November 2014
by Bernat Daviu (Passatge Studio)

HIMMELSRICHTUNGEN

A few days ago, in one of those Google researches (one starts with a target and after a while is lost on many different branches, totally forgetting what was searched in the first place), I found myself with a gift named Himmelsrichtungen.

It consists of a work by the great Blinky Palermo (1943-1977) installed in Poblenou, to be precise in the architectural complex of The Water Tower of el Besòs and the old Valves’ House. The title, which means Cardinal Points (1) in German, is a piece formed by 4 big glass panels painted at the back with thick texture –there is one black, one yellow, one red and one white. They hang diagonally across the corners of the room, subjected by steal beams that follow the same direction. The work is a magnificent example to note the change of paradigm that modern painting went through in the 60s; a time where the grand gesture of the artist or the obsession for the autonomy of the picture gave way to a pictorial practice based on its relationship to the surrounding architectural space and interested in industrial materials and processes.

Originally built for the XXXVII Venice Biennale in 1976, the piece was later reconstructed in Barcelona in 2002 for the exhibition of the artist held in MACBA, in a warehouse next to the bakery Mistral in Amat road. Since March 2014, Himmelsrichtungen can be visited at the weekends in its new placement in Poblenou. The building is managed by the Historic Archive of the neighbourhood, a fact that is noticeable when one realises all the posters and signs that hang on the walls of the room. They refer to the past of the place and, unfortunately, the spectator has to struggle with them in order to imagine the piece the way it was originally conceived.

Not far from Poblenou, near Ciutadella park, one can visit in Blueproject Foundation until the 23rd of November the work of another German artist. Wofgang Laib produces installations, objects and minimalist drawings with natural substances; a yellow square on the floor made with pollen, a little rectangular marble base with milk on top or rice grains scattered around sculptures are part of the repertoire of this artist.

If you haven´t got lost in “the far beyond” with the spiritual transcendence of Mr.Laib, you can head to the house of another Wolfgang (Goethe Institute) to conclude this German route. In there you will see an exhibition with a large variety of works that establish, to different extents, a relationship with the figure of Johan Wolfgang von Goethe. The day of the opening the visitor could enjoy a series of live performances. In one of them the artist Anna Dot delighted us with a reading in German of fragments from the book Goethe zum Vergnügen (Goethe for pleasure), interrupted every now and then by what seemed to be phone conversations and other types of external communications. Apart from the work of Dot, represented with another piece in the exhibition, you can also see paintings by Matías Krahn, an architectural model by Alicia Framis, Good Boy Bad Boy by Bruce Nauman, Joan Fontcuberta´s project in Cal Trepat (Tàrrega) or the inflammatory posters by Jenny Holzer. And certainly, German artists could not be missing; among them Hanne Darboven, Hans Peter Feldmann, Jan Mech or John Bock.

And with this German presence in Barcelona I will now finish the route before I start messing up with internet searches again; it could derive into a never ending story.

(1):  The title of the work has been translated in many different names. Cardinal Points, Ordinal Points, The Four Cardinal Points and Directions of the Sky

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Text by Bernat Daviu (Passatge Studio) for GRAF