BARCELONA.- The Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona presents Species of Spaces, an exhibition that adopts the appearance of a fragmented building recreating the spatial typologies that the writer Georges Perec (Paris, 1936 – Ivry-sur-Seine, 1982) inventoried in his eponymous book. Half way between novel and essay, this 1974 publication invites us to reflect on the course of life by wandering from one space to another, from the most private to the public sphere. Frederic Montornés, curator of the exhibition, has freely interpreted the work by the French author and used it as an instruction manual for the construction of the exhibition. Two large museum galleries have been transformed into thirteen spaces, specially created according to the different chapters in Perec’s book. All these ‘species of spaces’ remind us both of the most private and intimate aspects of human life (the page, bed, bedroom, apartment, building, street and neighbourhood), and of the public sphere (town, countryside, country, Europe, the world and space). The exhibition brings together almost fifty works by forty artists, and includes site-specific productions, works from private and public collections and from the MACBA Collection.
Species of Spaces is an exercise in artistic documentation reflecting on a different concept of exhibition space, beyond the white cube. The show, which is free of any pre-ordained sense of the visit, is accessed through the works of Daniel Steegmann Mangrané and Stanley Brouwn.
The structure of the exhibition, created by the MAIO architecture team, fragments the gallery dedicated to the private space into various cubicles, while leaving the gallery representing the public sphere free and diaphanous. Each compartment dedicated to the private space contains works having different origins and artistic techniques, reminiscent of the spaces in which the most intimate aspects of our lives unfold. In the same way as Perec does not define the spaces in his book by giving them the same extension, intention and intensity, in the exhibition these spaces do not contain the same number of artists and works.
Outside the exhibition galleries we find a site-specific intervention by Luz Broto, relating the outside to the inside of the Museum through a hole located in the staircase that connects the different floors, and a work in progress by Martí Anson based on creating an interior design shop outside the Museum.
Generally speaking, space is a physical notion containing all phenomenological reality, a place where life unfolds and space is inhabited. Human beings establish a pragmatic relationship with space by circulating through it and ordering it according to their material needs. But there is a further dimension embracing the knowledge of the notion of space itself. In this sense, Montornés’ free interpretation of Perec’s book gives voice to the artists and the works in the exhibition, by letting them approach this reflection from an artistic point of view. Species of Spaces includes multi-disciplinary works based on the notion of place or space that amplify this idea by establishing a dialogue between themselves, thus creating a new space for knowledge.
Species of Spaces, which can be seen at MACBA from 16 July 2015 to 30 January 2016, includes the following artists: Ignasi Aballí, Lara Almarcegui, Serafín Álvarez, Martí Anson, Marcel Broodthaers, Luz Broto, stanley brouwn, Victor Burgin, Luis Camnitzer, Azahara Cerezo/Mario Santamaría, Joan Colom, Jordi Colomer, Guy Debord, Pep Duran, Andrés Fernández, León Ferrari, Lucio Fontana, Dora García, Gego, Joan Hernández Pijuan, Francisco Ibáñez, Marla Jacarilla, Adrià Julià, Emma Kay, Guillermo Kuitca, Manolo Laguillo, MAIO, Gordon Matta-Clark, Ester Partegàs, Lois Patiño, Gerhard Richter, Humberto Rivas, Pedro G. Romero, Gino Rubert, Francesc Ruiz, Edward Ruscha, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Saul Steinberg, Ignacio Uriarte.
