In dialogue: Museum and Collection
Venue: Spaces A and C
On 30 January 2024 Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani de Palma will be 20 years old and, on the occasion of this anniversary, the exhibition “In Dialogue: Museum and Collection” will be inaugurated, which will be located in spaces A and C of the building. The exhibition, curated by Eva Cifre, head of the Education Area, and Soad Houman, head of Registration and Collection -Artistic Area-, will present a chronological tour through the Es Baluard Museu Collection in which the pieces of the collection articulate a series of dialogues at different levels.
Firstly, the Museum’s container and content will be linked, that is, the container understood as the history of the building and the surrounding heritage environment. We want to show not only the content of the Museum from the Permanent Collection, but also the history of the place. With this purpose, the Mallorcan artist Tonina Matamalas, who lives in Berlin, will create an ex professo intervention in the form of a visual narrative that will take us back to the time of the construction of the walls in the 16th century until the construction and inauguration of Es Baluard Museu in 2004.
This work will be located on Floor 0 in front of the entrance to the exhibition, where it will remain throughout 2024.
The second way of dialogue will be generated by the works among themselves. During the tour, articulated chronologically, we will go through the different periods and currents from the different contexts, the Balearic, national and international, paying attention to the confluences and connections that occur. In Space A on Floor 0, the exhibition begins in Mallorca in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the emergence of the landscape genre and ends with the resurgence of painting in the 1980s. Between one milestone and another, the itinerary will lead us through cubism, the first avant-garde movements, the national and European post-war period, where the focus falls on gestural and material pictorial experimentation, to continue with conceptual art, mail art and the first incursions into video art. During the tour, five pieces dating from the year 2000 will infiltrate the exhibition to interrupt the established chronological line and thus create spaces for reflection on contemporary art and dialogue between the different periods and on diverse issues such as the relationship with the land and the landscape, the role of women throughout history or the search for identity.
Finally, in Space C on Floor -1, the works from the 21st Century Collection become a metaphor for the definition of “Museum”. The pieces will be used to break down and analyse the features that identify the museum institution, concepts such as research, collection, interpretation, diversity, community and education, all of which are present in the recent and updated ICOM definition of a museum (August 2022). The aim is to open up the debate on what the museum of the 21st century should be like and what challenges it faces from now on.
“A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution at the service of society that researches, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage. Open to the public, accessible and inclusive, museums foster diversity and sustainability. With the participation of communities, museums operate and communicate ethically and professionally, offering varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge-sharing.
