Art Omi is an almost 50-hectare extension of contemporary sculptures resting among meadows, forests, rivers, squirrels, and deer, in Ghent, Columbia County, New York. It was originally conceived as a space for the creation of plastic arts, and now combines this activity with that of a residence for writers, dancers, musicians, or architects (a part of the natural meadows is dedicated precisely to architectural projects). The initiative is philanthropic and, evidently, private, started by Francis Greenburger, and is an example of perfect communion between the supposed coldness of contemporary art and the organic nature of the landscape, to the point that it ends up seeming as if the irregularities, perspectives, corners, plant varieties, slopes, and even the skies were placed there expressly for those pieces of art and no others to be installed. Yes, contemporary art and respect for nature can be valued at the same time, simultaneously, doing both things at once.
Voorlinden is a Dutch museum also intended to connect art, nature, and architecture. It is dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, conserving, and disseminating pieces of contemporary art and, like Art Omi, nature surrounds the main building in such a way that the works can be arranged outdoors and show their harmonious coexistence with the landscape of the town of Wassenaar. The same goes for the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, the most important in England (with 200 hectares), the Hakone Open-Air Museum in Japan, Nikola-Lenivets, in Russia, or the Laumeier Sculpture Park, in Missouri. Most of them are private initiatives, but some also have public aid and, yes, most of them exhibit large sculptures by Jaume Plensa (of which there are none in Barcelona). Not all of them are located in towns far from the big city; some of these projects coexist precisely in the middle of buildings because, as we have written so many times, there are cities that know how to have parks.
There are two pending issues in Barcelona, those that go beyond the dramas and daily needs: Montjuïc and the divorce with contemporary art. The Montjuïc mountain is the city's only potential urban park, since Collserola should remain a forest, and also because it was already intervened in this way since the 1929 Universal Exhibition. It is a shame to see how the city is unable to make the mountain its own except for specific events, some concert, some sporting event, some getaway to the MNAC or the Fundació Miró or the cable cars, or the extravagant Poble Espanyol. It was surely an unforgivable mistake to close the Amusement Park, and without a doubt the reconversion of the uses of the castle (today under municipal management) does not quite work: access to this great unknown park should be much more fluid, much more visible and easy from anywhere in the city, so that escaping was not a one-time adventure but a frequent routine.
It is a shame to see how the city is unable to make the Montjuïc mountain its own except for specific eventsIt's not about putting in more escalators but about to spread the mountain's tentacles as low as possible, so that Poble Sec and Maria Cristina Avenue, but also Josep Carner promenade in the port, are all true vestibules to our great metropolitan park. And how is this done without an atrocious demolition and without having to resort only to the expansion of green spaces between houses and avenues? An example could be New York's High Line, old abandoned railway tracks that have been converted into a park in the form of a promenade where botany is combined with plastic and performing arts: that is, to create routes (elevated or not) that invite access to the mountain through contemporary art arranged in harmony with the vegetation, and that progressively lead, as organically as possible, to the "new" great municipal lung.
To create urban spaces, one must obey a narrative that works, and if the Olympic narrative of Montjuïc is already obsolete, that of the Fira is for fairgoers, and that of the famous "Museum Esplanade" can oxygenate Paral·lel but at the cost of creating a purely museum-centric narrative, projects similar to those I have pointed out allow for a truly civic narrative: it is not about doing a favor to the museums, which also, but above all about doing a favor to the people of Barcelona (and visitors) who cannot find how to access any large park in the entire (censored word) city.
But, incidentally, the introduction of outdoor contemporary art pieces would allow another unfortunate and incomprehensible wall to be overcome: that of Barcelona with contemporary art. While the MNAC begs for visitors in the name of Catalan art and Miró begs for help in the name of the old avant-garde, Barcelona also misses out on current great plastic revolutions by hiding behind MACBA's particular conceptual works, calling to visit the untraceable Espais Volart, showing a little leg at the Moco or in some commendable gallery in the Eixample, or by trusting that people know the calendar of events of the Poble Nou Urban District. It's too much to ask. It's living with one's back to contemporaneity, it's having a problem, it's even wanting people to know you have a problem.
Barcelona was great when it was not afraid of Miró or Picasso, quite the opposite, that is, when it was not afraid of its national and international contemporaries. Gaudí, in his day: a contemporary. Calatrava, another, despite Calatrava. I don't know if it's so difficult to see that the more supposedly progressive the city government is, the more conservative its drift in terms of transgression and avant-garde. Progressivism should be assumed to have imagination. And, beyond ideologies, in Barcelona, imagination and daring were assumed.
Park, mountain, art, contemporaneity, openness, citizenship, innovation, Montjuïc. This is the true Superblock we would need. The rest are plastidecor toys to pass the time.