“There are days when an event, by the logic of the unforeseen, makes a cut in history and a different world is born. The MACBA exhibition Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls (Notes for an Eye Fire) welcomes us after the global reset with a new generation.” Comments such as this one, from the poet and critic Vicenç Altaió, are both gratifying and humbling to read now that, following sixteen months of preparation—and some might say more than twenty-five years of expectation—this group exhibition of artists from the Barcelona art scene, conceived during the harshest moments of the pandemic, is finally open to the public (until 27 February 2022). As the exhibition title by Gabriel Ventura suggests, it is open not only to visitors’ eyes and words, but to our ears, and our whole bodies’ sensing.

Notes and noises fly out and around a vast red net that is suspended high above—a stage for a series of live vocal rehearsals by Laia Estruch, the first of which takes place on 20 November. A resinous smell emanates from several tree trunks, sourced by nyamnyam and Pedro Pineda from a sustainable forestry initiative, as they await their transformation into a range of tables, benches, and other structures. A huge multi-canvas installation by Marria Pratts floats away from the wall and off the floor. Aleix Plademunt’s photographs take us from the visual noise of the Big Bang to a sunset in the artist’s birthplace. We'll be highlighting these and the fourteen other contributions over the coming months!