37 art spaces are taking part in the 11th edition of Art Nou

A total of 37 contemporary art spaces in Barcelona and L'Hospitalet de Llobregat will participate in the 11th edition of Art Nou with the participation of nearly 50 emerging artists in 26 exhibitions, as well as an extensive program of parallel activities which includes guided tours, inaugurations, conversations and talks with artists, concerts, performances, workshops and screenings, among others.

The festival, which will open on June 30 with the opening of all the exhibitions in Barcelona and on July 1 with those in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, will close on September 3 with the delivery of the 2022 Art Nou Prize to one of the artists who have exhibited in this edition of the festival, granted by La Capella.

This festival, which has been organized by the Art Barcelona galleries association, is once again committed to stimulating young production, vindicating galleries as spaces for meeting and debate, and bringing art agents and the general public into contact. and make visible emerging ways of doing in art.

Of the 37 participating art spaces in Barcelona, the galleries 3 Punts Galeria, Àngels Barcelona, Bombon Projects, Chiquita Room, Cordova, Esther Montoriol Gallery, H2O Gallery, Joan Prats Gallery, House of Chappaz, LAB 36, are collaborating. N2 Gallery, Pigment Gallery, Pigment Gallery (Lab Art Studio), Sala Parés, Suburbia Contemporary and Zielinsky Gallery; the La Capella art centers, dedicated to emerging creation, Espronceda Institute of Art and Culture, Hangar, Santa Mònica and Sala d'Art Jove; the self-managed art spaces Estructuras 3000, Homesession, La Cera 13, La Escocesa and SSUAVE, and the clandestine space Nomevoy. For its part in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, the galleries Ana Mas Projects, etHALL, Galería Alegría, L21 Factory, NoguerasBlanchard and Raccoon projects are taking part; as well as the art spaces FASE, Arranz-Bravo Foundation, Salamina and Tangent Projects.

Reflections on the construction of identity

Another novelty of this edition is that the Art Nou 2022 exhibitions will reflect on the construction of identity, race or colonialism. An example of this is the work of Agnes Essonti Luque (Barcelona, 1996) who creates a reflective scenario around identity, raciality and belonging to a place through photos, videos and installations in Beta in Kale fo ma on Mapane. A Tangent Projects; artists Seulbi Kim (Seoul, 1986) and Christian Tenefrancia Illi (Stuttgart, 1987) focus on the impact of colonialism and globalization through the portrayal of undocumented Filipino workers in Barcelona in Renegociaciones en la autodeterminación: entre dos realidades, a the H2O Gallery; Congolese-British artist Cõvco, who is exhibiting solo in Spain for the first time, pays tribute to the ocean voyage of migrants coming to Europe from Africa at the site-specific immersive installation Fly High at the Cordova Gallery.

Memory also focuses on different works. Carmen Alvar (Madrid, 1989) investigates the meaning of ruins –understood as memory and forgetfulness– in Paisatges Obsidionals, an exhibition in the Sala Parés where the artist takes various objects as a guiding thread and transmutes their meaning, changing its historically assigned value. Cristina Spinelli also exhibits Que me entierren con todo, in NoguerasBlanchard, where the artist models and tears over and over again to get to the root, dissect and reconstruct works that appear and disappear.

The Esther Montoriol gallery hosts the exhibition 112: Collapse, a collective exhibition in which artists share a critical look at the world around us and reflect on the idea of a dystopian present, with pieces from a dozen of authors, students of the last edition of the Master of Production and Artistic Research, in the line Art and Intermediate Contexts (2021-22) of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona. The art space Homesession presents Ash Thursday, Ash Wednesday, an atypical festival in July by Cesc Hernández, Júlia Vives Vázquez and Mikel Iniesta, which aims to deconstruct the previously constructed look that the viewer has of the party of pagan origin. This exhibition is the result of the triple alliance between Homesession, the Teaching Innovation Group "Art, Profession and Teaching" of the University of Barcelona and the Sala d'Art Jove.

For its part, the Sala d'Art Jove of the Generalitat de Catalunya hosts a series of actions generated collectively by some of the artists selected in the Art Jove Creació 2022 call, accompanied by Alba Rihe i Martí Anson, and Espronceda Institute of Art and Culture presents two group exhibitions: Untitled_3, which shows the projects of the 4 resident artists of the NectART program –Nador, Laura Such, Ana Karen Rodríguez and Alberto Alejandro Rodríguez–, and Untitled, in the which 4 emerging artists dialogue with the city of Barcelona through painting, video, installation and performance –Teresa W, Juliane Lusson, Emir Gómez and Farah Alizée Loubet–. The self-managed space by artists La Cera 13 also hosts the collective exhibition Tres en Raya.

Painting in all its forms

Art Nou 2022 hosts several painting exhibitions. Alicia Gimeno (Barcelona, 1989) presents Root Structure at LAB 36, inside the Senda Gallery, a work that explores line and shape through the representation of roots as part of a large root system of the tree ; Guillermo García Cruz (Montevideo, 1988) exhibits Glitched Space at the Galeria Zielinsky, a work that seeks to disorient the viewer's perception by producing a temporal error or a "glitch", a concept appropriate for the artist who comes from computer science; Pigment Gallery presents PAIN2U by Vicente García Lázaro (Madrid, 1985), which reflects on the pictorial medium, and Pigment Gallery (Lab Art Studio) exhibits An Ode to Childhood, by Ana Monsó (Barcelona, 1998), a sketch work nostalgic; Victor Beats presents Wave Motion at N2 Gallery, a work that appeals to the subconscious and alludes to Taoism, a life in constant motion and change. Lara Padilla exhibits Dos Rombos at 3 Punts Galeria, an exhibition in which the artist reflects on how social media - a space that boasts independence - categorizes her art of pornography, depriving her of freedom of expression and visibility; on the other hand, Mariona Berenguer (Barcelona, 1992) presents About Desire at Raccoon Projects, an exhibition about desire and how it develops depending on the tension generated by the distance between the object and the subject. Landscape and its reinterpretation is seen in Daisy Dodd-Noble’s Origins (London, 1989) in L21 Factory, which proposes a reflection on the sense of belonging to a place, through its palette of greens, purples and yellows; and Daniel de la Barra (Lima, 1992) exhibit Destierro at the Joan Prats Gallery, a work that reflects on the reinterpretation of the landscape from a romantic point of view, an installation that reflects on the monoculture of rice and its consequences environmental.

The field of illustration will also be present with Juan Narowé (Brazil, 1993) will present Negative Capability to Ana Mas Project, starting from drawing as a basic element and with its particular and sophisticated imaginary with references to literature or movie theater. Other prominent participants in this section are Alícia Vogel (Olot, 1991), Laia Amigó (Granada 1996), Nestor Ceniceros (Durango, Mexico, 1994), Octavi Serra (Girona 1190), Ian Waelder (Madrid, 1993), Noela Covelo Velasco (Pontevedra, 1994), Liliana Díaz (Mexico, 1992) and Mar Reykjavik (Sagunto 1995). In addition to the exhibitions, the participating galleries and spaces will offer an extensive program of daily parallel activities to enrich the content of the exhibitions. Such as conversations with artists, openings of exhibitions, performative performances, vermouths, performative conferences, sound actions, guided tours, which will take place throughout the year from Art Barcelona, and with the aim of bringing the public the work of the artists. Also included are visits to residency, production and artistic research centers for gallery owners and art professionals with the aim of getting to know the work of resident artists, this year they will be held at Hangar and La Escocesa in Barcelona, and at Fase i Salamis in L'Hospitalet.

Finally, the festival will close on Saturday 3 September with the presentation of the Art Nou 2022 Prize. The prize, awarded since the first edition by La Capella, the space that the Institut de Cultura de Barcelona dedicates to emerging creation, awards to one of the artists he has exhibited at this year’s edition of the festival. In addition, and as a novelty, the Collezzione Taurisano (Italy) will award a prize to one of the participating artists - as aid for the rental of studio or workshop - and for the second year, the Marseille fair ART-O- RAMA will award the best exhibition with a free participation of the gallery in the 2023 edition of the fair.