Exhibitionist!

One of the most interesting things that I always find about going to big cities is the wealth of exhibitions going on, particularly when they are about something that you had no idea about before, and my trip to Barcelona this weekend was very much inkeeping with this.

The first exhibition was in fact something we happened upon by chance. Wandering along the Passeig de Gracia in search of La Pedera or Casa Milà as it is otherwise known, we came to a model of letters making up 'alegra' outside the CatalunyaCaixa which is now located within La Pedera. Although not having heard of Javier Mariscal before, we were intrigued by the unusual construction outside and hastened to enter. The exhibition itself is divided into six differing sections, so as to demonstrate his differing fields and ways of expression, and these include: the Early Sketches, Letters and Typefaces, Graphic Art on the Street, Attitudes and Intentions, Visual Poems and finally Film and Final Scene. On top of that, the artist, and other important fugures will be visiting the exhibition on specific weekends in order to talk about the work shown.The displays themselves, as you can see by the titles, were varied and made very much into part of the room, with cartoons hanging from the ceiling as you enter, to large word sculptures in the middle of the room. My favourite part (apart from the stunning building and architecture..) has to be the end of the walk around in which you go through an installation made up of fabric, projections and music, all with the aim of creating a forest scene.

The other exhibition we saw, and most definitely my favourite, was that of 'Picasso davant Degas', a temporary exposition based on the ways in which Picasso was seemingly influenced by this other artist, and all the more significant because Degas and he apparently never met.The similarities and overlapping themes however are striking and now the idea has been suggested to me, I find it very difficult not to see the vast number of influences of other artists in Picasso's work.

However, this particular example focuses on 6 main themes: Early Years: Drawing and the Human Figure, Paris: Picasso discovers Degas, Women and their private world, The ballet: homage and humor, Picasso's bather-dancers/Olga Khokhlova, dancer and muse and finally, Brothel scenes: the artist as a voyeur.