From December 14, 2022 to the end of 2025
Meier building, Capella MACBA and CED Ground Floor

A group exhibition that aims to reverse the dramaturgy of the museum by putting the artwork at the centre so we can address its will, its energy and its poetic intention.

What would happen if we separated the artwork from the museographic context that surrounds it? Would it be possible to think of museography as a kind of aphasia, a loss of language? Would it be possible to break up the dramaturgy of the museum that guides us in how to move through its spaces, how to register the artistic experiences they offer us, and how to apprehend the sensations that emanate from them? If we assumed that this shift were possible, what other meanings might arise, allowing us to interpret the work in a different way, and also to reinvent the museum as an institution? If that were within the realm of possibility, could we respond directly to the will of the work, to its energy and desire, to its ‘poetic intention’? Martinican poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant states that the poem must never deny the “way of the world”: can the museum put the work of art and the ways in which it reflects the world at the centre of everything?  

Taking its title from Glissant’s book, Poetic Intention can be understood as an exercise in breaking free from the institutional framework, offering a space for reflection and critique in which ‘art’, both as concept and experience, is presented as a generative and emancipatory force. This new approach to the Collection features, in large part, works acquired in recent years, setting them in new relationships with the existing Collection, but it also includes works that are entering the Museum for the first time, making its history and context more permeable and open.

In this way, a new history is shaped: one that encompasses missing elements and focusses on alternative discourses, common spaces and possible scenarios, in order to question and redefine the relationships between artistic practices and their subjects.

Virtual tour

You will walk in silence and stop wherever you like, inform yourself, listen to the artists, let the works reveal themselves as transmitters of great narratives. Such is the digital experience of MACBA Collection: Prelude. Poetic Intention.

Screenshot of the virtual tour of the Collection
With the support of: 
Logo repsol foundation

Artists

Etel Adnan
Ángela de la Cruz
Bernat Daviu
Daniel Gasol
Ivan Grilo
Mona Hatoum
Katia Kameli
Regina Parra
Dalton Paula
Rosana Paulino
Kateřina Šedá
Toni Serra *) Abu Ali
Pedro Torres

Reading and family space

Families playing in the reading and family space of the MACBA Collection

This is the reading and family space for the exhibition MACBA Collection: Prelude. Poetic Intention. A place to ‘be’. A place to relax and share a moment with those around you. A place for children to play, but also for learning and unwinding. Here you can read and explore the publications about the works and the artists in the exhibition, exchange ideas with others, chill out or simply ‘be’.

Monday to Friday: 10:00 am to 7:00 pm.
Saturdays: 10:00 am to 7:30 pm..
Sundays: 10:00 am to 2:30 pm.

You can find it at the main floor of the Study Center. Free entry for general public.

Books and games by:
logo MACBA STORE LAIE

Related

Activities

Videos

Images

"MACBA Collection: Prelude Poetic Intention" exhibition views
"MACBA Collection: Prelude Poetic Intention" exhibition views
"MACBA Collection: Prelude Poetic Intention" exhibition views
"MACBA Collection: Prelude Poetic Intention" exhibition views
"MACBA Collection: Prelude Poetic Intention" exhibition views
"MACBA Collection: Prelude. Poetic Intention" exhibition views. Photo: Miquel Coll
View of the work STANZA by Bernat Daviu
MACBA Collection: Prelude. Poetic Intention exhibition views
"MACBA Collection: Prelude. Poetic Intention" exhibition views. Photo: Miquel Coll
Installation view of the artwork "Ayuda humanitaria" by the artist Núria Güell
"MACBA Collection: Prelude. Poetic Intention" exhibition views, 2022. Photo: Miquel Coll
"MACBA Collection: Prelude. Poetic Intention" exhibition views

Audios

FONS ÀUDIO #55. Núria Güell
28.02.2023
FONS ÀUDIO #39. Iván Argote
11.02.2016
FONS ÀUDIO #15. Ignasi Aballí
12.11.2012

Publications