Barcelona Gallery Weekend’s 5th edition will expand more than ever throughout the city and beyond with exhibitions and artistic interventions in public spaces
The fifth edition of Barcelona Gallery Weekend will take place from 10th to 13th October 2019, with the participation of a total of 27 galleries from Barcelona, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat and Santa Margarida i els Monjos.
With Composiciones, its programme of artistic interventions in public spaces, Barcelona Gallery Weekend 2019 will highlight the importance of art in the construction process of cities, uniting contemporary art with architecture and urbanism. With the exhibition Escamas, Barcelona Gallery Weekend will continue its collaboration with Casa Vicens, the first house designed by the architect Antoni Gaudí.
Casa Vicens, open to the public for the first time in 2017, will exhibit a selection of six pieces by different artists represented by some of the participating galleries.
The fifth edition of Barcelona Gallery Weekend will take place from 10th to 13th October in 27 galleries as well as other spaces in the city. This year, it aims to highlight the importance of art in its use in the public space and for this reason, it is premiering a new format for Composiciones, the programme of artistic interventions conceived specifically for the four days of Barcelona Gallery Weekend and which will take art out of the gallery spaces. The Composiciones programme will take place in public spaces in Barcelona, to facilitate accessibility and give visibility to the role of galleries as promoters of contemporary cultural heritage. This programme, curated this year by Juan Canela, co-founder of the BAR project and associate researcher of osloBIENNALEN First Edition, “invites us to explore and question Barcelona’s public spaces and spheres through a series of works that dialogue with the city’s past, present and future”.
Interventions
Visitors will be able to see the interventions walking through the streets, as well as within any itinerary or guided tours designed by Barcelona Gallery Weekend to connect the participating galleries. This programme will feature interventions by artists such as Felipe Mujica (Die Ecke Arte Contemporáneo) at the Pasaje de las Manufacturas in Barcelona, Daniela Ortiz (àngels barcelona) at the Columbus Monument, Mercedes Mangrané (Ana Mas Projects) at the Pont d’en Jordà in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Marc Vives (etHALL) at a secret location in Barcelona and Erick Beltrán (Joan Prats Gallery) who will perform a travelling performance in the streets of the Eixample and Ciutat Vella districts.
On the occasion of the celebration of the fifth anniversary of Barcelona Gallery Weekend, the collaboration with Casa Vicens, begun in 2018, continues through the exhibition Escamas, a selection of six pieces by different artists represented by some of the galleries participating in this edition. From the 10th of October to the 10th of November, works by Francesco Arena (NoguerasBlanchard), Jean Denant (RocioSantaCruz), Marc Larré (etHALL), Jordi Mitjà (Bombon Projects), Vanesa Muñoz (ÀMBIT Galeria d’Art) and Marria Pratts (L&B Gallery) will inhabit Casa Vicens and its garden and will establish a set of temporal, functional, formal and poetic correspondences with the building, inviting visitors to reinterpret each corner under the gaze of contemporary creators. In keeping with Gaudí’s personal style, nature and craftsmanship have inspired this exhibition.
See also: Find Beauty and Inspiration In Ibiza With Hotel Artworks
The title of the exhibition, curated by Susanna Corchia (director of the event), alludes to the protective function of the scales (escamas in Spanish), making a simile with the conception of Casa Vicens as a refuge, a summer oasis where you can rest under the shelter of red brick patterns and tile mosaics. Each of the six works presented evokes this function in its own way and establishes a dialogue of materials with a whole series of handcrafted works integrated into the decoration of the house by Gaudí himself: iron, wood, ceramics, paper, stone and wool constitute the raw material of the exhibition.
Galleries
A total of 27 galleries from Barcelona, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat and Santa Margarida i els Monjos will participate in this year’s edition: 3 Punts Galería, ADN Galería, Alalimón, ÀMBIT Galería d’Art, Ana Mas Projects, àngels barcelona, Arte Aurora Galería, Artur Ramon Art, Bombon Projects, Die Ecke Arte Contemporáneo, Dilalica, Espai Tactel Toormix, etHALL, Galería Carles Taché, Galería Contrast, Galería Joan Prats, Galería Marc Domènech, Galería Toni Tàpies, Galería Zielinsky, L&B Gallery, Mayoral, NoguerasBlanchard, Palmadotze, Pigment Gallery, RocioSantaCruz, Sala Parés y Víctor Lope Arte Contemporáneo.
More than 70 artists, both local and international, will place Barcelona on the international panorama of contemporary and avant-garde art during the four days of the event. Artists from the last few decades, together with emerging artists from Barcelona’s effervescent artistic scene, will form part of a programme that covers all disciplines, from painting, sculpture, installation, performance and photography, and which will encompass a range of products ranging from the historical avant-garde to the latest trends in contemporary art.
The artists taking part in the next edition of the Barcelona Gallery Weekend are: Abdelkader Benchamma, Adrian Melis, Alex Katz, Alfredo Rodríguez, Anna Ill, Antonio Saura, Antoni Tàpies, Avelino Sala, Bouchra Khalili, Bruno Peinado, Carlos Aires, Carlos Pazos, Christto & Andrew (image top of page), Cynthia Fusillo, Claudia Maté, Daniel & Geo Fuchs, Daniela Ortiz, DEMOCRACIA, Diogo Pimentão, Dirk Salz, Domènec, Ed Pien, Eduardo Chillida, Eugenio Merino, Emma Kay, Federico Solmi, Francisca Benítez, Francisco Suárez, Gerard Mas, Gonzalo Sicre, Gustavo Pérez, Igor Eškinja, Irma Álvarez-Laviada, Itziar Okariz, Jaime Pitarch, Jordi Colomer, Jordi Mitjà, Joaquín Lalanne, José Luis Paz Fo, Juliana Cerqueira Leite, Josep Guinovart, Josep Maynou, Juan Uslé, Kendell Geers, Lorna Mills, Luis Coquenão, Luis Úrculo, Magda Bolumar, Manuel Rivera, Margaret Harrison, Marc Vives, María María Acha-Kutscher, Manolo Millares, Marcos Ávila-Forero, Marria Pratts, Marta Fàbregas, Meta Isæus-Berlin, mounir fatmi, Nazif Topçuoğlu, Núria Güell, Nuria Rion, Oksana Mas, Patricia Bentancur, Patrik Grijalvo, Pep Vidal, Pere Gastó, Rafael Canogar, Ràfols-Casamada, Raphaël Barontini, Riccardo Licata, Rocío Verdejo, Tobias Bernstrup, Shona Kitchen, Vanesa Muñoz Molinero, Virginie Barré, Vicky Uslé and Yogesh Barve.
Gallery Walk
Once again Barcelona Gallery Weekend will offer the ARCO GalleryWalk; guided routes through the galleries and the aforementioned public spaces of the Composiciones programme, organised jointly with the ARCO Foundation. These free itineraries are designed for all and aim to bring the public closer to the galleries through first-hand experiences, during which galleries, curators and artists present each exhibition in person, offering a unique view of them.
Barcelona Gallery Weekend 2019 will also feature the Acquisitions Programme 2019, in which institutions and companies engage in buying works of art from the participating galleries. This year the participants are Vila Casas Foundation, dedicated to contemporary Catalan art and made up of four impressive exhibition spaces in Catalonia, Sir. Víctor, the recently opened luxury design hotel in Barcelona that supports and promotes the Catalan art scene, the art space with an artist residency programme LA PLACE, the Cuban art collection La Kole, and Utopicus, a network of benchmark coworking spaces in Spain that offer innovative, collaborative, creative and cultural working environments, and fosters creativity and art as catalysts for innovation and change.
Along the same lines, the Artévete initiative of Barcelona Gallery Weekend returns with a programme of meetings and visits, both for art lovers and for young collectors, who seek to bring to the public the experience of acquiring works, with the aim of stimulating the art market. Professional Programme The BGW’s professional programme is primarily aimed at collectors, critics and representatives of local and international cultural institutions. Tailor-made guided tours are designed for them so that they can discover Barcelona’s artistic offer and various social events that allow them to weave networks of contacts as well as deepen and exchange knowledge with gallery owners.
See also: Acclaimed Spanish Artist Lita Cabellut to Exhibit at Opera Gallery London
