Reading the Corpus Christi Procession: Objects for Storytelling and prayer, honouring, affirming and feeling

Llegir la processó de Corpus

The exhibition’s curator, art historian Albert Cortés, invites us to look at the Corpus Christi procession through the objects and other corporeal elements that take part in it. All the city’s institutions, both civil and ecclesiastical, joined forces in a grand celebration to pay homage to the Blessed Sacrament. Yet, the procession was also an occasion for pageantry and display, a chance to manifest authority and power, to see and be seen.

All these aspects were and remain present in Barcelona’s Corpus Christi celebrations through a variety of objects that danced, made sounds, burned, or were simply carried to communicate to spectators, either explicitly or symbolically, who the bearer was, their place in the procession, and what they sought to represent. For over 700 years, the people of Barcelona have been adding, modifying, or removing these objects up to the present day; but whether they belong to our present or to a distant past, they all speak of relationships: between God and the people, between neighbours and communities, between social classes and genders.

Taking these premises as its starting point, the exhibition offers us a glimpse into the Corpus Christi procession through the objects and other corporeal elements that participate. Structured around different thematic areas, the curator takes us on a journey through the procession via objects from the mythical world (giants and beasts, monsters and demons, from the past, present, and future…), objects of devotion (the monstrance, processional candles…), objects of honour (ceremonial dressing and accompanying, decorating and transforming the space…), objects of authority (identity and precedence, order and meanings), and sensory objects.

Miró and Gaudí, nature and mysticism

Gaudí i Miró, natura i mística

The Diocesan Museum of Barcelona presents an exhibition that explores the artistic and spiritual relationship between Antoni Gaudí and Joan Miró through the painter’s admiration for the Modernist architect.

The central focus of the exhibition is the 21 preparatory models for the series of etchings on Gaudí that Miró created between 1975 and 1979, which are housed at the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró a Mallorca and are on display alongside objects and furniture designed by Gaudí for the Sagrada Família and Colònia Güell. The exhibition offers the opportunity to discover Miró’s creative process in one of his great late works and the profound connections that unite both artists through the language of nature and the transcendent.

Colezzione Paolo VI (Paul VI Collection). The opening to contemporary art

Collezione Paolo VI

The Diocesan Museum is hosting the Collezzione Paolo VI for the first time in our country, after months of cooperation and collaboration with the Italian art gallery exhibiting the works. Thus, for the first time since its creation, a selection from the Colezzione Paolo VI can be visited outside the museum of origin (Concesio, Italy).

This collection reflects Paul VI’s interest in contemporary art and his legacy in the relationship between spirituality and art. The exhibition, which brings together 20 of the best works in the collection, signed by artists such as Matisse, de Chirico, David Hockney, Henry Moore, among others, represents a milestone in the integration of modern art with the spiritual narrative of the Church, thus highlighting Paul VI’s openness to new forms of artistic expression.

The origins of the collection are based on the deep connection that Giovanni Battista Montini (Paul VI) developed as a young man with contemporary art and his conviction that art is an essential means of expressing the invisible and the transcendental. From the beginning of his pontificate, Paul VI intensified his aim to strengthen the link between the Church and contemporary artists by promoting the creation of a contemporary art section in the Vatican Museums. After the death of Pope Paul VI, Monsignor Macchi donated the works given to the pontiff to the Obra Foundation for Christian Education, which established the museum in his hometown of Concesio (Brescia, Italy) under the name of Museo Collezione Paolo VI (Paul VI Collection Museum). The museum has continued to increase its artistic collection until the present day.

Dalí’s Barcelona: A Photographic Itinerary

La Barcelona de Dalí. Un itinerari fotogràfic

On the occasion of the 120th anniversary of Salvador Dalí’s birth, the Museu Diocesà of Barcelona presents a self-produced exhibition that highlights the figure of this universal artist in relation to the city of Barcelona.

The exhibition is a journey through more than a hundred snapshots taken by local photojournalists, showcasing the spaces linked to the figure of Salvador Dalí, and covers the chronological period from his first exhibition in Barcelona (1922) until well into the 1970s, just before the first symptoms of the illnesses that limited his public appearances began to emerge. Dalí has no street or square named after him in Barcelona, as he is more often associated with Cadaqués, Figueres, as well as Paris and New York. However, his connection with Barcelona was intimate, intense, and persistent: his mother, Felipa Domènech, was from Barcelona; his father and uncle grew up there; and artistically, Barcelona was the artistic capital he needed to conquer before taking on Paris.

By recreating the layout of Barcelona, we invite you to explore the spaces in the city related to Dalí, such as l’Ateneu, the Ritz Hotel –now El Palace–, various restaurants, his relationship with flamenco, bullfighting, or football, his fascination with Gaudí, the friendships that developed in this context, as well as his exhibition activity in our city.

The snapshots by photographers such as Postius, Sáenz Guerrero, Carlos Pérez de Rozas, Brangulí, Sans Condeminas, Català Roca, González Albiach… are presented together with materials such as manuscripts and documents from various archives and public and private collections (Biblioteca de Catalunya, Fundació J. V. Foix, heirs of Isidor Beà…), posters, magazines, books, and original drawings by Salvador Dalí and Federico García Lorca. The exhibition does not end at the walls of the Museu Diocesà of Barcelona; at the end of the tour, visitors are offered a free and exclusive map with the Dalinian locations marked and explained, allowing them to explore the city and live a Dalinian experience.

Oceans. From Renoir to microplastics. With works of Mandy Barker

Coinciding with the preparations for the start of the America’s Cup, art and science come together in this exhibition to draw attention to one of the most serious global environmental problems: the pollution of the seas and oceans caused by plastic waste.

The starting point for reflection in this exhibition is Auguste Renoir’s oil painting, The Beach at Pornic (1892), in which the artist conveys an idyllic vision of the beaches, as yet unpolluted by plastic. Renoir’s arcadian gaze is shown alongside a selection of works from the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Santiago Rusiñol, Joaquín Torres García, Hermen Anglada Camarasa, Lluís Masriera, Alexandre de Cabanyes and Enrique Serra. These works offer a striking contrast with Mandy Barker’s photographs, in which the beauty of her creations alerts us to the major current problem of the pollution of the seas and oceans caused by plastic waste.

The beauty of the images created by the British photographer Mandy Barker on these environmental problems have led her to exhibit at the MoMA (2021), the United Nations headquarters in New York, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park, the Museum of Civilisations of Europe and the Mediterranean in Marseille (2021) and the Busan International Photography Festival (2020), among other places. She has received international awards for the results of her work, such as the International Understanding Through Photography Award 2023, awarded by The Photographic Society of America. Mandy Barker’s artistic ability to make an impact on the viewer is combined with the scientific rigour with which she undertakes each of the photographic creations she produces, sometimes after joining scientific expeditions to seas and oceans around the world. In 2012, following the Pacific Ocean tsunami, she joined a scientific research expedition from Japan to Hawaii to assess the accumulation of plastic debris. In 2017 Greenpeace invited her to join the ‘Beluga II’ Expedition to recover plastic waste from the remote Inner Hebrides Islands in Scotland, and in 2019 she took part in the ‘Henderson Island Plastic Pollution Expedition’. Her beautifully charged images bring new meaning to marine plastic waste with the aim of promoting profound change regarding the global plastic cycle, including its production, use and disposal, and to raise awareness of plastic pollution in the world’s seas and oceans, highlighting the serious impact on marine ecosystems and humans.

Mandy Barker’s artwork has been published in some of the most prestigious media in over 50 countries, including National Geographic, TIME, WWF World Wildlife Fund, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Smithsonian, UNESCO, The British Journal of Photography, VOGUE, The New Scientist, and has illustrated relevant academic and scientific research articles on the impact of plastics on our seas.

This exhibition is part of the Cultural Regatta, the program of activities promoted by Barcelona City Council to accompany the celebration of the America’s Sailing Cup in Barcelona.

In Excelsis! Lights between Gothic & Enlightenment

Anunciació. Atribuida

The exhibition commemorates the 800 years since the creation of the first living nativity scene by Saint Francis (Assisi 1181 – 1226) on Christmas Eve of 1123. This event, which took place in Greccio, Italy, marked the beginning of the tradition of creating nativity scenes, one of the most widespread and deeply rooted Catholic traditions to this day.

The exhibition, hosted by the Diocesan Museum of Barcelona and the Barcelona Cathedral, revolves around the fruitful representation over the centuries of the Holy Family, as well as the ensemble of characters and events surrounding the birth of the incarnate God. Additionally, a selection of works on Saint Francis reflects the interest that this saint has aroused in artistic creation since medieval times.

The work highlights some of the most important painters of the Renaissance, such as Pedro Berruguete or Gerard de Saint Jean, as well as Baroque artists, including Alonso Cano, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Luca Giordano, Antoni Viladomat, Juan Carreño de Miranda, Vicente Carducho, Francisco Bayeu, and Francisco Herrera the Elder. In sculpture, the exhibition presents for the first time the 14th-century Annunciation, composed of two sculptures conceived to adorn the staircase leading to the pulpit of the choir of the Cathedral, with attribution oscillating between Jordi Joan or Pere Ça Anglada. Also, noteworthy is the large 19th-century sculpture of Christ Child by Ramon Amadeu, which for a long time was located at the main altar of the Cathedral.

The selection of oils, sculptures, and reliefs belongs to the Montserrat Museum, the holdings of the Diocesan Museum, as well as the heritage of the Barcelona Cathedral and the Church of Santa Maria del Pi. It also includes a set of works from private collections such as the Cajasol Foundation and Rivero – Bodegas Tradición Collection. The ensemble is completed with a nativity scene on the ground floor of the Diocesan Museum as a tribute to the extensive nativity scene tradition in Catalonia, in dialogue with the paintings in the apse of Polinyà from 1122, specially illuminated to highlight the Nativity scene, in this Romanesque ensemble from the 12th century, a focal point of this part of the museum.

Matisse. Art in Balance

The exhibition brings together eighty-five artworks (lithographs, drawings, pochoir or linocuts, etc.) by one of the most important creators of modern art: Henri Matisse (Le Chateau-Cambrésis 1869 – Nice 1954). The artist’s spirituality, homogeneous in all his works during his mature period, can be appreciated in them.

The artistic period covered by the exhibition, which began around the time of the Second World War and runs until the artist’s last days, is marked by a great spirituality and the joie de vivre which Matisse wishes to reflect; an explosion of joy and peace in his spirit. Special emphasis is placed on one of the most important works of his last artistic period: the Matisse Chapel in Vence, on the Côte d’Azur, a unitary project in which he was involved in the architectural development and its decoration.

The exhibition is completed by a video on this chapel and a series of photographs that belonged to its author Hélène Adant, which were used to illustrate in 1951 The Rosary Chapel of the Dominican Sisters of Vence, Matisse’s book on this piece, about which he himself acknowledges: “For me, this chapel is the culmination of a lifetime of work and the flowering of a great, sincere and difficult effort […]. A part of this human expression […] will remain alive, capable of bringing together the past and the future of the plastic tradition”.

When people help each other. Guilds in Barcelona

Quan la gent s'ajuda

People tend to group together according to tastes, interests and also needs, which can be caused by an infinite number of variables. Some of them are generated by trades. When people help each other is a retrospective look at the importance of the guilds in Barcelona from various point of view, such as devotional, professional, mutual aid… It also evokes the trail they have left in different parts of the city, where we can still see and feel their presence, nowadays very much migrated. This exhibition also aims to use this look at the city’s past as a starting point to understand the present. The twenty-first century society continues to generate inequality and vulnerability, and that is why people continue to organise themselves on the basis of horizontal solidarity and mutual aid.

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Miró. Mystique and avant-garde

Miró. Mística i avantguarda

The exhibition about the artist, made up of 55 works and the audiovisual “Je rêve d’un grand atelier” (I dream of a great workshop), offers a reflection on the importance of asceticism and mysticism in the creative process of Joan Miró through a rich dialogue between his works (oils, gouache, watercolors and lithographs) and some Romanesque works that are part of the collection of the Museu Diocesà.

The artist goes towards his way to transcendence through his readings of sacred texts (he created sculptures with an open Bible) and ascetic and mystical literature, moreover the interest during the historical avant-gardes for the knowledge of another reality through esotericism. In addition to his readings, Miró was decisively influenced by the Romanesque and Gothic iconography of Catalonia.

Some of the works on display are also part of the series of etchings on the work Canticle of the Sun by Saint Francis of Assisi, created by Miró in 1975 under the title “Càntic del Sol”.