoteca Española and the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, among
others.
Curator: Dominique Païni
Organisation: Exhibition created, organised and produced by ”la Caixa” Foundation in
cooperation with La Cinémathèque française
11
Press Release
The Pillars of Europe.
The Middle Ages at the British
Museum
From 10 March to 18 June 2017
Figurine of a Knight, 1375-1425. © British Museum
The show, the first result of the agreement with the British Museum, explores a
period when many of the states and the very foundations of today’s Europe were
established
In the past, historians had considered the Middle Ages as an unhappy bridge between
the ancient civilisations of Green and Rome and the Italian Renaissance and the
Protestant Reform of the fifteen and sixteen centuries. However, the truth is that this
period, more than a thousand years long, also saw enormous political, economic and
cultural changes that resulted in the generation of enormous artistic talents and
intellectual advances.
The exhibition —the first produced as a result of the agreement signed between ”la Caixa”
Foundation and the British Museum in 2015— spans the period from the year 400 to 1500
AD. Its purpose is to open a window onto the medieval world through treasures and
material culture pertaining both to the dominant elites and the working classes.
Featuring an innovative design, The Pillars of Europe will include 260 outstanding objects
from the collections of the British Museum, many of them shown for the first time. The
exhibition discourse is completed by exceptional loans from the National Art Museum of
Catalonia (MNAC) and the Frederic Marès Museum. These treasures will help to explain
key events, highlighting famous figures and enabling visitors to learn about different
aspects of the medieval world, such as life at court, war and conquest and everyday life.
Curators: Michael Lewis and Naomi Speakman
Organisation: Exhibition organised by ”la Caixa” Foundation and the British Museum
12
Press Release
20th FotoPres
”la Caixa”.
Documentary image
competition
From 27 April to 30 July 2017
www.thecolorsmountain.org
A show devoted to the documentary image projects created by the ten
photographers selected at the twentieth edition of the FotoPres ”la Caixa”
competition
At this twentieth edition —which encompasses the years 2015 and 2016— the
Foundation has awarded 15,000 euros to each photographer to enable them to
produce their new works, meditations on such themes as the family, racism, misogyny,
identity and future prospects, as well as social issues like exclusion, urban planning
and waste management.
These works received support and tutorial guidance from photography professionals
like Marta Ponsa (Barcelona-Paris) and Iñaki Domingo (Madrid), as well as advice from
many outside experts. CaixaForum Barcelona will present the results of the two years
work spent completing these ten documentary image projects, which are:
-
The colors mountain / Arturo R. Castillo (Madrid), David Rodríguez (Orihuela)
Hereafter / Federico Clavarino (Turin)
Good luck with the future / Dani Pujalte and Rita Puig Serra (Barcelona)
Mamá / Ignacio Caravia (Oviedo)
Corea / Alejandro Garrido (Madrid)
Bubble Beirut / Anna Bosch (Badalona)
Ciudad Real / Carlos García (Alicante)
Arquitectura espontánea / Nicolás Combarro (La Coruña)
Contraception / Laia Abril (Barcelona)
- Y tú, ¿por qué eres negro? / Rubén H. Bermúdez (Madrid)
Organisation: Exhibition organised and produced by ”la Caixa” Foundation
13
Press Release
The World of Giorgio de
Chirico
From 14 July to 22 October 2017
A major retrospective exhibition devoted to this
Italian painter, an outstanding twentieth-century
artist and father of the so-called “metaphysical
school”
Troubadour, circa. 1972. Fondazione Giorgio e Isa de Chirico
The exhibition The World of Giorgio de Chirico presents the Italian artist’s work in all the
rich complexity of themes, styles and study that characterise it: from the initial
metaphysical period in the 1910s, when he produced his best-known work, to the
iconographic themes of the 1920s and 1930s, his technical investigations devoted to the
grand masters in the 1940s and, finally, his neo-metaphysical period from 1968 to 1976.
The huge range of expressive means found in De Chirico’s work can be classified into
two main artistic approaches, both represented in this exhibition: a type of painting
inspired by “revelation” and discovery, which he used to create his first Italian piazze,
mannequins and metaphysical interiors; and the painting resulting from research into the
“beautiful material substance”, based on traditional painterly technique and interest in the
iconography of the great classical painterly genres, such as the portrait, bathers,
landscapes with horse riders and the still life.
The retrospective features 150 pieces, including painting, sculpture, watercolour and
drawing from the main galleries that conserve the work of this Italian artist.
Curator: Mariastella Margozzi, art historian, curator of the Twentieth Century Painting
Collection at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (Rome), and
Katherine Robinson, scientific coordinator of Metaphysical Art - The de Chirico Journals,
and member of the Executive Committee of the Fondazione Giorgio e Isa de Chirico.
Organisation: Exhibition organised by ”la Caixa” Foundation in cooperation with the
Fondazione Giorgio e Isa de Chirico and the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e
Contemporanea in Rome
14
Press Release
Cristina García Rodero.
Land of Dreams
From 20 September 2016 to 8 January 2017
The photographer Cristina García Rodero travelled
to India to carry out this project on the condition of
women in the rural world
© Cristina García Rodero
The exhibition features the photo report made in 2015 by the photographer Cristina
García Rodero in Anantapur (India), commissioned by ”la Caixa” Foundation.
Determined and fiercely engaged, García Rodero became immersed in that world,
sharing the joy and pain of those who cover in elegance and colour the lights and
shades of their own existence. The 80 large photographs presented enable the women
of Anantapur to be heard, revealing their power to transform their communities.
Born in Puertollano, Ciudad Real, in 1949, Cristina García Rodero was the first
Spanish practitioner to join the prestigious Magnum photo agency. She has received
numerous prizes, including the World Press Photo Award in 1993, the National Prize
for Photography in 1996 and FotoPres ”la Caixa” in 1997. Her most outstanding works
include España oculta [Hidden Spain], which also forms part of the ”la Caixa”
Collection.
”la Caixa” Foundation is committed to improving living conditions and promoting
economic growth and job creation in the least-favoured communities in countries in
Africa, Latin America and Asia. The exhibition is organised in cooperation with the
Vicente Ferrer Foundation, a partner of ”la Caixa” Foundation in social and economic
development projects in India since 2001.
Organisation: ”la Caixa” Foundation in cooperation with the Vicente Ferrer Foundation
15
Press Release
Balsam and Fugue.
Artistic creation in the
penitentiary institution
From 26 October 2016 to 15 January 2017
Mural by Ricardo Cavolo, Antoni Hervàs and Blanca Navas, 2016
Through a dialogue between works from the ”la Caixa” Collection and others by
inmates in Catalan prisons, Balsam and Fugue speaks of the dilemmas posed to
individuals by the imposition of rules, solitude and the desire for freedom
Balsam and Fugue speaks of the existential dilemmas that face an individual when
they enter into prison environment, and about the role that creativity can play in such
situations.
The exhibition brings together works by artists represented in the ”la Caixa” Collection,
such as Matt Mullican, Jorge Barbí, Antonio Saura and Miquel Barceló, with pieces by
inmates at penitentiary centres in Catalonia. Balsam and Fugue reveals the parallels
between these two contexts, whilst also demonstrating art’s enormous potential to free
us and make our lives more bearable.
The exhibition features two murals painted exclusively by the artists and the inmates,
as well as audio and video recordings of artists, monitors and inmates. The project also
includes a series of activities with the participation of experts, educators from
penitentiary centres and inmates. These include a project in cooperation with the Taller
de Músics musicians’ workshop and the performance of a play directed by Carme
Portaceli.
Curator: Mery Cuesta
Organisation: Exhibition organised and produced by ”la Caixa” Foundation
16
Press Release
New acquisitions in the ”la Caixa” Collection
»
Nicolás Paris. Exercises
in Sowing Lightning
From 9 February 7 May 2016
»
Tony Oursler. L7-L5
From 1 June to 3 September
2017
Nicolás Paris, El diálogo, el rumor, la luz, las horas o (prototipo para material
pedagógico), 2005-2015. © Col·lecció ”la Caixa”
Tony Oursler, L7-L5, 1984. © Col·lecció ”la Caixa”
Two works by Nicolás Paris and Tony Oursler recently acquired by the Collection
form the central core for two exhibitions devoted to these artists
Nicolás Paris focuses his work on the relationship between the spectator and art and the
desire to share the creative act. His work involves participation and experimentation,
mediation and the exchange of ideas. Organised around a work recently acquired for the
”la Caixa” Collection, El diálogo, el rumor, la luz, las horas o (prototipo para material
pedagógico), the show extends to other pieces from the Foundation collections, selected
by the artist himself. In this way, Paris builds a laboratory for observation, questioning
and dialogue. This is a space where noise and the light of ideas may get in, a place open
to the lightning of the unexpected.
Turning now to Tony Oursler, the American is an artist who has devoted much of his
work to observing how popular culture influences society’s imagination. L7-L5 is the
title of Oursler’s first major video installation, created in 1984 from various objects and
cultural elements and a series of monitors that project images or act as light sources. It
was with light, then, that he began his work on science fiction, a genre that occupies a
unique position in our culture as a fusion of fantasy and science. The exhibition will
also feature recent video works by Tony Oursler on the theme of popular culture.
Curator: Nimfa Bisbe, head of ”la Caixa” Art Collections
Organisation: Exhibition organised and produced by ”la Caixa” Foundation
17
Press Release
”la Caixa” Foundation Communication Department
Josué García: 934 046 151 / 638 146 330 / [email protected]
”la Caixa” Foundation Multimedia Press Room
http://premsa.lacaixa.es/obrasocial/
www.obrasocial.lacaixa.es
18