Framed by its leafy avenue, Feníxia by Silvia Gubern stands like a totem over Barcelona, a solid stone portal …
From Medieval monks to neon lights
If you’re looking for an example of Gothic and eighteenth-century architecture integrating seamlessly with twentieth-century art, check out Deuce Coop…
Controversy in every angle
Alongside Tàpies, Picasso and Miró, Josep Maria Subirachs (1927–2014) stands as one of Spain’s most important twentieth-century artists. The seventy…
The balance of trade in Barceloneta
Jannis Kounellis, though Greek, was at one time, like Mario Merz, an exponent of Italy’s Arte Povera (poor art). This late-sixties…
The measure of a shell
Unsurprisingly, for this installation of cobble-embedded neon, Italian artist Mario Merz chose the Fibonacci sequence, a ratio occurring naturally in…
Anarchy on a classical plinth
Like a lone night watchman—as he was in his youth—the statue of Joan Salvat-Papasseit (1894–1924), one of Catalonia’s preeminent poets,…
Saint Paul in the Field
While most of the Barcelona art I write about is free, I sometimes include exceptions, and this is one. A…
Stargazing down at the port
They could be a pair of stevedores on deck, each marooned on their tiny pontoon. But they seem content to…
Walk through a poem in Horta
Poetry, theatre, prose, sculptural works and even experimental film: his output was prodigious in all these media yet Joan Brossa…
Dancing Prawn
Many’s the town that cheerfully flaunts some huge and dreadful object on its loftiest hilltop. Made of concrete or fibreglass,…
