Enderroc (1996 and 2020) | Online activity | MACBA Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona

25 November, 2020

MACBA opened its doors 25 years ago, in 1995, with Miquel Molins as director. One year later, the museum called upon 14 nationally and internationally renowned artists, to question the architecture of the new Meier building and to create a dialogue with its immediate surroundings. The result was Views (of the Museum), one of the museum’s first exhibitions, curated by Antònia Maria Perelló. Among the invited artists was Ignasi Aballí (Barcelona, 1958), who took part with his work Enderroc, a large-format installation that occupied the back wall of the atrium. To commemorate this 25-year journey, Aballí has agreed to rebuild the work and once again install it in the museum.

On the occasion of the reproduction of the work Enderroc by artist Ignasi Aballí, and in the context of the 25th anniversary celebrations of MACBA, the artist will speak to Ferran Barenblit, current director of MACBA; Miquel Molins, director of MACBA between 1995-1998; and Antònia Maria Perelló, curator and head of the MACBA Collection and curator of Views (of the Museum).

Within the framework of the 1996 exhibition, Aballí built five large chromatic spaces on the back wall of the atrium: a wall which is as high as the Meier building and which never goes out of sight when walking up and down the ramp used to access the various floors of the museum. It was created in different colours and textures, using paint and wallpaper. As the title itself suggests, Enderroc (Catalan for ‘demolition’) evokes the remnants of domestic interiors when the demolition of a neighbouring building exposes them. This is how, in a very direct and physical way, buildings preserve, as a living testimony, the memory of once lived-in interiors. “It’s interesting to be able to access the different levels of the house through the different levels of the museum,” explained Aballí.

Throughout the years, MACBA has become an inseparable icon of the neighbourhood it belongs to, the Raval. Its construction, in the pre-Olympic Barcelona of the early nineties, contributed to a profound transformation of the area, while preserving its identity. Both then and now, the museum has wanted to build a dialogue with its physical and human environment. This is how, through respecting the vestiges and memory of the place, works like Enderroc can continue to have the same relevance and validity as before. The revival of Aballí’s installation is proof of this conviction. The curator of the exhibition had, at the time, written in the catalogue, “The artist’s view, the view from the inside out, and from the outside in; the introspection within the building and within the concept of a museum, the view into the history of the Raval, the events which affect its people, the urban fabric. [...] The multiplicity of visions generated by the artists help us to understand the importance of establishing MACBA in the Raval”.