Sur l'herbe, 2005-2008
Taking as his reference Manet’s work Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, Jorge Ribalta took this series of photographs at Barcelona’s Sónar Festival. From its origins in 1994 through to 2012, this ‘Festival of Advanced Music and Multimedia Art’ was held in the surrounds of the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) and MACBA, in the Plaça Joan Coromines and the Plaça dels Àngels. Sur l’herbe was made over four successive years of a festival that has now become a landmark in organised entertainment. The photos were always taken at the same time on Thursday and Friday in order to capture the light: natural light that is at once artificial because the sun is reflected off Richard Meier’s building and onto the people in a singular play of light and shadow. The series does not show emotion or people having fun but reveals how, in this kind of organised leisure in which the public is part of the performance, resting is not far from working. Sitting on the artificial grass installed for the occasion, the young people evoke a primal scene of modernity or Manet’s well-known scene of relaxing in the Industrial Age.
Technical details
- Original title:
- Sur l'herbe
- Registration number:
- 5027
- Artist:
- Ribalta, Jorge
- Date created:
- 2005-2008
- Date acquired:
- 2013
- Status:
- On loan
- Fonds:
- MACBA Collection. MACBA Foundation
- Object type:
- Photograph
- Media:
- Gelatine silver print on photographic paper
- Dimensions:
- 27 photographs: 20.3 x 25.3 cm each (height x width)
- Edition number:
- Ed. 1/5
- Credits:
- MACBA Collection. MACBA Foundation. Fundación Repsol Collection
- Copyright:
- © Jorge Ribalta, VEGAP, Barcelona
- It has accessibility resources:
- No
The MACBA Collection features Catalan, Spanish and international art and, although it includes works from the 1920s onwards, its primary focus is on the period between the 1960s and the present.
For more information on the work or the artist, please consult MACBA's Library. To request a loan of the work, please write to colleccio [at] macba.cat.
If you need a high resolution image of the work, you must submit an image loan request.
