October 2021 will see the opening of ‘
Panorama 21: Notes for an Eye Fire’, the first of a new
MACBA group exhibition series dedicated to artists and cultural workers who are shaping current conversations around contemporary art and artistic research in the city and the region. Panorama hopes to make an enduring contribution to the resilience of Barcelona’s cultural ecosystem.
Occupying the entire second floor of
Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona’s Meier Building, it will comprise a number of new commissions alongside recently produced works, and grows from a ground-up perspective on Barcelona, the region, and its imaginary.
This inaugural edition of
Panorama is conceived as a curatorial, editorial and communication channel where in-venue displays encompass a wider spectrum of online programming, publishing and engagement with MACBA’s users beyond the museum walls.
‘
Panorama 21: Notes for an Eye Fire’ borrows its title from the third poetry collection by
Gabriel Ventura (“Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls”, Documents Documenta, 2020), and will be curated by
Hiuwai Chu (Curator,
MACBA) and
Latitudes. The full list of participants will be announced in late spring.
The
project draws from the panoramic notion of a wide view seen from a fixed point, as well as the innovation that was the origin of the word itself – a neologism coined by the Irish artist Robert Barker from the Greek
“pan” (all), and “horama” (view) to describe his paintings of Edinburgh, Scotland, at the end of the eighteenth century. Long before the invention of cinema and the proliferation of screens that now characterise contemporary life for many of us, the panorama offered one of the most surprising and popular visual spectacles: a vast 360° depiction of a city, landscape or battle scene that was presented in a purpose-built circular building.
Resonating with the trans-disciplinarity of these display devices, and their desire to inform and captivate, ‘
Panorama 21: Notes for an Eye Fire’ nevertheless turns the page on their seamless vistas of past conflicts and decisive victories, to imagine instead a structure for supporting a fertile and diverse landscape of many complex artistic positions in the present.
