The Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona presents Volume!, an exhibition, which features 350 works by 75 artists, is the first in a series of presentations jointly organised by the two institutions in various cities, all aimed at suggesting different readings of the 5,500 pieces in the new collection, on view 9 November 2011 – 23 April 2012.
Latifa Echakhch “À chaque stencil une révolution”, 2007
Under the title Volume!, MACBA, the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, presents the first in a series of major exhibitions jointly organised with ”la Caixa” Foundation with the purpose of different selections from amongst the 5,500 works in their combined collections. The second show in the series, The Persistence of Geometry, will open at CaixaForum Madrid in mid-December this year. The new contemporary art collection is the result of an agreement signed in July 2010 by Isidro Fainé, president of ”la Caixa” and ”la Caixa” Foundation, and Leopoldo Rodés, Chairman of the Board of the MACBA Foundation, and later extended to include the MACBA Consortium. Now, in Volume!, a selection of 350 works by 75 international artists fills the entire MACBA exhibition space to trace out a path that alternates between the sculptural and acoustic dimensions to pinpoint the turn of the 21st century as the moment when sound and the voice became consolidated as the most essential materials in artistic production. The most outstanding features in this route around the Museum are a series of specific sections that operate as separate exhibitions. These include the chronologically-organised MACBA Collection and several major works recently acquired by the MACBA Foundation, such as Muntadas’ choral installation Between the Frames: The Forum (Barcelona), 1983-1993 (2011) and 1395 Days without Red, a film project by Šejla Kamerić and Anri Sala. Parallel to this, in February, the Museum will present a show featuring the “film poems” of Alexandr Sokurov. The 75 artists represented in this exhibition include Miquel Barceló, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Samuel Beckett, Marcel Broodthaers, James Coleman, Jean Dubuffet, Latifa Echakhch, Öyvind Fahlström, Lucio Fontana, Peter Friedl, Ferran Garcia Sevilla, David Goldblatt, Luis Gordillo, Rodney Graham, Richard Hamilton, Joan Hernández Pijuan, Roni Horn, Cristina Iglesias, Joan Jonas, Anselm Kiefer, Allan McCollum, Joan Miró, Xavier Miserachs, Muntadas, Juan Muñoz, Bruce Nauman, Pablo Palazuelo, Florian Pumhösl, Robert Rauschenberg, Gerhard Richter, Antonio Saura, Michael Snow and Antoni Tàpies, amongst others.
Volume! will coincide in time with the unveiling of two more selections from the new contemporary art collection: the first of these, The Persistence of Geometry, will open at CaixaForum Madrid in mid-December whilst, in towards the end of January 2012, the Guggenheim Museum of Bilbao host The Mirror Reversed. Later on, in November of the coming year, CaixaForum Palma will host a further fresh take on the collection. Finally, MACBA and ”la Caixa” Foundation will follow all these initiatives up with joint projects aimed at generating increased understanding and enjoyment of the most recent art and at increasing the presence of the new collection and their joint actions on the international contemporary art scene.
The new exhibition presented by MACBA provides the ideal framework for investigating one of the Museum’s main avenues of work: the exploration of artistic practices from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Within MACBA’s programming, this idea has fuelled a long-term project based on an organic and open concept of the Collection, which connects the various presentations with the temporary exhibitions. MACBA is interested in expanding the perception of the arts beyond visuality, toward the fields of sound and voice as creative materials. To that aim we have also developed a programme at Radio Web MACBA, online resources, and a variety of activities within our Public Programme.
MACBA: Plaza dels Àngels, 1. 08001 Barcelona. www.macba.cat