Articles in ‘Art’

The Rambles one hundred years ago

The Barcelona Photographic Archive has just released a hundred or so photos taken between 1907 and 1908. They were taken by Frederic Ballell, one of the pioneers of Catalan photojournalism, who delighted in documenting the daily life of the city. Above a goat herder passes by Palau Moja, below a puppy seller. From La Rambla, hace un siglo

See also History of Les Rambles

Books in English set in Barcelona

The Oh Barcelona site has a short but good round-up of the books in English set in Barcelona. Montalbán,  Mendoza, Ruiz Zafon, Tóibín, Hughes, etc. More here

Tàpies foundation reopens

The Fundació Antoni Tàpies opened its doors this week after being closed for reforms for several years.  More in English

Chinese immigrants in 19th century Barcelona

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A community of Chinese immigrants settled in in Barcelona in the 1870s, fleeing, I think, the Opium Wars and turmoil in the Philippines. They lived in extremely poor conditions in the Camp de la Bota where the Forum is sited today . The area was known for some time as the “Barrio de Pekin”. As the years went by, more immigrants were attracted to the area and the shanty town grew. The Chinese were probably assimilated into the city’s population. Many of the shacks were swept away in sea storms in the 1920s, though with the building boom of the 1929 Universal Exposition, more arrived.

See also Camp de la Bota, Barcelona’s killing fields

The above painting, Platja de Pequín (Pequín beach), was painted by Isidre Nonell in 1901. More from Wikipedia

The best view in Barcelona

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The Turó de la Rovira betwen El Carmel and el Guinardó offers one of the best views to admire Barcelona. The ruined gun emplacements remind us it is also the site of Barcelona’s air defences during the Civil War. More on this another day. It is also a great spot for graffiti. Photos by Mónica. Note hanging shoe art.

Graffiti in Poble Nou

Poble Nou Graffiti

Strange figures in Poble Nou. Photo by Mónica.

The Charge by Ramón Casas

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This painting by Ramón Casas is entitled La Carga (The Charge). and shows the Guardia Civil routing a crowd. It was painted in 1899 and gained fame after the general strike in Barcelona in 1902, where similar tactics were employed. The work is currently in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid.

Image from Wikipedia

Photo exhibition by Agustí Centelles

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This exhibition on the remarkable photos taken by Agustí Centelles at the Bram concentration camp in 1939 is well worth visiting. Until January 10th 2010. At the Sant Mónica Arts Centre

After the fall of Barcelona, in the last months of the Spanish Civil War the photojournalist Agustí Centelles was interned together with other refugees in French territory in the concentration camp at Bram, Languedoc, where he was held from the 1st of March to the 13th of September, 1939. During the flight from Barcelona and his subsequent internment and release from the concentration camp, Centelles wrote a diary, which has now been published. He also took more than 600 photographs documenting life in the concentration camp, of the most striking expressive power. These extraordinary images are a unique testimony to life in a concentration camp in 20th-century Europe. The exhibition will present a selection of the more than 600 photographs that Centelles took in Bram, together with entries from his diary and documentation about the concentration camp at Bram in 1939.

Brick art

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Brick library of classics on the wall of the Cristo Rey church in La Sagrera. Among the works: One thousand and one nights, Catalan Medieval classic Tirant lo Blanc, pulp fiction The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet, a maths textbook and a guide book to Barcelona in Mandarin.

Rambles umbrella and dragon

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Along Les Rambles de les Flors just in front of La Boqueria Market, there is this quirky piece of public art: a rather wonderful art deco building (Casa Bruno Quadros) decorated with a fearsome Chinese dragon holding a lamp and an umbrella. It once advertised a now-defunct umbrella shop.