This past week, Year 12 art students, Miss Syed, and Mr Haroune went on a three day art trip to Barcelona, Spain. The trip started on Tuesday 15th at 8:30am where everyone met at the “Día y Noche” sculpture in Atocha. These are two sculptures of baby heads, one with its eyes closed and the other with its eyes open, created by Spanish artist Antonio LÓpez.
When the group arrived in Barcelona, we went to have lunch at ‘el Mercado de la Boquería’. This is a market that has many different food stalls from all around the world – ñam! After this, we went to ‘Museu d’art Nacional de Catalunya’. This was the first museum we went to on the trip and it was fascinating to observe works of art from the period of the civil war, to the architectural building in which the museum was housed, and the magnificent view it has of all of Barcelona right outside the entrance.
On the second day, we went on a guided tour of ‘La Sagrada Familia’ (one of the most impressive pieces of architecture to be seen!). La Sagrada Familia had a very interesting tour as we learnt how Gaudi (designer of the Basilica) designed even the smallest detail of this building as he knew that he wouldn’t live to see the final result (the Basilica is still in construction and it is estimated that it will take another 10 years to be finished).
After the visit to La Sagrada Familia we went to our second museum of the trip, the MACBA. The MACBA is a contemporary art museum where we saw 3 temporary exhibitions by artists Cinthia Marcelle, Maria Teresa Hincapié and Ayuujkjä’äy ëy Konk. Each exhibition focused on different topics. Cinthia Marcelle focused on order and disorder and the disparities in society; Teresa Hincapié focused upon what it is to be a woman; Ayuujkjä’äy ëy Konk made her artwork focusing on the Mexican city of Oaxaca and its culture and connections with Catalunya. Lastly, we visited the Picasso museum and with that we wrapped up the day.
In the morning of the next day, we visited the Fundació Antoni Tapies. His works reflect topics such as the truthfulness of love, or social. inequalities. Finally, we went for a walk to see some famous Catalan Modernist architecture. We saw two famous architectural sites: Casa Amatller designed by Josep Puig; Casa Batlló which was designed by Gaudi and looked like it was inspired by sea life. We also saw Casa Milá which is better known as La Pedrera and was also designed by Gaudi.
Overall we had the opportunity to visit some of the most iconic places in Barcelona, as well as the chance to see the work of very talented artists at the museums!
A text by Martina GM. Contributions by Jose Luis C and Olga M.
