The Bassat collection presents 41 abstract works of the 21st century in the Nau Gaudí

The 2024 program of the Mataró Museum of Contemporary Art Consortium, formed by the Mataró City Council and the Carmen & Lluís Bassat Private Foundation, begins with the second exhibition of the Bassat Collection dedicated to works of the 21st century .

The exhibition that is now open and will remain open until September 22, has 41 works by the artists: Manolo Ballesteros, Manuel Blázquez, Josep M. Codina, Joaquim Chancho, Fernando Daza, Elvira Fustero, Guillermo García Cruz, Carme Garolera, Alicia Gimeno, Joan Hernández Pijuan, Laura Iniesta, Dusa Jesih, Joanpere Massana, Ruth Morán, Bruno Ollé, Alejo Palacios, Pol Pintó, Riera i Aragó, Manuel M. Romero, Josep Serra and Russel Tyler.

The works selected by the curator of the exhibition and director of the Bassat Collection, Núria Poch, "with the conviction of the ethical, critical and reflective importance of painting in particular and of art in general" have the abstraction as a guiding thread. Through them, it will be possible to take "a tour through different approaches and techniques that lead to different results, all of them a personal side of what we mean by abstraction".

Pintura 279 (2002), Joaquim Chancho (Riudoms 1943)

The exhibition, also according to the curator and author of the catalogue, aims to highlight the fine line that sometimes separates abstraction from figuration, as is evident in the works of Riera i Aragó, Josep M. Codina, Carme Garolera, Joan Hernández Pijuan, Joanpere Massana or Chancho. The exhibition invites us to “stop our gaze in a world saturated with images. Because a work of art doesn't answer questions, it provokes them." The 21st Century, which the Bassat Collection is presenting in three exhibitions, offers an overview of art up to the present day, with a selection of figurative and abstract works from among the more than 700 this period gathered by the collector Lluís Bassat in recent years. According to him "these are the most contemporary paintings in our collection, made by lifelong artists and by younger artists who are making their way".

In fact, between the artist Joan Hernández Pijuan, born in Barcelona in 1931 and died in 2005, and the youngest, Pol Pintó from Barcelona and Manuel Romero from Seville, both born in 1993, there is a difference of more than 60 years . On the occasion of the exhibition, the Mayor of Mataró, David Bote, has defined as an "example" the 13 years of public-private collaboration between Mataró City Council and the Carmen i Lluís Bassat Foundation through the Museum Consortium of Contemporary Art in Mataró, and emphasized that it must "continue giving meaning to our task and objectives, which are the exhibition and educational interpretation of contemporary art."

The second exhibition on the 21st century follows Ràfols Casamada. Works from the Bassat Collection presented last year on the occasion of the Ràfols Casamada-Maria Girona Year, which was officially inaugurated at Nau Gaudí in January, and received 10,046 visitors; and the most recent Rastres Compartits, which in November and December brought together works by the photographers Francesc Català-Roca and the mataróní Ramon Manent, coinciding with the celebrations for the centenary of the former's birth. This photographic exhibition received 1,866 visitors. In total, almost 12,000 people (11,912): a record year for the Nau Gaudí.