Collectable

We Go On Recording…

collectable

At a time when audiovisual devices have become universal tools, when we have turned our leisure and holiday time into an improvised film set, and when the mechanisms of cinema have become an inseparable part of our everyday lives, how do we approach the act of filming? In the MACBA Collection, we have looked at a selection of recent, and not so recent, film works that expand the horizon of this exercise in freedom that comes with picking up a camera by revisiting its established codes. Our new exhibition The Act of Filming: Video in the MACBA Collection features three experimental nodes centred on film practice. Linked to the celebration of the centenary of Pere Portabella’s birth, it includes a series of works produced during the years of the Spanish Transition, when filming was, above all, a political act. From the same period, we also present the work of Video-Nou/Servei de Vídeo Comunitari, a collective that recognised the immense social potential of video before almost anyone else. Finally, with works created from the early 2000s to the present day, the exhibition presents a significant selection from Han Nefkens’ generous donation to MACBA, featuring videos that explore the texture and materiality of the moving image through fragmentary and associative forms of storytelling. To continue experimenting, to try new paths, to discover things we still don’t know about the moving image. We look forward to welcoming you.