The Nit dels Museums has many advantages. The main one: it’s free. But not the only one, because last night 75 cultural facilities opened their doors throughout Catalonia for the enjoyment of citizens who could choose between the most varied proposals. The initiative also gives freedom, since it allows everyone to design their own plan and go their own way. And it is also the opportunity to see, touch and feel art in a very special way.
One of the possible routes started from the Cercle Artístic Sant Lluc, very close to the Santa Caterina market, which is for members who want to learn to draw. But last night the doors were open for anyone who wanted to pick up a brush even if it was for the first time.
The artist in times of war was the theme chosen by the Cercle Artístic Sant Lluc for new potential artists, and the work of Joan Miró, El segador or El pagés catalán en rebeldía, its tool. The entity provided two spaces for visitors. The first was intended for children who were given the necessary material to recreate their own versions of The Reaper with a slide as a reference. The second, for the older ones with a model that simulated that mural that Miró painted for the Pavilion of the Spanish Republic at the 1937 International Exhibition.
Leaving the Cercle you can walk to the Arts Santa Mònica center, which last night offered a varied proposal of painting and theater and had hung the full sign. There were also the artists from the Gastronomy and Socialization guild with their Banquet Podrit. It was to arrive at a set table. Marta, Carolina, Sonia and Natalia had recreated a work by Greta Alfaro that has also passed through the Santa Mònica.
Their menu is unattractive at first glance, because it is made up of fermented, smelly or drowned foods after a flood. The artists are preparing a garum with fish entrails, a Roman recipe that does not seem very appetizing, but it is tasty. like the rest of the food on the table that, despite its bad appearance, are zero kilometer delicacies, which visitors try without fuss to lick their lips.
Going up the Ramblas you reach the Macba. La Mit dels Museus also has some drawbacks, such as the queue, which in this case goes around Plaça dels Àngels. But it is worth waiting to see Teresa Lanceta’s tapestries, which are like entering a souk, a desert, ancient Rome or the Raval, because the artist has recreated with her works the houses where she lived in his stage in Barcelona. And there is much more. The fabrics created by Lanceta for the occasion were the background for the flamenco of Javiera de la Fuente, Fuensanta La Moneta and Ana Morales, who offered her art together with texts by Pedro G. Romero.
And after the dance, the poetry. Just a few steps from Macba, a poetry slam had been scheduled at the Barcelona Center for Contemporary Culture (CCCB) that could well compete with the Eurovision Song Contest that had just started. The CCCB also hung the full sign. Audiences of all ages wanted to participate in that poetic ring in which six participants who had already worked hard in these contests competed.
There were many candidates for jury among the members of the respectable and, once the selection was made, Pedro Toledano, who was second in a previous competition, started with an erotic poem with female pubic hair as the central axis. He was highly applauded and got a good score. Then it was Germancho’s turn, who gave a social recital on bread and it didn’t turn out bad either…
The poetic brawl continued at the CCCB but there was still much to see, such as the funerary floats of Montjuic and a long etcetera, but the closing time of a newspaper leaves no more room. Next year more and better.
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