It's Saturday at noon. I've arranged to meet Xavier Franquesa for a visit to the space that Il·lacions Gallery ---the project, born in Raval, which he has captained since 2011--- opened last September, coinciding with Barcelona Design Week 2020. Rosselló, 231 2-2? Yes, I haven't got the address wrong. I ring the doorbell and go up to the second floor of this classic building in the heart of the Eixample.
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Once inside Il·lacions Gallery, my first impression is that it is a resoundingly original and, for that very reason, brave proposal. I will leave, an hour and a half later, convinced of its role not only as a promoter of local talent but also as a driving force for creation.
But let's go step by step. Il·lacions Gallery is an innovative project, both in terms of its container and its content. On the one hand, it redefines the concept of a gallery that we all have in mind ---generally associated with purely artistic manifestations: painting, sculpture, installations…--- and, on the other, it offers a very interesting and infrequent perspective on design because it precisely places it closer to art than to industry. Here we find unique pieces or limited series by creators from sectors as diverse as fashion, illustration or, of course, industrial design.
Il·lacions Gallery is a design gallery whose objective is to give visibility to contemporary local creativity. That is, to the work of current creators who in one way or another are linked to the city because there are a thousand ways to be and feel Barcelonian. Even without living in it. They call it design with Barcelona DNA and I think it's very well seen.
To gather and display the work of the nearly forty designers with whom it currently works, Il·lacions has also taken a risk with its new space. A 250 m2 apartment that retains the original layout from when it was a home: kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms, living room... A gallery, therefore, that has little to do with the usual coldness of exhibition spaces. Here, a much more interesting context is offered for the designs that are in perfect dialogue with the seven exhibition spaces. For me, the message is clear: let the design object enter the home, be part of it, let's use it.
Here, a much more interesting context is offered for the designs that are in perfect dialogue with the seven exhibition spaces. For me, the message is clear: let the design object enter the home, be part of it, let's use it.In one of the rooms, the elegant Galán by Josep Abril. In another, the MSB 302.1 by MSubiràs, a desk with pure lines, made with only five 10 mm steel sheets invisibly welded, and surprisingly comfortable. The Portal 2020 Collection by Joan Tarragó, with its impressive Portal Mirror, shares space with a table full of material samples from the Turbina studio, focused on the creation of pieces, objects, and machines that revolve around the concepts of time and movement. In the kitchen, dedicated to pieces that have light as one of their components, the Clio R5 (Original) by Antoni Arola or the Lightray of alabaster illuminated with LED by Josep Puig.
One of the jewels of the gallery is the fantastic Gabinete de Il·lacions, a large treasure chest full of drawers and shelves in which small-format pieces are displayed. The center of the gallery is the Gran Sala, an open and light-filled space where, currently, the Mimesis exhibition by Jordi Ribaudí is on display, a collection of large furniture-sculptures made of pine wood and Sicilian buffalo leather that, while allowing me to sit —in a premeditated precarious balance— question me about our relationship with the environment. And all this while I feel observed and accompanied by a dozen anthropomorphic tureens handmade by the illustrator and ceramist Meritxell Duran.
I leave Il·lacions Gallery thinking that, here, current Barcelona design has its home. The city would do well to count on them, especially now that the pandemic has taught us that we cannot rely everything on tourism. If you want to pay them a visit, you can arrange it at www.illacions.com.
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