Exhibition: ”la Caixa” Foundation’s Contemporary Art Collection

Bruce Nauman, Bill Viola, Gary Hill, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, José Manuel Broto, A.R. Penck, Jean Michel Basquiat, Miquel Navarro, Reinhard Mucha, Montse Soto, Tacito Dean, Jan Vercruysse, Tatsuo Miyajima and Pedro Mora are just some of the artists whose work is on display at CaixaForum to mark the second major exhibition of ”la Caixa” Foundation Contemporary Art Collection. This new selection reveals works that have never been seen within the Collection, such as Black Mother With Black Child (1985), by Georg Baselitz; The Trajectory of Light in Plato's Cave (1985-96), by Mike Kelley, or Didier Vermeiren's 1992 sculpture. In all, visitors have a fresh opportunity to get to know the content of this landmark Collection, which ”la Caixa” Foundation began to put together in 1985, and now features 800 works. The showing takes up all of the CaixaForum exhibition space (roughly 3,000 square metres), and features major installations, paintings, sculptures, photographs and videos. Each of the three exhibition rooms expresses a different perspective on the art of the past twenty years, giving way to new forms of dialogue between the works and establishing different thematic and stylistic associations.The ”la Caixa” Foundation Contemporary Art Collection Exhibition, organised by María de Corral, can be visited at CaixaForum (avinguda del Marquès de Comillas, 6-8) in its entirety from 7 February to 16 March, 2003 (Room 3 closes on 16 March; Room 1, on 23 March, and Room 2, on 15 June).This exhibition will put 76 works on display, distributed over three exhibition rooms at CaixaForum. The first ambit is devoted to the art of the 1980's, in which the painting that resurfaced with renewed expressionism and brought about a return to iconography and symbolism plays a leading role. This room also features works by post-conceptual and post-minimalist central European artists based on their own life experience, closely linked with architecture. This art is marked by internal development ranging from the literal to the metaphoric. Some of the artists represented here are Reinhardt Mucha, Jan Vercruysse, Harald Klingelhöller, Thomas Ruff, Cristina Iglesias, Georg Baselitz, Jean Michel Basquiat, Ferran García Sevilla, A.R. Penck, Sigmar Polke, Miguel Ángel Campano, José Manuel Broto, Enzo Cucchi and Francesco Clemente. The other two rooms contain major installations alongside paintings, sculptures, photographs and videos by Bruce Nauman, Montse Soto, Gary Hill, Tatsuo Miyajima, Pedro Mora, Mike Kelley, Bill Viola and Sam Taylor-Wood in addition to other artists. The works forge thematic relations among themselves, and strive to stage the individual mythology of the artists, the way they perceive time and space, the problems of identity, footprints of memory and social criticism from an existential standpoint.The ”la Caixa” Foundation Contemporary Art CollectionThe ”la Caixa” Foundation Contemporary Art Collection is one of Europe's foremost in its genre, besides being an artistic reference point in the international realm. The Collection was begun in the mid-1980's, and now consists of 827 works by 321 artists that provide an excellent synthesis of contemporary art evolution. Despite the diversity of artists from differing generations and origins, the exhibition is packed with visual and conceptual themes throughout that join and relate the works amongst themselves. It is precisely this conceptual thread running throughout the works that gives the Collection its own personality, making it a bold, unique project.Ever since the Collection was begun, an effort was made to acquire works created in the 1980's by those artists who, despite having reached the zenith of their fame in the sixties and seventies, had a strong influence over the most modern art. This fosters a dialogue with younger generations. Among the most acclaimed artists of the 1960's and 70's are Giovanni Anselmo, Joseph Beuys, Donald Judd, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra, Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Georg Baselitz, and Antoni Tàpies, and others. The oeuvre of younger generations makes up a vast array of artistic expressions, echoed in the exhibition through works from the 80's, like the paintings of Julian Schnabel, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Anselm Kiefer, Miquel Barceló and Ferran García Sevilla, and sculptures of Tony Cragg, Richard Deacon, Anish Kapoor, Susana Solano, Cristina Iglesias and Juan Muñoz. What could be referred to as the exhibition's "conceptual" strand features the work of German artists Günther Förg, Reinhard Mucha, Harald Klingelholler, Katharina Fritsch and Rosemarie Trockel; and Robert Gober, Haim Steinbach, Peter Halley, Cindy Sherman, Tim Rollins and Allan McCollum from the United States. The new functions of photography and video in contemporary art is another of the show's key themes, and can be seen through the works of Geneviève Cadieux, Jeff Wall, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky, Sophie Calle, Bruce Nauman, Bill Viola, Gary Hill, Judith Barry, Sam Taylor-Wood, Javier Peñafiel, Antoni Abad and Shirin Neshat among others.The 1990's witnessed a clear breakaway from the 1980's prevalent individuality. Art was conceived as being intrinsically tied to political, social and cultural issues, and artists sought new responses. The Collection contains varying lines of work, from artists like Juan Uslé, Bernard Frize, Fiona Rae, Ian Davenport, Felicidad Moreno, Rachel Whiteread, Andreas Slominski, Jana Sterback, Sue Williams, Paul McCarthy, Ana Laura Aláez, Txomin Badiola, Elena del Rivero, Mike Kelley, Guillermo Kuitca, Antoni Abad, Tacita Dean, Pedro Mora, Miroslaw Balka, Doris Salcedo, Valeska Soares, Stephan Hablutzel, Janine Antoni, Franz West and Montserrat Soto.Contemporary Art CollectionCaixaForumAv. Marquès de Comillas, 6-808038 BarcelonaHours:From Tuesday to Sunday, from 10 am to 8 pmMondays, closedFree admissionwww.fundacio.lacaixa.es