22 April to 5 November 2021

 

esquelet
 

The museum’s archive also occupies a virtual space in addition to its physical space and public programme of activities. This space is a mystery and a challenge:

VIRTUAL SPACE →

 

Since its inception, MACBA’s historical archive has been dedicated to conserving, cataloguing and disseminating all the documentation generated by the activities produced by the museum. Over this period, our exhibitions, concerts, publications, study programmes, workshops, lectures, radio broadcasts and various meetings have already generated over sixty-thousand documents, forming a historical archive under permanent construction.

On the occasion of the museum's 25th anniversary, Enric Farrés Duran has developed a project with the museum's historical archive. Through a process of research, the artist has delved deep into the archive, reviewing the limits of its definitions to reveal its inner core. We know that an archive is not only made up of the documents it contains, but also everything that allows them to be available. The notion of archive that we address here refers to fundamental aspects such as the different spaces where these documents are kept, the data structures into which they are inserted and the people who interact with them. All of these elements are parts of the common construction of the meaning of the document, a constantly shifting meaning for an ongoing archive.

By immersing ourselves in this archive, some questions have arisen such as: Are the documents always at our disposal? Are the documents the props of our research? What data does a document contain and what hierarchies are established between that data? Can a fungus constitute the contents of a document? If by definition we consider that an archive is open and that the user has permanent access to its contents, what does it mean to exhibit an archive? To whom are we exhibiting it? What does it show and what does it hide? And finally, how is it shown? These questions, among others, have been fundamental to the conception of this project, composed of a programme of public activities, an exhibition and a virtual space. The way in which the activities are conceived and relate to the exhibition and the archive challenges the usual operating logics of the institution, while underlining, pointing out and making them visible.

Enric Farrés Duran (Barcelona, 1983) is a graduate in Art and Design (Escola Massana, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), as well as holding a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy (Universitat de Barcelona) and a master’s in Production and Artistic Research. He combines his artistic work with university teaching and independent publishing projects. His work has been seen in group shows at the MNAC (Una col·lecció heterodoxa: El llegat T. F.); at MACBA (París no se acaba nunca # Districte cinquè); at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies (Tres coses rares. Història d'una desaparició); with solo shows at the Centre d'Art La Panera, Lleida (Una exposició de mirar) and at the Centre d'Art Contemporani, Girona Bòlit (Res és meu). In 2015, he was funded by BCN Production to develop the project El visitant ideal d'una col·lecció sentimental (The Ideal Visitor of a Sentimental Collection), in collaboration with the Museu Frederic Marès and the Fundació La Caixa. He has also awarded the Generación 2016 Prize from the Fundación Montemadrid. In 2016, he premiered the movie Un viatge frustrat thanks to the Cal Cego contemporary art collection, and held Una exposició de dibuixos at the etHALL gallery (Barcelona), where he received the GAC-DKV award. During 2017, he had a solo exhibition at Uma Certa Falta de Coerência (Porto), performed an intervention in LACA (Los Angeles) contemporary art archive, and gave a lecture on collecting and artistic practice at the Museu de Arte Moderna (MAM), São Paulo.

A project by Enric Farrés Duran with the museum’s historical archive.


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Images

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Publications