We begin anew

Happy New Year to all!

With the start of the new year behind us, it’s now time to consider the interests in our daily life.

From my perspective, the requirement for culture is predominant for us. We need to know the town, its history, and its culture. Whenever we travel to a new city or country, we always visit the local historical museum and the art museum, in addition to finding a cafe or restaurant.

With this passion in mind, we have embarked on this cultural undertaking in Barcelona.  Last year, while living here, we visited many different types of museums, including art, historical, and cultural. We will continue this project, as I just googled and found that there are 124 museums in the city. The variety of museums is wide-ranging, encompassing history, art, horror, and chocolate.

A while ago

A while ago, we visited the MOCO Museum. We took the bus and it took us 30 minutes to get there. This small, privately owned art museum is located in Ciutat Vella [old town], Barcelona, near the massive Pablo Picasso Museum.

Visiting museums

Last year, while living here, we visited many different types of museums, including art, historical, and cultural.

This year we continue this project, as I just googled and found that there are 124 museums in the city. The variety of museums is wide-ranging, encompassing history, art, horror, and chocolate.

The physical size of the Moco museum is perfect for covering in about 90 minutes. This is my threshold for looking at art and visiting a museum. This building has two floors, accessible via an elevator and stairs.

The space is

Upon entering the museum’s outdoor space, you are greeted by an oversized bronze mouse by the artist duo Kaws. Unfortunately this sculpture is on loan and I was told is leaving the museum, shortly.

The first-floor area is reasonably small, featuring pieces by Dali, Warhol, Masaaki, and other contemporary artists. 

If you want to linger and look, there is no place to sit that allows this, not a bench in sight. For me, this is a major flaw, as I not only like to put my face up to see the paint strokes, but I also like to sit and contemplate a painting that requires distance.

The second floor showcases a larger selection of the collection, featuring a prominent display of Banksy and numerous pieces of digital art.

Admission was discounted as we are both over 65, and the museum also offers promotions, such as two-for-one admissions.
Maximo had the pleasure of a free audioguide. This was wonderful as it provided him with a wealth of information and explanations about the artworks.

Overall

Overall, this was a positive experience for both of us: me, a seasoned veteran of the art world, and my partner, who usually prefers historical or antiquarian museums. We both enjoyed different qualities of this museum.

On our next museum visit, we will visit the Joan Miró Foundation, situated in a different part of the city.

Visiting museums has always been an essential part of my life, as this passion started when I was young.

I grew up just

I grew up just outside New York City in Jersey City. My immigrant parents were eager to become good Americans and believed that culture played an integral part in that process.

Growing up we watched operas in the theaters, attended art exhibitions at the museums on free days, and went to afternoon performances of ballet and theater. All of this was at the instigation of my mother.

My mom, with her 3rd-grade education, had her studies interrupted by the war in Poland. She was a pretty tenacious woman, and years later she graduated from a 2-year college at the same time my middle sister graduated from high school.

My mother was

She was the type of person who believed it was possible to become a more informed and cultured person. She learned English in London and continued her education while raising her children. One of the tenets she instilled in us was that we could be anything we wanted to be. This was back in the late 1950s and 1960s. And all her children were girls.

We used library services extensively; my mother never edited what I read, which led to confrontations with the librarian.  I read Lady Chatterley’s Lover when I was 12 years old. I don’t think I fully understood it, as it didn’t leave a lasting impression on me; however, I was a curious child. At the same time, I was reading the science fiction greats, Heinlein, Le Guin, and Asimov. These books allowed my imagination to roam different worlds and to this day I still read science fiction.

In my teens, I would often take the bus into New York City with my friends. It took approximately 45 minutes to travel from the suburbs where we lived to the Port Authority of New York, located on 8th Avenue and 42nd Street. From there, it was a short walk up to the Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, or the Whitney Museum. 

Experiencing significant

Experiencing significant artworks in the 1970s was a fantastic educational and enriching experience as New York City was the place where art was happening as at the time it was the center of the artworld.

Guernica, the famous protest painting by Pablo Picasso, before it was returned to Spain in 1981, had a small, separate viewing area in the MoMA Museum. These experiences helped form me. I feel very grateful for these forays into New York City for culture.

Now it is my hope that over the next few years, we can visit all 124 museums in this city or at least most of them.

Visiting Gaudí’s buildings

We have visited most of Gaudí’s buildings, including the Sagrada Familia Church, which is expected to be finished this year. Also visited Park Güell, Casa Batlló, and La Pedrera. These are the buildings that Gaudí designed and built. One night, we attended a fantastic open-air concert on the rooftop of Casa Batlló. It was brilliant.

This city has museums and foundations devoted to a single artist, such as those dedicated to Pablo Picasso, Antonio Tapies, and Joan Miró.

The diversity of the museums here is vast. There are museums dedicated to the art of Catalonia, a maritime museum, and a science museum, too. Plus a few obscure museums such as the Hash Marihuana Hemp Museum or the Museum of Illusions.

The prospect of

The prospect of visiting all or most of these museums over the coming years is both exciting and daunting.

We attended an opera in Valencia, and would like to do so in Barcelona. The opera house here is known as Palau Teatre de Liceu and dates back to 1847. The building was destroyed by fire in 1994 and rebuilt on the same site. “The Liceu is reborn as a cultural project aimed at society as a whole. The new theater opens its doors as a public theater and, as such, has the mission of creating aesthetically ambitious art that reaches the widest possible audience and ensuring that artistic opportunities for the country’s musicians and creators are expanded.” 

There are also concert halls to hear music, including the amazing Palau de la Música. “This building was designed by the architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner, a masterpiece, and was built between 1905 and 1908 as the home of the Orfeó Català. It is designed as a magical music box that combines all the applied arts: sculpture, mosaic, stained glass, and ironwork.”

Barcelona is a city

Barcelona is a city rich in culture, whether it is highbrow or lowbrow. The city’s history is showcased on its streets and in its museums. This city is alive.

There is a vibrancy here that is believed to be unique to this city. The vitality is evident in the streets and the unique shops and restaurants that comprise this city.

Here’s to further explorations and additional stories about these places we discover.

If you are in Barcelona, get in touch and let’s have a coffee!

Links:

https://whichmuseum.com/place/barcelona-24157

https://www.liceubarcelona.cat/es/el-liceu/historia

https://www.palaumusica.cat/en

https://sagradafamilia.org/

https://www.euskoguide.com/es/lugares-pais-vasco/espana/guernica-turismo/