Holdings for a collection

The aim of this second selection of works from the MACBA Collection was to show how certain Dada and surrealist features run through a considerable number of art works produced at different periods in time and in diverse geographical areas.

The first two sections of the exhibition revolved around Joan Brossa’s poems and focused on linguistic and objectual aspects. Visual plays on basic structures such as letters, words, signs, objects and geometric shapes were the springboard for an exploration of elements of language and an enhancement of its semantic, conceptual and visual potential. This section also included works by Marcel Broodthaers, Marcel Mariën, Piero Manzoni, James Lee Byars, Jordi Colomer, Francesc Torres, Rogelio López Cuenca and Federico Guzmán.
Works by Perejaume, Pepe Espaliú, Ramón Guillén-Balmes, Carmen Calvo, Ana Prada, Joan Rom, Rosemarie Trockel, Robert Llimós and Jana Sterbak associated everyday objects and found fragments of reality with linking and/or decontextualisation processes, showing the more intimist side of art. A more ironic and transgressive could be found in works by Miralda, Carlos Pazos and Tony Oursler.

The artists A. R. Penck, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francesco Clemente and Luis Gordillo, and an extensive selection of works by Joan Ponç, Josep M. de Sucre, Zush and Ferran García Sevilla in the final section of the exhibition illustrated the profound connection between artists and the images they create. Through the obsessive repetition of certain graphic elements or a highly personal iconography, their works are often a representation of irrationality or the unconscious mind.