Features

A handful of autumn art

Mey Rahola, Carrie Mae Weems, Paul Klee, Salvador Dalí and Albert Serra, are some of the end-of-year highlights in Catalan galleries and art centres

The new autumn art season promises an end of year full of exhibitions for all tastes. Beginning with the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC), the Lluís Borrassà exhibition has been postponed until early next year to focus on the projects of Mey Rahola and Feliu Elias. The exhibitions are in conjunction with the art museums of Empordà, in Figueres, and of Sabadell, which will both offer complementary shows. The exhibition of the pioneering photographer Mey Rahola runs from November 24 to May 29 next year, while that of the controversial painter, cartoonist and art critic, Feliu Elias, will go from December 1 to March 19. Sabadell’s art museum has already opened its Elias exhibiton, focusing on the links of the Elias family with the city. This October, MNAC will also invite the artist Setxu Xirau to put on a contemporary installation.

The African American photographer Carrie Mae Weems will also feature this autumn in a triple exhibition (from October 6) at the KBr center of the Mapfre Foundation, Photo Colectania and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (Macba), which will show the strength of her work that dwells on the traumas of the past. It will coincide with an exhibition of the Colombian performer who died prematurely, María Teresa Hincapié (from October 20). The museum in Plaça dels Àngels will also host a project by Mariana Botey and El Spectro Rojo, based on a myth of the Mixe people, who are indigenous to Mexico and who pride themselves on never having been conquered (November 10-February 26). In December will be the new presentation of the Macba Collection, under the guidance of Elvira Dyangani Ose.

Plenty of abstraction

The Fundació Catalunya-La Pedrera and the Fundació Suñol will share a project that draws on the collection of the Museo de Arte Abstracto Español in Cuenca. La Pedrera will show works by top international names in abstract art (Pollock, Rothko, De Kooning, Dubuffet...) while until January 14 the Fundació Suñol will feature work by seven contemporary artists.

No lover of good painting should miss Paul Klee and the Secrets of Nature (October 21-February 12), on at the Fundació Miró in collaboration with the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern. The exhibition will invoke his fascination with natural phenomena as well as contrasting his work with that of female artists who were his overlooked contemporaries (Gabriele Münter, Emma Kunz, Maruja Mallo and Sandra Knecht).

Another great artist, Dalí, also gets an exhibition this autumn, but in this case it is digital and immersive. On at the Ideal digital arts center, the exhibition uses latest technology to take a deep dive into the mind and work of the surrealist genius.

Another excentric and singular creator is Albert Serra, the filmmaker who is best loved by the art world. This autumn, Serra will take centre stage at Fabra and Coats, which dedicate an exhibition to him (November 19-January 12) and the premiere in Spain of Els tres porquets, the 120-hour-long movie that he presented at the Documenta fair in 2012.

Another must-see is the exhibition that the Picasso Museum will devote to Daniel Henry Kahnweiler (November 18-March 19), the great merchant of cubist artists.

Cultural resistance

Political art will also feature, in the Born Centre de Cultura i Memòria, with the exhibition, Another end. THE REMAINDER, which looks at art and antifascism (November 18-April 16) through the work of 20 creators and the cultural resistance in the post-Civil War period.

CaixaForum Barcelona has three proposals: Comic. Dreams and History looks at comics as tools of thought until January 15, while from November 24 an exhibition begins that delves into the private collections of 10 artists, and from December 1 six Egyptian mummies from the British Museum will help shine a light on new technology.

More comics

The comic, a medium for so long despised in the temples of art, will get another showcase in the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB), which will exhibit the work of nine young avant-garde authors: Bárbara Alca, Marta Cartu, Genie Espinosa, Ana Galvañ, Nadia Hafid, Conxita Herrero, María Medem, Miriam Persand and Roberta Vázquez (December 2-May 14). CCCB will also present, for yet another year, the winning photographs of the World Press Photo contest (November 4-December 11.)

Enthusiasts of Catalan photography have at least four appointments that they cannot afford to miss. In chronological order they are: Eugeni Forcano in the Cultural Factory of Terrassa, which has just been inaugurated; Gabriel Casas at Palau Robert (October 10-January 29); Jordi Pol at the Arxiu Fotogràfic de Barcelona (November 23-April 23), and Francesc Català-Roca at the Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya (December 1-March 4).

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