MACBA Modern Art... Deconstructing perceptions
Trip Start
Apr 25, 2007
1
6
31
Trip End
Jun 20, 2007
Barcelona,
Spain
Monday, April 30, 2007
Ana's Guesthouse is highly recommended. It is owned and run by Ana and her daughter Nataliana both are from Barcelona and are extremely warm and welcoming. They don't have many rooms and it sounds like it's usually fully booked so get in those dates early. Prices were very reasonable for a room night (I paid 40 Euro/single) and breakfast is very generous. The good news is that they are opening up one more B & B nearby with 7 rooms including 2 that will have en suite bathrooms. According to them, Barcelona is getting visitors year round and the traffic is increasing. The Metro (Verdagues) is just one block behind the apartment and a great local restaurant next to it across the street that serves great seafood paella.
They also have a PC that you can use for free. I did't use it for long though as the connection was quite slow, and the PC was an old IBM still booting up on DOS and running on Win 98! It barely chugged along for me to check mail and consistently hung when I tried access my .mac account!
Decided to go to MACBA (Museu'dart Contemporani de Barcelona) but only after making another stop at the Organic Stall at the Boqueria Market to grab another tasty vegetarian meal. MACBA wasn't too far though (everything in Barcelona seems to be quite close to each other) and easy to find when I took the Metro over even without much of a map. Paid the entrance fee that included 2 special exhibitions as well as the permanent display. Contemporary art of the past decade and now the noughties are vastly different from contemporary art of even the late 80's. It was a bit of a jolt to the mind...questioning if some pieces were really art, or just ideas to help the viewer develop or go through a process within one's mind as opposed to just being confronted with a solution or appealing directly to the senses. The 2 special exhibitions further enhanced a nice afternoon spent contemplating this questiom and also personally discarding some exhibits as "non-art". Both the special exhibits were very interesting and different. The first one was by Carlos Pazos, a Barcelona based painter and graphic artist, who focused his exhibition around the idea of contemporary culture of collecting and how it was all a front for the meaningless existence we live today. It was fun though to see how how some of those collections were displayed through his eyes...including a whole room full of Mickey Mouses amongst other collections.
The 2nd exhibition titled The Killing Machine was by a pair of Canadians Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. Some great installation pieces coupled with audio works that focuses the viewer/listener on their perceptions around sounds in particular, including the use of binaural headphones (virtual sound from all around you!) I really enjoyed this one as it was very different. Some exhibits were quite unusual, especially one where only a single audience was allowed and you had to queue for a long time to wait for your turn. A lot of folks gave up waiting...that was part of the fun itself I think, the queuing experience and to see how people reacted when they read the sign (single viewer only lasting 5 minutes, queue behind you....please stand in line!) and looked back! Highly recommended if you get a chance to see their work.
