Barcelona’s ‘artes plásticas’ ramble off
Mediocrity
for the masses
by Mark Borland | photos by Alfredo Lahoz
In a city like Barcelona, it’s hard not to have high expectations regarding the art that is produced here and the cultural ambience or “scene” that must consequently follow. Besides the obvious icons that art history will never forget, Barcelona simply feels artsy. Ask anyone, they’ll tell you. It’s the light. It’s the climate. It’s the multicultural representation who are calling Barcelona home. Surely when you put it all together in a martini shaker: all the different educations and backgrounds, political opinions, languages and ideas that can be found here – of people like you and me - the ingredients are there to pour a brilliant cocktail, if not genius. Perhaps genius is going too far, because that is a peak that is impossible to predict, much less plan, but the city’s fine art production nonetheless seems to be coming up extremely short when you look at the historic culture and its implied potential of the city where we live.
Perhaps it is wrong to think in terms of genius and general mediocrity. Art is, and always will be a reflection of the era in which it was produced and should only be examined, not judged, within that context. The art produced by a community is a direct result of the wants, needs and uncertainties of that community, and maybe that’s my true fear. Is a contemporary Barcelona one where we want, and strive for, a cartoon colored world of beauty and glamour which is accessible to the very few? Is it onion-paper tracings of other people’s accomplishments? Maybe not exactly, but these are the messages portrayed in many of the most popularly available images in Barcelona’s current pop art scene and therefore make their own poignant statement about the life we’re all sharing. While these aren’t the desires of the artists I know and have talked to, there is a possible explanation for what is flourishing and what is not, and one aspect is very physical: space. The fine artists with their large spatial requirements are losing out.
The following phenomenon in any major city is quite common; artists live and work in the poorer, more neglected areas, because artists are poor. Then, as a direct result of all those cool artists, the areas suddenly become trendy. Prices rise, and the artists can no longer afford to live there… they move on to another poor area, which will again, with time, become trendy and expensive, and they’ll have to, once more, relocate. What is happening in Barcelona, however, is that the city itself is making planned, proactive and heavily financed - even aggressive - changes in neighborhoods. Often times, these changes result in either an immediate, impossible to negotiate raise in the cost of rents or alternatively the outright demolition of the spaces used by artists. It’s the exact same evolutionary process, just sped up to unnatural rates. The city sponsored gentrification of all that’s not so nice (but perfect for creative inspiration) will of course be overcome; the art scene is not dead…only changed. Illustrators and designers - be they graphic or web, photographers or film producers and digital media artists in general, have greater flexibility regarding what they spatially require to create work.
This is a trend that city bosses like, and, I dare say, planned. In 1990, Catalonia formed KRTU, (Culture, Research, Technology, Universal), which is housed right here in Barcelona and whose purpose is to act as an observatory for new cultural forms, as well as a stimulus for creation and research within these new cultural trends. Barcelona also actively participates in Art Futura. All well and good, but their commitment to new forms of art doesn’t release them from their responsibility to the fine arts, and certainly doesn’t excuse them from the harm caused to painters and sculptors by imperial manipulation of resources, such as basic work space.
This is a common theme on a socio-political level in contemporary Barcelona: the imposition of what is best for the communal whole, as designed by politicians who are seemingly out of touch with the far-reaching and complex needs of their community. Instead, it appears they are more focused on constructing a façade around an ever-emptying heart.
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Broken into a thousand pieces
The Puzzle of Disenchantment Contemporary Spain’s Artistic Misguidance
by Esteban Esteban
Thanks to the post-Franco thrust into freedom, BCN’s art scene had notions of ephemeral states of being that were bored with classical cannons of beauty and existed with a lack of regard for material possessions. From this period grew a mogollón of conceptual thinkers in the world of the arts. Yes, BCN too had a movida, but its twisting excitement in Spain’s still young democracy was quickly manipulated into a still-life.
Life in the city was dark, vulgar and dingy and it was even harder to make ends meet then than it is now. Ahhhh…what a beautiful time that must have been, because this kind of situation could only exist if people understood each others’ positions and negotiated much of life’s traditional details like, for example, an artist paying for a doctor’s visit with an original piece. It was during this epoch that BCN started to breathe deep with inspiration; the cojones and ovaries were coming out from behind the zippers of repression loosing their fear to speak out.
BCN was itching for an opportunity to prove its talent and ideological diversity, but a consequential reality of the time (the transition into democracy was a quiet one with no dramatic walls falling or massive blocs crumbling) was that no one was watching; the New Spain had yet to introduce itself to the world’s art market. You couldn’t sell anybody anything. No one was looking when BCN artist Nazario first published comic books about gay/transvestite and transsexual life in BCN called El Vibora back in the late 70’s and early 80’s. No one was paying attention when Nazario’s friend burned to death as part of a performance piece about homosexual liberation.
But just because there was a post-dictatorial explosion of expression that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t still a strong grip holding on to old norms, and that tight fist was still directing governmental reigns. Imagine all the pissed off conservatives after the fall of Franco. They were much less interested in art under these bohemian-ovary terms, but were instead more interested in the church, military, and other stately institutions, wanting those humanly hush hush organs to go back to the sweaty, zipped-up workshop they came from. Cultural ministers from this period wanted to leave the dingy back waters of in your face dictatorship for a shiny, over industrialized paradise called Capitalism, but they wanted to do so nicely: no bohemians, no burning queers.
The 80’s saw the birth of ARCO (or ASCO as remembered by some) and it was Spain’s first post-Franco opportunity to show off their arts to the rest of the world. ARCO’s intention was to kick-start a newly conceived ART MACHINE, and when I say kick-start I mean 10 pages in El País and El Periódico dedicated to this art fair. ARCO preferred a hybrid between Velázquez and Warhol: classical beauty with the inevitable modern twist. The dinosaurs running the show wanted art that would sell, and that meant that it had nothing to do with what was happening on the streets. ARCO could have been what Spain needed as a platform for intellectuals, artists, critics and the public in general to meet and discuss how Spanish society was being reflected in art. But ARCO went very differently; bosses chose to create poster children for the international community. Artists such as Barceló, or Eduardo Arroyo were bolstered up above the rest, and while they are people who should not go unmerited for their talent they still could not possibly represent the whole of Spain’s artistic urge on their own. By choosing representative icons, a false standard of expression was created. ARCO was to Spain what a really hot chick would be to a fifteen year-old boy with her hands down his pants: a whole lot of promise mixed up with eager ignorance.
Spain’s premature exaltation of safe, representative, money making artists set the tone for the next 20 years and is continuing today in BCN. What was once a paradise for cheap living and work studios, a paradise for those who fed off the grit and the political and ideological diversity, has become a place where artists and independent galleries feel unappreciated and forgotten while Jordi La Banda sticks out as a household name. Today we find BCN regretfully sitting in the post coital afterglow, smeared in the face with its own jizm.
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Putting it back together
Feed Your Head
Galleries and Collectives You Should Support
by Helenita González
It might seem as if BCN is full of galleries because you see them on every corner. But, compared to other major “art” capitals of the world, BCN is still lacking them. And if you add the fact that galleries aren’t as receptive to artists as they should be, then we have a major problem.
Like any other city, galleries here (some more than others) seem to be run with a business mentality when galleries should be, first and foremost, platforms: spaces willing to embrace the new, where the dialogue on art is a primordial thing. Places where the exchange of human creativity and ideas is the ultimate goal. A gallery is not a fucking chiringuito selling churros.
Having said that, not everything es tan jodido. There are collectives and galleries doing something fresh and alternative, struggling to survive while working hard to bring us closer to innovative people!
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TPK (Taller de Publilla Casas)
Avda. Josep Tarradellas 44
Gallery/School/Collective
It started as a meeting place for artists to exchange ideas and expand their interests, but when private and public funding, with help from other art schools, got the ball rolling, it became a school of collectives. The concept here is that artists are indeed multitasking and multitalented beings. So not only do they have expositions, they give classes of classic and contemporary art and multimedia and multidisciplinary workshops.
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Base Elements
Baixada Viladecols 2
Gallery/Studio
Street-edgy, naïve, powerful work, they stand strong by the gritty and crude at Base Elements. At the same time it has a relaxing, warm, familiar feel to it.
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MX Espai
c/Llibreteria 7, principal
Gallery/Collective
This is a very cozy, experimental gallery where you can find both video installation and poetry readings. They are also one of the galleries selected by the festival loop to present video art, national and international artists. In addition, there is a segment of the gallery called “Cuina de l’Angel” dedicated to small sized art and peculiarities.
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Espacio Cultural Ample
LOFT Barcelona + DART Barcelona + OFF*AMPLE
c/Ample 5
Gallery
Here you get three galleries in one: Loft being contemporary Chinese art, Dart being contemporary European art and Off Ample being a space where different cultures collide to represent a concept. It’s very refreshing to go in and see what’s going on in other parts of the world.
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Artist love Barcelona
c/ Ferlandina 26
Gallery/School
The work in this gallery is an eclectic selection of art that represents BCN with a unique eye. They also have classes for drawing, painting, life drawing and an intensive weekend painting course.
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The following are some organizations that are also working to make a difference in BCN’s fight to save its sickly artistic soul.
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Interview with optimism
Create, Buy, Enter
Being an artist in a global village, or Manolo goes to Japan
by Maren Hermans
This article was supposed to demonstrate that Barcelona is a very creative place, very inspiring, very nice, very cool, thank you very much. So, I thought, an American artist based in Barcelona is an easy catch: give me some American enthusiasm, European Romanticism, there you go. Well: no. Sorry.
Barcelona-based American sculptor Frank Plant is one of these guys you can call a world citizen. Eight years ago he came to Catalonia and creates since then big steel sculptures in his big, industrial studio with big, sunny terrace. And even though Frank’s favorite bar is in Plaza España, it possible that the bar’s waiter Manolo will soon find himself back in Japan.
Frank studied In the US and Italy, worked in Amsterdam and Shanghai. His work is exhibited all over the world, and he is selling on several markets: ‘You don't want to survive only from one market. Even though I sold some pieces in Barcelona, I need more markets to actually survive.’ Frank tells me. This is an artist who knows how to sell his work. But unfortunately, the art climate in Barcelona is even for an artist with marketing skills very difficult: ‘I think the market is weak here. It's much stronger in Madrid. It is funny, because Catalans are very proud of themselves of having this great tradition of collecting.’
Art Crisis in Barcelona? ‘I think there is a lot of culture here. But seemingly not a lot of cultural management. Perhaps it is a lack of communication between artists and the structures that are here to support and protect them. In Northern European cultures, there are more structural and state subsidies. Here they either have other priorities or they just don't have it. It is a very subtle combination of things required to actually bring something interesting to the public.’
In his studio, he shows me a new piece he is working on: waiting people. With steel, he drew different characters, which are later going to form one piece. ‘I love social dynamics, observing culture, structures and structured chaos. I love seeing people interacting on the streets.’
‘And that is different in Barcelona than in other cities?’
‘I definitely think it is different here, regarding the sociological point. But I think it is also climate. The climate has a profound influence on how people interact with each other. Life is more outside.’
Frank lives in Hostafrancs, a typical working class neighborhood. Bored kids hang out on the street corner, and an abuela just starts to pull her shopping bag through the uneven street. In the middle of this very Spanish neighborhood, Frank installed himself, his art and his modem: “The methods of communication nowadays are so different than in the past: You have a webpage, a weblog and that’s it. You can access markets and publics with more ease, from China, South America, the States, and so on. Where as, 15 years ago, for an artist, unless you had someone spending thousands of pesetas for a catalogue, it was impossible. Also, this is an advantage regarding the type of work. For instance, I was doing an exhibition in Shanghai: I sent drawings to them, which they then engraved in stainless steel and had it painted and exhibited.’
Later, we leave his house and in the entrance a big face looks at me: That’s Manolo, the waiter in my favorite bar here. You’ll meet him now.’
While Manolo is making bocadillos con queso, I want to know what is Frank’s favorite place in Barcelona to get inspired. ‘A restaurant, Cal Pep in El Bourne. Atmosphere and food are very inspiring. Just sitting at the bar, waiting for a seat and watching the other people eating. Awesome.’ He says and bites in his bocadillo.
Frank’s web log: http://www.hierroglyphic.blogspot.com/
and webpage: http://www.frankplant.com/
Boomtown Cogs
July 12 - 25
by Stephan Ortiz
Bicing is a massive success! Everyone is zipping around on what BCN Week has branded as a Kinder-Egg bike. The thing is that the Ajuntament is quite unprepared for the success. Nearly 70,000 people have signed up (currently 1,000 daily) to use what will be 3,000 bikes at 200 stations by the end of the year. The French city of Lyon, which has a quarter of Barcelona’s 1.6 million inhabitants, has 300 stations and 4,000 bikes in circulation. Studies for a bike system in Paris (pop. 2.1 million) show a need for 1,450 stations and 20,000 bikes.
Housing prices haven’t just slowed, they’re actually falling. For the first time since 2001, prices for flats de segunda mano have fallen: by 1.3% to be specific. That, my friend, is good news.
The Mortiz factory on Ronda Sant Antoni, that was due to open sometime this year, will actually open in 2009. It will be a fancy affair with a street level cervecería proudly featuring a 20 meter-long bar. There will be a beer museum, tours of the factory, and lots of mirrors and lights. Suspicions pin the delay on hangovers.
Because your life can change in an instant, seven pedestrians were knocked over like bowling pins on a sidewalk that rounds Plaza de Catalunya. The driver lost control. One woman is elderly and has several broken bones.
In their great haste to gut that blue bitch, the demolition crews responsible for taking down the ever infamous okupa house on Joan de Borbó overlooked basics like cutting electricity and gas, not to mention taking care with debris falling at the feet of pedestrians. The work has been suspended by some governmental office and will continue only when it can be done correctly, but there’s obviously no rush now that those pesky okupas have lost their fight.
If somebody throws rocks at your car, don’t stop. After hearing about the arrests earlier in the summer of some scary Easterners (read: Romania and Italy) for some serious rest-stop thievery, some more simple minded Westerners (read: L'Hospitalet de Llobregat) thought they’d try some pirating of their own. Cue the rock throwing and subsequent threat-making.
After gruelling negotiations with the city, the monopolizing mama Telefónica is moving its Espacio Movistar to the opposite end of Diagonal, to the Zona Universitaria in Les Corts. The deal is that the telephone dictator and customer enslaver is building a massive, multi-storied horror to consolidate its evilness where the Espacio now stands. And because it can, Telefónica has been a right twat about refusing alternatives suggested by the city, and has even threatened to move the concert venue to Valencia.
In more scientific polling, 98.3% of Catalonia’s population knows what a castell is (do you?) and of those, 93.6% think it is a positive activity and 90% think it helps integrate people into the community. 40% of those questioned think it’s dangerous, but no more than skiing and less so than scuba diving and motorbike riding.
Tibidabo has opened a 4-D cinema. The fourth dimension at last?! No, park bosses assure us that they haven’t been able to include time travel as an attraction, but they can move cinema seats and wet you with “rain” water, and such. It’ll be a great way to pass the time if your kid gets stuck on the up swing of a massive platform for two hours due to a mechanical malfunction, as happened last month.
The Generalitat will install 290 condom-dispensing machines in train stations and public libraries across Catalonia, bringing the number to 800. Books make me horny too.
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How dead is dead
by jordae
already this year, barcelonan artists have been breaking old boundaries, setting new limits, creating new standards. bcn has always been a very creative city. it inspires us in many ways. yet, the last few years, its been hard to put a finger on what that inspiration exactly is anymore. with so much political sway, the artists have apparently pushed their artwork back indoors. with all the mainstream hoopla, artists are focusing on success. walls where once there was a beautiful array of color, have been reduced to boring grays and territorial scribblings. a building where there used to be markets or living space, now houses countless new galleries. and every gallery seems to be full ‘til 2010, a new pop star born every month. with so much money and energy being wasted on marketing new artists into mainstream culture, bcn has suffered. its artists have suffered. its culture has suffered.
so when something as fundamental as difusor (a weekend long stenciling project around the city) comes along, bringing together both local artists and international artists alike, focusing on the word “community,” it makes me wonder what’s going on behind the curtain. i don’t mean that old red iron curtain. i’m talking about this brand spankin’ new, shiny green rag paper curtain. what is the motivation and inspiration behind the art anymore? especially in a city with so much artistic history and creativity as bcn.
this last weekend was somewhat of a paradox. the organization of difusor was good but the event kept the artists, for the most part, out of the public eye due to civil ordinances/nuisances. everybody passing by in the streets was impressed, taking an interest, if they could see anything at all. and a nice n’ tasty chunk of media attention discussed the event. on the other hand, it was an extremely communal happening. whether it was sharing one ladder between 30 people, having complete strangers lend a hand to hold up your template, or just exchanging various ideas and war stories, there was a very real degree of integrity abound. all this without even mentioning the extraordinary amount of diversity, experience, novelty and intelligence in the artistic talent.
how ‘bout a more personal look, say you? well, the jump-off point was bocanord, about 150 meters of pure stencil dysfunction. there was obviously no plan, no rhyme, just a mess of where-to-put-up-the-next-shtick. meeting point madness. the next day we set up on the roof terrace at gothic point hostel in ribera, plenty happening there. not much chitter-chatter that day, just right down to business. with the visual stimulation of artists like dildo society, fragil, mr. case & olivia, mir, dothemath and many more, it was plantilla on a design platter. unfortunately, it was a timed event, due to the hostel management, so most people had to rush through their work or leave it unfinished. c’est la vie. i asked some people what they thought about the arts in bcn being dead. local artist mr. case commented that “barcelona is not completely dead yet, it’s just very sick. you can tell that by the color of its skin.” ms. olivia, in all her color, said that “barcelona is dying, but we’re trying to revive it using color as a medicine.” not limited to cute sentences, there are still a handful of local artists trying to nurse bcn back to health.
we packed up the goodies, and were off to the next spot at the top of a mountain (great view by the way). a small graffed-up wall had been buffed and set aside for the event at the gardens of frederica montseny. the cool thing about this spot was that there was a whole other set of artists painting, another 25 or so. here people brought out the big guns: giant-sized photo-realistic stencils. reppin’ the spot were people like orticanoodles, fk, snub, fremantle, m-city, creadores invisbles, ripo, don silencio, lex/sten, dothemath, and many more.
there were various other locations, some night get-togethers, a couple seminars/discussions given at the bocanord base-camp, as well as the miscelanea gallery opening for m-city, fremantle and silencio. all in all, difusor was a success, an eye-opener for both artists and passersby alike. an excessive creative abuse of allotted time and space. a meeting point of soap boxes. but, is this type of event the new platform for street art to go conventional? or is it something much more than that? perhaps it’s a place for all arts to intertwine. after all, anybody can make a stencil. and, more and more people are being driven to explore this medium. most importantly this weekend was about making art for content, not success. about passion, not money. it showed that there was hope behind the curtain. what are you trying to say?
"paredes en blanco = mentes en blanco." —fragil, local artist
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Vol 1, No 49 | July 12, 2007
