Catalan art dealers celebrated the annual awards gala this Tuesday at Macba. The nineteenth Night of Gallerism recognized the diversity and scope of art galleries and collecting. The honorary awards went to artist Francesc Torres and the Mayoral gallery. Likewise, Lluís Bassat and Carmen Orellana received the second award for the promotion of visual arts, "for their central role in the conservation, study, and dissemination of art".

More than ever, architecture is now Barcelona's most recognizable emblem nationally and internationally; from Barcelona World Capital of Architecture and the World Architecture Congress to the placement of the cross on the Jesus tower of the Sagrada Família. It is also a time of major projects, including the transformation of the Tres Xemeneies building in Sant Adrià de Besòs into Catalonia Media City. For this reason, this concrete giant hosted a dinner a few days ago with some thirty guests organized by Turisme de Barcelona, with some of the most prominent Catalan architects and national and international journalists from generalist media and others specializing in architecture, including ARA. Among the international journalists were editors from The Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Art Newspaper, Monocle, Giornale dell'Architettura and Wallpaper. The dinner was part of a three-day program that also took them to places such as the Casa de l'Arquitectura, in the old headquarters of the Gustavo Gili publishing house; to the exhibition Seny i rauxa at Dhub; to the Casacuberta Marsans collection; to the expansion works of Fira de Barcelona, and to the Mies van der Rohe award exhibition. Another of the highlights was being able to observe the renovation of La Rambla from the viewpoint of the Columbus Monument. Among the institutional guests were representatives from Barcelona Regional and the companies Roca and Santa & Cole. "We work to bring good tourists to Barcelona, and we don't just think about the city of Barcelona, but about the metropolitan area," said the general director of Turisme de Barcelona, Mateu Hernández.

The Asland cement factory, promoted by Eusebi Güell in Castellar de n’Hug (Berguedà), forever marked the history of the neighboring town of La Pobla de Lillet. The factory's impact on the municipality's urbanistic and social structure has been defined as the transition, in a few years, from the Middle Ages to the modern world. And in the entire project, two works by Antoni Gaudí stand out: the Xalet del Catllaràs and the Artigas gardens, a commission from the businessman Joan Artigas Alart. For this reason, after celebrating Güell Year five years ago, the town is now celebrating Gaudí Year with about sixty events, organized by the Lillet Studies Center with the collaboration of the La Pobla de Lillet City Council. Highlights include a film about the relationship between Güell and Gaudí with the town and an exhibition with large-format models of the old Asland factory, which began operating in 1904, and Gaudí's works.

The new director of the Picasso Museum of Barcelona, Rosario Peiró (Beniarjó, 1968), has arrived at the institution with an ambitious project. One of the cornerstones of the strategic lines she made public this Friday is the complete overhaul of the permanent collection. A common place to justify the collection's shortcomings is to say that the Picasso Museum of Barcelona is the best for understanding his formative period. Now Peiró wants to go beyond this period and represent the entirety of Picasso's relationship with the city.

One of the first projects for the facade of El Corte Inglés on Plaça Catalunya in Barcelona is at the antipodes of the final result: in the center there is a tower lit from within and the entire facade is dotted with triangular windows, like the department store's logo. This project by Elías Torres and José Antonio Martínez Lapeña, who a few years earlier had inaugurated the functional Hospital de Móra d'Ebre, brings to mind the audacity and lyricism of some of Josep Maria Jujol's works. But then, the client planed it down until they reached the austere and restrained project that was actually built. In fact, the same thing had happened to Josep Maria Jujol with Casa Planells on Diagonal, which was supposed to be a decorative explosion and ended up being an almost rationalist building. In both cases, common sense prevailed over impulse.

On the Parisian Île Seguin, cars gave way to culture. Renault built its last cars on this island in the Seine in 1992. The factory was demolished twenty years ago, and since then the island has become a new urban center for Paris with culture as its protagonist. One of the first major works carried out there was an auditorium by the Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, and this evening it was announced that the art center designed by the RCR studio, called Le Large, will open its doors on October 17. Furthermore, the art center is part of a cultural macrocomplex also designed by Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem, and Ramon Vilalta, which includes one of the largest cinemas in Paris, with 8 rooms, one of which is IMAX, and over 16,000 m² of offices and spaces for companies and cultural industries.

The sculptor Xavier Corberó (1935-2017) conceived his home in Esplugues de Llobregat as a "livable sculpture". Thanks to the dozens of concrete arches adorning the facade, Casa Corberó has become an international icon as well. In 2022 the Esplugues de Llobregat City Council bought part of it, the so-called Espai Corberó, for 3 million euros. And now the founders of the architecture studio Mesura and the art gallery Load, Alex Simorré, have bought the other part of the complex, where Corberó's home and workshop are located, with the aim of recovering it while remaining faithful to Corberó's vision.

The Rwanda Project holds a prominent place in the career of Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar. He took more than 3,500 photographs during the three weeks he spent there in 1994 documenting the genocide suffered by the Tutsis. The objective was to denounce the international community's passivity in the face of the massacre. But when he returned to New York, he realized that the images were too harsh and too journalistic; so he began to work on different artistic projects to show them. One of these images, titled Six Seconds, can now be seen in the new temporary exhibition at CaixaForum Barcelona, titled Out of Focus. Another Vision of Art.

The ownership of Casa Batlló continues to delve into the building's history and find new uses to keep it alive. They are now opening to the public the last floor inhabited by the descendants of the Batlló family for over a hundred years, after carrying out an archaeological restoration of all elements. The apartment had been preserved with an “exceptional authenticity”, as stated in the press release issued by the ownership, and constitutes “a valuable testimony to Barcelona domestic life in the early 20th century”. The chief architect of Casa Batlló and head of the recovery works, Xavier Villanueva, points out that the one on the third floor is the original dwelling remaining in Casa Batlló because around 1950 all others were modified except this one, as it was rented to the Batlló family. The third and fourth generation of the Batllós lived in the apartment for over 100 years, until 2019.

In an edition of the Art Biennale marked by protests against Israel and Russia, the queer artist of the Japanese pavilion, Ei Arakawa-Nash, has placed himself in a much more personal space. His project, titled Grass babies, moon babies [Grass babies, moon babies], is, at the same time, humanist, political, and a bit comical. Arakawa-Nash has filled the pavilion with about 208 baby dolls of different races, available for visitors to hug – they weigh about six kilos – and take for a walk in a stroller. They all wear sunglasses so that whoever holds them can see themselves reflected while holding them.

Coinciding with the inauguration of the 61st Venice Art Biennale, collector Patrizia Sandretto has opened a new venue for her collection, the third, which has become the sensation of these days. The artistic center is located on the island of San Giacomo, and for now can only be visited by invitation and by private boat. Guests received a message with a QR code and, later, another with the location of the departure point for the boat. It is planned that a vaporetto will arrive in the future, but it will probably be in 2027. Patrizia Sandretto and her husband, businessman Agostino Re Rebaudengo, have restored some old military facilities that were in ruins and, as one of the crown jewels of the place, they commissioned the North American artist Hugh Hayden, which culminated in a chapel with an exceptional bell tower, because it is tilted about 40°, also on the inside.

The protest called by the Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA) against Israel's presence at the Venice Art Biennale has had consequences. The Giardini venue opened its doors at 10 in the morning with many pavilions closed, including those of Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, and Japan. The situation of the Spanish pavilion, on the other hand, has been bizarre: it started the day open, but closed at two in the afternoon "due to the artistic team's strike." A quarter of an hour later, sources from the pavilion stated that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had communicated that they had been forced to reopen, and immediately afterwards that they were closing until 3 p.m., while "conversations were ongoing with the Minister of Foreign Affairs," a portfolio from which the pavilion depends. Finally, the pavilion reopened at 3 p.m.

Catalonia and the Balearic Islands take center stage at the 61st Venice Art Biennale. The project by Claudia Pagès Paper tears [Paper tears] gains momentum with a poetic and political slam by Pagès herself and her collaborators that ranges from the most intimate to political and social critique, addressing the ravages of colonialism. The starting point for her discourses are a string of 15th-century watermarks found in the Museu Molí Paperer de Capellades. "Crowned heart. Crowned heart. Incel's dream. incel. 1486. Crowned love is not love. It is the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Little emperor, everyone loves you as long as you keep them alive! What strange references," says one of these texts.

Where God invites, everyone has a place. Patti Smith, who still sings that Jesus died for someone's sins, but not hers, now glosses the virginity of the Virgin Mary in a poem that can be heard in the Vatican pavilion of the Venice Art Biennale. To hear Smith, and about twenty other artists, including Brian Eno, FKA Twigs, Dev Hynes, Terry Riley, and Jim Jarmusch, you have to get away from the center of Venice and go to the paradisiacal Mystical Garden of the Carmelites of Venice, one of the least crowded corners of the city, just behind the train station. The trip, despite the rain these days, is worth it. The proposal is by star curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, it is titled The ear is the eye of the soul andis inspired by Hildegard of Bingen, the great mystic, scientist, composer of the 12th century. The pavilion staff hand out headphones at the entrance, and the visit consists of walking through the garden in silence listening to the twenty or so works, among which there are also those by musicians who delve into spirituality such as Meredith Monk, Kali Malone, and Charlemagne Palestine.

The 61st Venice Art Biennale continues with fury. This Wednesday the protests against the presence of Russia and Israel have been more forceful. As they had warned, more than 50 people linked to the activists Pussy Riot, with their faces covered by pink balaclavas, have occupied the Russian pavilion, along with a string of members of the Femen collective. The Italian police were forced to close the pavilion while agents and security guards subdued the activists who had managed to enter. Outside, the tension continued: the protesters sang the song Desobeeix amid a cloud of pink smoke and the Femen members advanced shouting slogans amid a cloud of blue and yellow, the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

Artists have the ability to reveal the hidden stories in the most everyday objects and in almost invisible details. Thus, Clàudia Pagès represents Catalonia and the Balearic Islands at the 61st Venice Art Biennale with Paper tears, a macro-installation forged from 15th-century watermarks found at the Capellades Paper Mill Museum. Watermarks, also known as filigrees, are used to identify the maker of a paper and the person who commissioned it. Throughout history, some have been as simple as a cross, but others have been more elaborate, such as a coat of arms or images of real or fantastical animals. "I am not a historian; I use history during my research, and I make it my own through a mix of visual arts and writing," says Pagès, who is also the author of the novel Més de dues aigües (Empúries).

At the Venice Art Biennale, everything is quite for show: in each edition, almost a hundred countries from around the world proudly display their artists with the aim that, at least for a few days, politics does not overshadow the desire to shine internationally. But given the situation of international politics, with Russia, Israel, and the United States at war, this is still impossible. The 61st edition of the Biennale opened its doors to professionals this Tuesday and will open its doors to the public on Saturday, May 9th, with an edition on fire, and with the participation in the official section of Cuba, represented by Roberto Diago. So far, no signs of protest have been seen, but there is a call for a strike on Friday.

Lawyer Oriol Arau visited Salvador Puig i Antich in prison 69 times. The helplessness Puig suffered must have been terrible, but the visits Arau made to him during the five and a half months he was locked up in La Model until he was executed meant a lot. That is why, this Monday, one of Puig's sisters, Montse Puig Antich, and lawyer Magda Oranich were impressed when they saw him in Pere Portabella's film El sopar, during the third Campus Miró of the Fundació Joan Miró, which this year is dedicated to the Seqüències Portabella, coinciding with the filmmaker's centenary. That is to say, to analyze the political commitment of both creators and reveal "the invisible threads" between them. This first session focused on drawing a parallel between El sopar, which Portabella shot clandestinely with five political ex-convicts on the night of Puig Antich's execution, and Miró's triptych L'esperança del condemnat a mort, which he declared finished on the same day of the execution. "Apart from lawyer matters, Salvador and Oriol talked a lot about us. Salvador knew about us, not just when we went to see him, because we could say little, and instead, with Oriol we could talk," recalled Montse Puig Antich.

The UIA World Architecture Congress 2026 Barcelona will become, between June 28 and July 2, the global epicenter of architectural debate. The congress, titled Becoming. Architectures for a planet in transition, will bring together around 10,000 participants and 250 speakers in more than 100 sessions. Here are 10 emblematic works by some of its most anticipated architects and speakers.

The German painter and sculptor Georg Baselitz, known for his images of raw bodies and inverted landscapes, died this Thursday at the age of 88, according to reports from Reuters and his gallery, the French Thaddaeus Ropac. In recent years, Baselitz painted large canvases from his wheelchair and transported brushes and paints in a wheeled cart. “The most sensible thing, in my situation, would be to say: ‘I’ll stick to small formats’,” he declared to El País at 87, on the occasion of an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Bilbao. “But, of course, I don’t do what is sensible. What is right for me is what is senseless.”