The Archive

The Archive was created out of the conviction that since the beginning of the last century, and especially from the fifties onwards, artistic production cannot be understood simply through the artwork in itself, and that the document is an element of the language that makes up complex cultural productions such as art. The Archive also aspires to contribute to counterbalancing the lack of attention that documentary holdings have been given in this specific context.

The MACBA Study Centre Archive essentially brings together two types of documents: publications, mostly published as limited editions and created by visual artists; and special materials, such as historically important documents that have not been generated by artists, "unpublished" material like series of correspondence, photographic negatives and prints, etc.

On a first level of classification, this materials are grouped according to their source. This means that the documentary holdings have generally been generated and organised by a particular person or entity in the course of their activities. Some examples include the personal archives of artists, art critics, art galleries and artists’ collectives, as well as the MACBA’s own institutional archive. The remaining documents are structured into documentary collections based on shared characteristics in terms of their content or typology. These collections gradually grow as more material is incorporated into the Archive.

In order to promote variety in the possible interrelationships of the elements that make up the MACBA Collection and the Archive, the material from both holdings are catalogued in a single database. The search engine on this page returns a mix of results from both of these sources.