English
If you are still interested in art projects that use an interview format, you can’t miss the exhibition “Between the Frames: the Forum” by Antoni Muntadas, which can be visited at MACBA until the 20th of May, in the framework of the broader exhibition “Volum!”, which has a joint collection of works from La Caixa Foundation and the MACBA Museum.
The overall project, which is more extensive, consist of more than 150 hours of interviews with art agents, recorded by the same Antoni Muntadas in the decade 1983-1993. These years were very interesting for the artist because they were crucial in accommodating parts of the “art system”, when the role of curators and collectors began to take increasing importance in the creation of works and – above all – in the selection of what is exposed and what was hidden, as well as, the decisions of institutions and critics who began to dramatically influence on those who were in and out. Trying to understand the motion of this system from inside out, Muntadas approached this with a critical eye and with the intention of bringing together the contributions into a file (key word in the artistic creation of those years).
Thus, he interviewed dealers, collectors, gallerists, personalities of museums and institutions, guides, critics, media and, of course, artists. 8 different agents, which in the sample are represented by 8 rooms lit with different colors, in which there are some screens that broadcast a selection of interviews. The other interviews, which don’t appear in the sample of MACBA, are freely available in the Documentation Centre and Museum Studies, located next door. The images that accompany the sound of all the videos, without direct reference to them, suggest a critical association that clarifies the artist´s eye. To give some examples, the guides are represented by images of city traffic, the critics by the sea and its waves, and finally the artists for the production of the factories.
Muntadas offers us access to the art world of the eighties, which is by the way very current. It is as if the pieces of this system, which in those years began to settle, had not moved much, and continue today in a very stable and similar position, exerting its influence on the continuation of contemporary artistic creation.
The exhibition “Between the Frames”, as suggested by the same title, wants to investigate what happens between artists (the moment of creation) and the audience (the time of observation), providing a critique that emphasizes how the system that regulates the art world is comparable to the structure that governs the economy and politics. More information on http://www.macba.cat/ca/expo-muntadas/1/actuals/expo.
With this cold weather, it is difficult to feel like going out of our apartments in Barcelona but we recommend you come for a walk and explore this micro-system of art created by Muntadas, and give you a more definite opinion about this topic today. You won’t regret it not regret it!
