A detail of 'Woman and Bird' showing Miró’s classic, limited palette

Is It a Bird? Is It a Penis? Or a Mushroom Woman in a Moon Hat?

Dubbed a host of filthy names because of its phallic shape, this well-known sculpture’s original title, ‘Mushroom Woman in a Moon Hat’, is perhaps the least known of all. Miró’s last public work is monumental, best enjoyed up close on a summer’s evening when the late Mediterranean light sets the trencadís aglow.

Her phoenix gate

Framed by its leafy avenue, Feníxia by Silvia Gubern stands like a totem over Barcelona, a solid stone portal …

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 … More

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 … More

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 … More

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, … More

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 … More

The capital A’s sharp lines erupt from the vegetation like a futurist manifesto

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 … More

With its whimsically comic air, Gambrinus brings a sense of fun to the Moll de la Fusta

Dancing Prawn

Many’s the town that cheerfully flaunts some huge and dreadful object on its loftiest hilltop. Made of concrete or fibreglass, … More

Where the sky has fallen

Sol i ombra (Sun and Shade, 1988) is the name covering two works by the north-American artist Beverly Pepper (b. … More