| - | | | | | - | | | - | | Additional documentation | | | - | | Related Ràdio Web MACBA shows | | | RWM Son[i]a: Manolo Laguillo and Jorge Ribalta talk about the exhibition "Barcelona, 1978-1997... MANOLO LAGUILLO" Descárgate el Flash Player para escuchar este MP3. | | - | |
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Barcelona, 1978-1997... MANOLO LAGUILLO | | 02/03/2007 - 06/05/2007
MACBA  |
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This exhibition, produced by MACBA, will explore a large part of the work of Manolo Laguillo (Madrid, 1953), specifically the part that concentrates on representation of Barcelona. And it will do so from the hypothesis of the close relation between his work and the construction of an image of the city through photography in the crucial decade of the eighties. Although Laguillo's whole career as a photographer has to do with the city space, it is his series on the Catalan city that enable us to follow his work through time without lapsing into the model of the anthological or retrospective exhibition, which would be contradictory for an artist of his age and characteristics (his work is still relatively scarce).
Manolo Laguillo's importance in the eighties was precisely to make up a reference work which departed from the advertising image of Barcelona with the new town planning, which brought the great transformation that culminated in the Olympic Games in 1992. At that time numerous photographic works appeared which focused their attention on that transformation, though in general they did so from a celebratory perspective, aligning themselves with the dominant discourse in the city. In this context, Laguillo's work can be seen as a forerunner of works which, especially in the nineties, have tried to construct a more critical and complex image of the city, attempting to give shape to other realities that were left out of the pomp of the celebratory discourse.
This exhibition will provide a study of the urban change of Barcelona in the eighties, trying to salvage images which at the time were left in the background due to the confluence of two main causes: first, the predominance of the propaganda image of the city and, second, the hegemony of anti-documentary photography in the local art market at that time (as a precondition of the integration of photography into that market). Those two conditions can be identified as aspects that at the time crucially decided the discourse of photographic modernity in Spain.
Curator: Jorge Ribalta
Produced by: Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA
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