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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

A trip to the city


OK I couldn’t find a parking space in the actual station car park but I did find a space outside a school within easy walking distance. The train arrived almost at once and I made the trip to Barcelona in air conditioned comfort. Much, much better than the horrors of the bus!

I stopped off in Sants and took the metro to España so that I could go to an exhibition in one of the galleries of Fundación “la Caixa”. To get to the gallery I had to walk up Av. Reina Maria Cristina which a long and wide approach road to the series of elevators which eventually take you up to MNAC. The road is flanked on both sides by a series of fountains which lead up to the famous dancing fountain which I have never, ever seen work. Indeed today they had two heavy duty cranes raising parts of it for maintenance.

As part of the celebrations for the winning of the World Cup this same avenue was a grand gathering place for thousands of people to congregate and give voice to their delight at the victory. At least most of them were there to celebrate. It was also seen as a prime opportunity for those who are in favour of an independent Catalonia to demonstrate their disgust with the whole concept of Spain. There were ugly scenes and the burning of two of the trees which line the route. That was a few days ago; today new trees are strapped to their supporting posts in newly watered pits. All evidence of burning has been removed. Quick work! Though I suppose you have to remember that this avenue houses the major pavilions for the international fairs that bring so much revenue to the city. Things have to look good for the present and future punters!

The gallery, when I got there, was infested with swarms of small persons being chaperoned by harassed looking adults after having seen some performance in the theatre. Cutting my way through the tiny throng I managed to get to the gallery and, as I had to ensure I left enough time to get to My Pupil, I restricted myself to one show.

“Miquel Barceló 1983-2009 La solitude organisative” He is a Spanish artist born in Majorca in 1957.

The works are in a variety of media ranging from water colour to sculpture and all are characterized by a delicacy of execution which might seem an odd word to use when looking at some of the almost grotesque depth of impasto in some of the paintings.

Some of his “paintings” defy the two dimensionality that is suggested by the word. To me they seemed forced, facile and generally unsatisfying – obvious and crass; though a few of his marks brought some sort of order into the undulating chaos!

For me, one of the most effective works was a very simple brush study of a few reeds, little more than a few lines and circles but beautifully arranged and effortlessly executed. A zebra with a similar economy of line was equally successful and equally monochrome.

Colour was used to great effect in the series of watercolours that he completed from his stays in Mali. The bleeding of one colour into another and the almost literal explosions of colour in some works recalled the work of Nolde, though Barceló was more likely to produce an isolated image and use the white of the paper to isolate and emphasise his images.

The series of watercolours that Barceló produced seemed at first glance to be both gauche and simplistic but as with other of his works they repaid greater attention and rewarded the viewer with the almost overlooked detail that they possessed.

His notebooks from which there were some pages on display and electronically available on a screen which realistically “turned a page” with the sweep of a finger, were genuinely exciting with their exhibition of fluid line and an assurance of simple outline which is not so obvious in the more “worked” paintings.

He painted a series of sand paintings which depict a generally flat area of land seen from a slightly raised perspective. At their most successful these paintings resemble Tanguy and the more representational they become the less effective they are. Much of Barceló’s work is representational with a strong inclination to abstraction and although I think his more abstract works are more satisfying it is the representational element which gives them the structure.

A work on gouged cardboard was very effective with the absence of media clearly suggesting presence.

His sculpture was instantly forgettable as far as I was concerned and added little to the exhibition.

I came away from the exhibition having not bought the €25 catalogue – which I will however do on a revisit that I think this exhibition deserves.

The return trip (after a very satisfying lunch with My Pupil which included a strawberry gazpacho) was in a train carriage with excellent air con which made the arrival back in Castelldefels (a name the pension people seem unable to transcribe with any accuracy) seem like the entry into a sauna.

And back to “Howards End.”

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