A summer at MACBA answering the questions of 'Prelude. Poetic Intention'

The exhibition Poetic Intention takes its title from the eponymous book by the Martinican poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant, an essay to deconstruct all museographic dramaturgy and give centrality to the works and their ways of experiencing the world. If, as Glissant said, the poem never has to deny the path of the world, is a museum possible that advocates for the perception of the works themselves, with all their energy and desire, with their poetic intention?

The latest episode of the exhibition of the collection of the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), curated by its director, Elvira Dyangani Ose, together with Antònia Maria Perelló, Claudia Segura and Patricia Sorroche, addresses new narratives and forms of enunciation, thus significantly varying the structure of the exhibition, which, from the outset, invites viewers to create their own path and connect with the work and its poetic intention.

Spend the summer at MACBA

For all those who want to stroll through MACBA at their own pace and respond to the questions that may arise in Poetic Intention, summer is a good time to make those visits that daily life makes difficult. In addition, knowing that some questions are better digested calmly, the museum ticket allows you to visit the collection exhibition as many times as you wish for one month from the date of purchase. The ticket also allows access to all ongoing exhibitions and guided tours are offered. In addition, every Saturday from 4 p.m., admission is free. For more information on reductions or free admissions, including cheaper off-peak hours by purchasing tickets online, consult here.

A unique opportunity to visit the museum this summer and rediscover its collection through more than seventy works by some thirty artists where new narratives and relationship models are addressed. This approach draws, in large part, from works acquired in recent years that seek new spaces of coexistence with other works in the collection, but also from works that enter the museum for the first time to appropriate it, permeating the narrative and time. Some pieces gut the usual framework of the building and others demand, in a very physical way, activation by the viewer.

What is the time of the museum? And, how do we transit? These are some of the questions that arise throughout the exhibition tour, revealing the works as great storytellers. If the museum, as a general rule, demands the spectator's corporality, their physical disposition, much more than their perceptive capacity, this first area of the exhibition invites to make the gesture of transiting and to make decisions. Video works by Adrián Balseca, Katia Kameli and Danica Dakić are found, along with the installation 77 (2014), by Younès Rahmoun, formed by seventy-seven lamps that represent the seventy-seven branches of faith within Islam.

A second area investigates the shared origin between language and poetry, a place of surprise from which we need to name the world. Can art return to us the poetics of everyday life? This part of the exhibition links with a way of approaching speech from the gut and the viscera. The works by Marcel Broodthaers, Francesc Torres, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Daniel G. Andújar, Dora García, Oriol Vilapuig, Dieter Roth, Joan Brossa, Oussama Tabti and Antoni Tàpies found here trace lines of meaning about the exercise of naming, without forgetting the silences associated with the word.

Can art return to us the poetics of everyday life? The exhibition links with a way of approaching speech from the gut and the viscera

El presidente de la República, Gabriel Boric, se refirió este lunes a la conmemoración de los 50 años del golpe de Estado, que se cumplirá el próximo 11 de septiembre, y a la polémica que se ha generado en torno a la fecha.

En ese contexto, el Mandatario hizo un llamado a “no empatar las responsabilidades” entre quienes “quebrantaron la democracia” y quienes “defendieron la Constitución”.

“No es aceptable, y lo digo con mucha claridad, que se relativice o se justifique el golpe de Estado. No es aceptable que se relativice o se justifique la violación a los derechos humanos”, dijo Boric en un punto de prensa.

Y agregó: “No es aceptable que se relativice o se justifique la dictadura. No es aceptable que se relativice o se justifique la tortura, la desaparición forzada, el exilio, la muerte”.

“Aquí hay una verdad histórica que es innegable, que es que en Chile hubo un golpe de Estado, que en Chile hubo una dictadura, que en Chile hubo violaciones a los derechos humanos”, enfatizó.

El jefe de Estado también se refirió a la propuesta de la oposición de firmar una declaración conjunta en la que se condene el golpe de Estado y se defienda la democracia.

Al respecto, Boric dijo que “estamos disponibles a conversar con todos los sectores políticos para buscar un acuerdo que nos permita mirar el futuro con esperanza, pero sin olvidar el pasado”.

“Pero ese acuerdo tiene que tener como base el respeto irrestricto a los derechos humanos, la condena al golpe de Estado y la defensa de la democracia”, sentenció.

El Mandatario también se refirió a la situación de los derechos humanos en el país, y dijo que “como Estado tenemos el deber de garantizar que nunca más se violen los derechos humanos en Chile”.

“Y eso implica que tenemos que seguir trabajando para que la justicia, la verdad y la reparación lleguen a todas las víctimas”, añadió.

Finalmente, Boric hizo un llamado a la unidad y a la reflexión en torno a la conmemoración de los 50 años del golpe de Estado.

“Invito a todos los chilenos y chilenas a que en este 11 de septiembre, más allá de las legítimas diferencias que podamos tener, nos unamos en torno a la defensa de la democracia, el respeto a los derechos humanos y la condena a la violencia”, concluyó.

But this exhibition at MACBA, which can be visited until April 2025, is much more. With the desire to develop projects that propose new ways of occupying the museum, Eva Fàbregas and her Oozing (2023-24), co-produced with the Botín Foundation, invite visitors to walk through her inflatable sculptures, capable of even altering personal and spatial perception. Her project will join the installation Una pared (2022–24), by Luz Broto, a gesture that formulates the material disruption of the museum's limits and that is in dialogue with the building itself from the beginning of the exhibition. As proof of its contribution to the questions the exhibition wants to raise, it will be responsible for closing the usual access to the museum's rooms for two weeks in January 2025. A clear commitment to proposing visitors to transit through the building in a different way.