The Drap-Art’11 festival focuses on the possibilities of creative recycling: group exhibitions of art and designer objects made from recyclable materials, interventions in public space, participative workshops -with children, -instrument making (Let’s recycle, Let’s sing!), -objects (making flowers from coffee capsules) -performances, and several round table discussions (- The infinite possibilities of recycling. – The culture of squandering in times of crisis).
 
Drap-Art’11 brings together over 150 artists, musicians, workshop facilitators, designers, speakers and filmmakers.

Drap-Art’11. International Recycling Art Festival of Catalonia will be held at the CCCB, plaça Joan Coromines, Pati de les Dones and plaça dels Àngles from Friday the 16th to Friday the 30th of December 2011. Activities will concentrated from the 16th to the 18th in the CCCB and from the 21st to the 30th in the FAD.

 
Drap-Art ’11
www.cccb.org
http://www.drapart.org/

Curated by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, this touring retrospective gives an insight into the transformative role of the Russian Ballet and the grand impresario at its heart, Serge Diaghilev.

While the man cut an intimidating figure, his groundbreaking vision led to the conception of what some now refer to as the greatest ballet company in history – one whose techniques many continue to use as a source of inspiration in devising contemporary ballets today.

In the early twentieth century Diaghilev’s directional choreography released Ballet into the limelight as an art form in its own right, after having previously been a somewhat stale sideline act to Opera. The fresh music, choreography and costume blew pre-conceived notions of austere classical dance out of the water and a new genre was born.

This exhibition draws on the V&A’s impressive collection of costume illustration, archive photographs and film to give us an insight into Diaghilev’s enchanted world. A beautiful experience for visitors of all ages.

Diaghilev: When art dances with music, until 15th Jan 2012
Entrance to exhibitions at Caixa Forum is free.

Caixa Forum
Av. de Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia, 6-8
Tel: 93 476 86 00
www.obrasocial.lacaixa.es


Also worth a look: The Mariinsky Ballet at Teatre Liceu

The legendary Mexican Suitcase, a priceless record of the Spanish civil war, has recently made its journey from New York to Barcelona’s very own cultural epicenter, MNAC, el Museu National d’art de Catalunya.

The so-called suitcase is actually a collection of three boxes comprising negatives by world-renowned war photographers Robert Capa (who later went on to found the progressive photojournalism agency, Magnum Photos), David “Chim” Seymour and Gerda Taro. Considered lost since 1939, the boxes arrived at the doors of the International Center of Photography, New York in 2007 – sixty-eight years later.

In the early 1930’s the trio diligently documented the unraveling political and military turmoil in Spain, risking life and limb to bring the front lines to the front pages. These photos not only constitute an invaluable record of the photographic innovation of the time, but also of the great political struggle within Spain to reverse the expansion of global fascism.


The spreading civil unrest during this period led the photographers to record images of the escalating violence as fascism steadily extended its grip on the nation’s consciousness – beginning with calm, organised work strikes and street protests, morphing into anarchist riots and climaxing in the en-masse evacuation of entire communities, violent military coups and widespread bloodshed.

The exhibition itself displays wall upon wall of original contact sheets made from the 4,500 negatives contained within these boxes. It is a fascinating insight into the photographers’ minds – you see the action unravel frame by frame alongside their personal notes and original magazine cuttings. La Maleta Mexicana offers a profound insight into the realities of the Spanish Civil War and is a must for photography and history enthusiasts alike.

The exhibition runs from 6th October until 15th January 2012


MNAC
Palau Nacional
Parque de Montjuïc
Tel: 93 622 03 76
www.mnac.cat

Brangulí. Barcelona 1909-1945
7th June – 23rd October

Josep Brangulí (1879 – 1945) accompanied Catalunya throughout monumental socio-political changes during the first half of the twentieth century. During his impressive career as a documentary photographer, Brangulí gave equal weight to the ordinary and everyday as he did to significant historical events.

To photography buffs, he is comparable to the likes of Robert Doisneau and Henri-Cartier Bresson, French Humanist photographers who enchanted us with their candid, inky black and white images of street-life. They brought us the decisive moment, the notion of capturing a split second in time through the lens – immortalising that moment forever, as if by an act of alchemy.

Brangulí’s sensitivity towards his subjects bring us official portraits in formal environments; factory workers pause to stare into the lens, seamstresses work alongside their newborn babies and endless rows of school children study obediently at their desks.

The timeless black and white images also offer us a powerful insight into an altogether mysterious Barcelona that would otherwise be unknown to us; of now-extinct Gitano neighbourhoods and celebrations-no-more, of lantern-lit watering holes staffed by elegant, be-suited waiters; of primitive fire-engines, mummified nuns perched upright outside churches, Fascist marches and Nazi propaganda, of thick, black pools of blood in dark alleys and faded smudges of figures that almost eluded the camera’s immortal gaze completely.

The curators selected a mere three hundred photos from the archive of over a million images for the exhibition and created thematic blocks to make better sense of the broad areas of society, industry and politics that Brangulí covered. The exhibition runs until 23rd October and is a testament to the critical changes of Barcelona not to be missed.

CCCB
C/Montalegre 5
Barcelona
Tel:93 306 41 00
www.cccb.org

Fundació Miro
Parc de Montjuïc s/n
08038 Barcelona
Phone: +34 934 439 470
www.fundaciomiro-bcn.org/

miBa
C/ Ciutat nº7
08002 Barcelona
Phone: +34 93 3327930
www.mibamuseum.com

It’s been 75 years since the inauguration of the stunning Museu d’Art de Catalunya in Montjuic, and the museum is celebrating it’s birthday in style by bringing together 75 masterpieces of Catalan art from private collections, Catalan, European and American museums, and ecclesiastic patrimony.

The show takes us on a journey through Catalan art from the Middle Ages to the 20th Century, stopping to admire the Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque periods along the way.

Certain pieces are making a very special journey home for the exhibition, such as The Farmer’s Wife by Joan Miró, which is being brought in from the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

The MNAC’s 75th birthday bash includes Anniversary Night, on December 18th, with free admission throughout the museum and live music in the Oval Hall.

Convitats de Honor
MNAC
Palau Nacional, Parc de Montjuïc
www.mnac.cat

“He’s not a composer, but an inventor of genius”. – said Arnold Schönberg of his pupil, John Cage. You can judge for yourself this winter as the MACBA
presents the largest exhibition devoted to the composer since his death.

The Anarchy of Silence – John Cage and Experimental Art is also the first exhibition to place Cage’s work within the context of the history of music and the visual and dramatic arts. Installations, lectures, concerts and film and video screenings
trace Cage’s twisting, turning and ultimately triumphant trajectory from the 30’s until his death in 1982 stopping along the way to call on pupils such as Duchamp and Warhol.

Winter opening hours:
Weekdays: 11.00 to 19.30, Saturdays: 10.00 to 20.00, Sundays and holidays 10.00h to 15.00h. Closed: Tuesdays, December 25 and January 1.

Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona MACBA
Plaça dels Angels 1
Tel: (+34) 93 412 0810
www.macba.es

The MACBA Collection has not been shown in its entirety since 2005, when some 160 works tracing a chronological reading of the Museum’s own collections from the 1950’s to the present day were exhibited on its three floors.

The MACBA has grown since then, and now incorporates two new spaces:
Among the new works acquired by the collection and featured in the exhibition is Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, a Real-Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971, by Hans Haacke, which has been jointly acquired by the MACBA and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Tickets can be purchased on the door or in advance from the MACBA website, priced E7,50 or E6 concessions.

Summer Opening Hours:
June 24th to September 24th
Weekdays: 11 am to 8 pm
Thursdays and Fridays: 11 am to midnight
Saturdays: 10 am to 8 pm
Sundays and holidays: 10 am to 3 pm
Closed Tuesdays (except holidays)

The Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art
Plaça dels Angels, 1
Tel +34 93 412 08 10
www.macba.cat