The National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC) submitted this Tuesday to the government of Aragon a proposal for a schedule and work plan to carry out the transfer of the profane paintings from the Sixena monastery. The document suggests that the work to make the transfer effective could begin starting November 17.

For writer and professor Rafael Argullol (Barcelona, 1949), art "completes life," as he himself says on the occasion of the publication by the publisher Acantilado of the book Pinacoteca soñada, the collection of weekly articles he published in ARA between 2014 and 2017 translated into Spanish by Maite Madinabeitia. "Human life is always imperfect, incomplete, and, although we sometimes speak of the fullness of life, it is never full. The virtue that art had from the beginning is the quest to fill what is incomplete through imagination," says Argullol. "And, on the other hand, I am interested in art that is interrogative. Art does not give us answers, but rather raises questions for us. All art is current, regardless of its chronology, if it has this capacity to question. That is why the paintings of Altamira and those of Lascaux are as current as those of Rothko," adds the author.

The mature paintings of Edvard Munch (1863-1944) are often electrifying: it seems that the deeper the anguish that stirs him, the more he clings to vivid colors and the more energetic the brushstrokes are. This can be seen until February 28th in the magnificent Munch-Picasso exhibition, at the Picasso Museum in Malaga. Munch was born eighteen years before Picasso. He did not revolutionize 20th-century art, but sometimes his more academic works are more striking than the avant-garde ones of the man from Malaga, as is the case with a female nude on her knees on a bed that looks like a still from a love scene. Without leaving nudity behind, on a personal level, Munch would strip on the beach and paint groups of naked men. It seems that, although he was not a modest man, this masculine intimacy remains far from Picasso's universe.

Paris was decisive for Joan Miró to become one of the most important artists of the 20th century. But he did not have things easy at all. In a letter dated September 1923, he explains to his friend Josep Francesc Ràfols that he was working "a lot, with absolute regularity and method". "I have managed to free myself completely from nature, and the landscapes have nothing more to do with the external reality," he told Ràfols. All this, Miró did in complete poverty; sometimes he could only afford a handful of dried figs to get through the whole day. "During that period, hunger caused me hallucinations, and the hallucinations gave me ideas for painting," Miró later explained in an interview.

If you want to build a private collection of objects designed by André Ricard (Barcelona, 1929), there is no need to spend a fortune: some can still be found in supermarkets. For example, the packaging for Norit delicate laundry detergent and the Orion anti-moth clips. Others, such as the Ibiza light switch and a Moulinex orange juicer with a transparent jug, are also part of many people's daily lives. The collection could continue with the Tong ice tongs, the pitcher for the 2020 Argentona Pitcher Festival, and the perfume bottles for the Puig house, with the famous Aigua de Lavanda at the forefront. And with some other objects, such as the Compact tableware, the Copenhagen ashtray, and the Tatu lamp.

Laia Estruch (Barcelona, 1981) is one of the most unique artists in the current Catalan scene. As could be seen in the monumental Trena (Inflatable Braid) she presented at the MNAC's Oval Hall in 2023, Estruch's work is characterized by how she uses spaces created with a strong sculptural character and vivid colors. And this Wednesday she won by unanimity the fourth edition of the Bosch Aymerich award, endowed with 30,000 euros, with another of these structures: Carrau, a work created this year that transformed the accesses to the gallery that represents her, the Madrid-based Ehrhardt Flórez, into an artistic experience. The Bosch Aymerich award, which is biennial in nature, aims to promote artistic creation and especially recognize works that establish a dialogue with architecture.

The Italian art historian Barbara Jatta has been directing the Vatican Museums for ten years. With 43,000 square meters of exhibition space and seven kilometers in length, it is the sixth largest museum facility in the world, behind giants such as the Louvre, the British Museum, and the Hermitage. Jatta was in Barcelona this Monday for a monographic exhibition at the Diocesan Museum of their collection of 20th-century Italian sacred art. "The Vatican Museums are not just the Sistine Chapel," explains Jatta. "I have been fighting this battle for many years: the Sistine Chapel is an attraction, but the Vatican Museums are made up of about twenty museums that are just as attractive and incredible. We have collections of Greco-Roman antiquities in centers such as the Gregorian Profane Museum, the Pio-Clementine Museum, the Chiaramonti Gallery, or the Braccio Nuovo. But we don't just have antiquities, there are also the Raphael Rooms and the works of the Vatican Pinacoteca, all of them have truly fascinating works!".

The painter and sculptor Robert Llimós died on Monday at the age of 83, as confirmed to ARA by family sources. Son of the painter Camil Llimós, Robert Llimós studied at the Massana School and the Sant Jordi Higher School of Fine Arts in Barcelona. During the sixties, he began in the new figuration movement, along with recognized artists such as Eduard Arranz-Bravo, Rafael Bartolozzi, and Gerard Sala. Later on, between 1969 and 1973, he experimented with conceptual art, abstract forms, and artistic actions. In fact, the Can Framis museum of the Vila Casas Foundation will inaugurate an exhibition on November 10th of this stage of his career, the one most represented in museums, such as the MACBA and the Reina Sofia Museum. "Robert Llimós has been a fundamental artist, who played a decisive role in the seventies in introducing and consolidating conceptual currents from the practice of painting and action. He opened visionary paths that today are a reference for the new generations, who have adopted and reinterpreted practices similar to those he had already explored back then," says the artistic director of the Vila Casas Foundation, Bernat Puigdollers. "Throughout his career, he has always been an indefatigable artist," says Puigdollers, "who wanted to experiment with a multiplicity of techniques and let himself be influenced by the latest artistic trends with the constant purpose of opening new paths." "As Blanca Arias demonstrates in the exhibition we will inaugurate at the Can Framis Museum, this was his main concern: to search for and find a new image," adds Puigdollers.

With the production of Macbeth, by Verdi, Jaume Plensa was able to fulfill a dream. Plensa premiered the opera in February 2023 at the Liceu, and this Monday he returned to the theater to present an artist's book: Plensa · Macbeth · Verdi, published by Enciclopèdia Catalana, is a privileged testimony of his entire creative process, from the first sketches to the rehearsals. "It is always said that the energy must be provided by the singers to the audience, and there is never any talk of the energy that the audience gives to the singers," states the artist. "In Macbeth I tried to ensure that the audience was integrated into the production".

The American architect of Polish origin Elizabeth Diller (Łódź, 1954) is one of the most influential professionals on the international scene, at the head of the studio she founded together with her husband, Ricardo Scofidio (1935-2025), and Charles Renfro. Diller is in Barcelona this Saturday to participate in the first day of the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya cycle Thinking the museum, imagining futures, organized to talk about the architectural challenges of museums on the occasion of the center's expansion. One of the studio's first works was the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. They have also done an expansion of MoMA, The Broad, in Los Angeles –currently in the process of expansion– and the V&A East Storehouse, in London. "Nowadays, museums try to attract a very wide audience –states Elizabeth Diller–. That is why they have a wide variety of exhibitions and a pleasant cafeteria, spaces where people can relax, conference cycles, outdoor areas and spaces for events that, after all, serve to raise funds. The financial question is key: in Europe, culture has always received state support, while in the United States it has not been like that. That is why, there we have had to depend on philanthropy. In Europe, sponsorship is gaining more and more weight".

Sometimes, behind a door that has nothing special about it, an unexpected architectural treasure is hidden. One must go to number 81I of Carrer Costa in Barcelona and go through the door of the interior courtyard to find the Putxet playhouse, a small dwelling covered in 'trencadís' mosaic with a lot of history behind it. It is now back in the spotlight because it will open its doors this weekend as part of the new edition of the 48h Open House Barcelona, after the restoration carried out by architects Jordi Planelles and Mariona Genís commissioned by the Municipal Institute of Urban Landscape of the Barcelona City Council.

The curator, writer, musician and researcher Lluís Nacenta (1976) assumed the directorship of the Design Museum in March, after José Luis de Vicente left the position prematurely. Nacenta was the director of Hangar, collaborated with the Mies van der Rohe Foundation since 2012 and is a trustee of the COAC Foundation. In the field of teaching, he has been a professor at various design and architecture schools in Barcelona, including Eina and Bau. Before arriving at the Design Museum, he was head of events and exhibition experiences at the production company La Manchester. And among the exhibitions he has curated, AI: artificial intelligence, at the CCCB stand out.

The 17th edition of the 48h Open House BCN architecture festival will be held on Saturday, October 24th, and Sunday, October 25th, in Barcelona and five other towns: Badalona, Sant Joan Despí, l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Vilassar de Dalt, and Sitges. In Barcelona, 155 buildings will be available to visit, as part of a total of 224 activities scheduled across all participating cities and seven itineraries. 28% of the buildings will be opening for the first time within the festival, which offers an exceptional opportunity to discover spaces usually closed to the public. These are 10 recommended visits among the new features of the 48h Open House Barcelona 2026.

Architect Rafael Moneo spent ten very important years of his academic life at the UPC, and has built some of his most outstanding works in Barcelona, such as L'Illa Diagonal and L'Auditori. The esteem his Catalan colleagues hold for him is also profound, as could be seen in the full house at the presentation of the ambitious intellectual biography of Moneo, the work of fellow architect Carmen Díez, at the Pati de les Dones of the CCCB, within the Biennial of Thought. The editor of Acantilado, Sandra Ollo, pointed out that the event was not the presentation of Rafael Moneo, Building Ideas (1954-2024), but the "celebration" of the book. The list of established architects who did not want to miss it is also striking. Among the public were Beth Galí, Esteve Bonell, Elías Torres, Ramon Sanabria, Francesc Pernas, Lluís Domènech Girbau, Juli Capella, Jaume Bach and Joan Busquets. Also the filmmaker Poldo Pomés, author of a documentary about the Navarrese architect.

Josep Aparici i Fins is one of the most important geographers of 18th-century Catalonia, and at the same time is surrounded by controversy. During the War of the Spanish Succession, the Austrianist authorities commissioned him to create the map of Catalonia, and after the war, he entered the service of King Philip V, who granted him the title of His Majesty's geographer. Furthermore, he was one of the main collaborators in the implementation of the cadastre, a measure that was detrimental to the Catalan economy. But, despite everything, his trajectory has been considered ambiguous.

Angélica Liddell does not want to be buried, but devoured: "If I die right now, throw me out so they can quarter me and eat me," she said this evening in the conversation that closed the first day of the Biennial of Thought. "I would like to be a victim of cannibalism. Deep down, eroticism has a lot of cannibalism in it. That nothing would be left to bury, that it would remain in stomachs, that it would pass into the blood, into the cells," added Liddell, who spoke with writer Luna Miguel to present her first novel, Silk Road (Malas Tierras), and the poetry collection I ask for the end of life (La bella Varsovia). If not, she would like to end up in the Montparnasse cemetery, where she visits references like Marguerite Duras, Samuel Beckett, Baudelaire, and Cioran, "with a tombstone that says nothing." "Although it doesn't matter: even if my name is on it, no one will know who I am," she lets slip.

"The practical success of a theoretical project": this is how architect and urban planner Manuel de Solà-Morales defined Ildefons Cerdà's Eixample. Now this statement can be read within Models. Cities and utopias 1859-1958, the exhibition that the COAC is hosting until October 18th as part of the Ildefons Cerdà Year. "A lot was already said about Cerdà during the Cerdà Year in 2009. What we had left in the inkwell was to place him alongside Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, the greats," states Fernando Marzá, the curator of the exhibition, together with UPC urban planner Carles Crosas and Generalitat architect Beth Tuà. "Cerdà did not just plan a city; he wrote a treatise on urban planning, almost the first one," Marzá asserts. Before drawing the Eixample, Cerdà created a great topographical map and a statistical study of how the working class lived. "Engels had done it in London five years earlier," the curator recalls.

The artist Marisol Escobar (Paris, 1930-New York, 2016), known simply as Marisol, welcomes the public to the exhibition dedicated to her at the Centro Botín in Santander until October 25th from an Andy Warhol film, who said of her that she was the first artist "with glamour." In this film, Marisol appears motionless for a few minutes next to her sculpture Women and Dog (1963-1964), currently owned by the Whitney Museum, as if she were just another wooden figure. This film serves to remember that Marisol triumphed on the New York scene even before Warhol, and that she was defined as "the queen of pop art".

One of the masterpieces by architect Josep Antoni Coderch, Casa Rozes, at the tip of Almadrava in Roses, is trapped in a judicial maze. It was sold without the owners' consent and with forged documents, and five years later the case is still not resolved. One of the owners of the house, Monika Laskowska, lives in Poland and is very much alive. Even so, according to the deed with which the property was sold in March 2021, she had died in Nuremberg.

A sound artistic duo, a writer, a publishing house, a stage director, a musician, an actor, and a playwright are the winners of the 2026 National Culture Awards, the accolades that have been presented since 2009 by the National Council for Culture and the Arts (CoNCA). The winners are Cabosanroque, Pol Guasch, Jande Editorial, Àlex Ollé, Sílvia Pérez Cruz, Oriol Pla, and Victoria Szpunberg, as announced this Friday at an event held at the Pau Casals Auditorium in El Vendrell, coinciding with the 150th anniversary of Pau Casals. The ceremony was hosted by journalist Andrea Gumes and was attended by the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, the Minister of Culture, Sònia Hernández Almodóvar, and the President of the CoNCA, Margarida Troguet. Each award comes with a prize of 20,000 euros, and starting this year, there are no longer five winners, but seven. In their acceptance speeches, the winners agreed on championing culture, collective values, and public services as tools to confront reactionary forces.