"La biblioteca", by Stella Rahola, at Dilalica. Photo: Aleix Plademunt
Activity
Thursday April 24, 2025
The Artwork Journey I: Visit to Stella Rahola’s Studio
Exclusive activity for Collection Friends and MACBA Friends
Stella Rahola Matutes welcomes us into her studio to explore the creative processes and materials that determine the journey of a work of art from its idea to its institutionalisation.
This two-sessions cycle offers a reflection on the route followed by a work of art from idea to acquisition. In this first session, we’ll visit the studio of Stella Rahola, an architect by training who has carried over her interest in creating environments and in situational spaces to her artistic practice. Rahola, present in the MACBA Collection with her work La biblioteca [The Library], uses her work to explore the tension between substance and meaning on the basis of artisan techniques, in particular blown glass.
At this session she will share with us the creative process behind La biblioteca and discuss the pieces’ journey from the place where it is created to the museum, questioning the dynamics of valuation and circulation of contemporary art. This will be followed up by a second part, to take place on 8 May at the Dilalica gallery, where La biblioteca was exhibited before joining the MACBA Collection. This second session will allow us to go into the role of galleries as places for mediation between artistic creation and the museum, and discuss the processes of legitimation and institutionalisation of works of art.
artist
Stella Rahola Matutes
Barcelona, 1980
Stella Rahola Matutes studied Architecture at ETSAB (UPC) in Barcelona, and has one master’s degree in Projects, also from ETSAB (2011), and another in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London (2019). Architecture awakened her interest in the meaning of space, the building of structures and the ability of material to be transformed. Through installation and sculpture, Rahola reflects on the creation of places and situational encounters that recover specific waste materials.
The impossibility of re-using these materials because of certain political contexts means they exist on a threshold of suspense. Through her own agency in transforming them, Stella points to a state of impermanence and uncomfortable fragility that involves other things and species. The relations that emerge from these associations run through her strengths and affectivities, opening up possibilities for forms of coexistence involving an environmental contingency.
Her exhibitions have included: “La biblioteca” (Dilalica, Barcelona Gallery Weekend, 2023), “Notes for an Eye Fire” (MACBA, Barcelona, 2021), “Inviting Life at the Pavilion” (Pavelló Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona, 2023), “Teoria de l’alegria” (MACE, Eivissa, 2020), Los Angeles Contemporary Art Fair with Union Pacific Gallery (London, 2019), “Gold X” (Deptford X Festival, London, 2018) and “Syntonic State” (TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, Galway, 2018). She was recently benn shortlisted for the Premi Ciutat de Mallorca (2025), and has won the Premi Arts Libris Banc Sabadell (2024), the Biennal d’Arts Visuals Ricard Camí prize (2022), the A-FAD prize in recognition of her career (2021) and the Fundació Vila Casas Sculpture Prize (2021). She is currently resident artist at Hangar (2023-2025). Since 2016 she has taught on MEATS (Master in Ephemeral Architecture and Temporary Spaces) at Elisava (Barcelona).
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