Montjuïc at Night: Open Music Festival

On 2 July, Barcelona will once again pay tribute to its own home-brewed live music, with a new white night on Montjuïc mountain, Montjuïc at Night, where the best bands from the city’s main music festivals will be meeting up at the same site.

Sonar, Barnasants, De Cajón! Festival Flamenco, Cruïlla BCN, Mas i Mas, BAM. Up to twenty festivals with a highly varied programme that includes some forty performances in every style to suit every taste, from pop to jazz, hip-hop and electronica.

The white night will also offer a taste of the Beefeater In-Edit, the Barcelona International Music Documentary Film Festival, with a screening of two music documentaries.

As usual, the music evening of this fourth edition of Montjuïc at Night will be accompanied by an open night at various museums and mountain venues, such as the CaixaForum, the Fundació Joan Miró, MNAC, the Poble Espanyol and the Teatre Grec gardens.

The festival will kick off at 8 pm and go on until 4 am. For access to some of the mountain stages, the public will have extra public transport and a free bus service until 5 am, connecting Montjuïc Castle to Plaça d’Espanya and Avinguda de la Reina Maria Cristina with the funicular.

New Exhibitions at Museums of Barcelona

The Picasso Museum is holding an exhibition on artists’ responses to the Franco dictatorship in Spain. It takes as its departure point a series of engravings made by the artist in 1937 entitled The Dream and Lie of Franco.

Montjuic offers explorations into the past: MNAC is giving an exhibition on the 19th-century French Realist painter, Gustave Courbet while the CaixaForum is presenting an archaeological exhibition on the ancient Mexican site of Teotihuacan, whose fame rests on its enormous step pyramids.

If you fancy a bit of thought-provoking photojournalism, then you mustn’t miss the exhibition on at the CCCB featuring photographs taken by Gervasio Sanchez and showing the parallels between forced disappearances under oppressive regimes in South America, the Middle East and Spain.

Gustave Courbet and Realism at MNAC Barcelona

The French Painter Gustave Courbet rocked the art world in the 19th century. Through his brush, reality entered painting: Realism was born.

With the aim of tracing his footsteps in our country, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC) is exhibiting, until July 10th, a selection of his most outstanding works, most of which are being shown in Spain for the first time. The exhibition reveals Courbet’s influence on Catalan painting in the period, most of all through the work of Ramon Martí Alsina, the man responsible for the renewal of painting and who introduced Realism to the Spanish art scene.

It is an ambitious exhibition, produced by the MNAC, that invites the public to gain greater in-depth knowledge of Realism and at the same time discover its precedents and its legacy, in a show that deliberately goes beyond the temporal limits of this movement:  from the Spanish Golden Age, with paintings by Murillo, Ribera and Velázquez, to contemporary art, through the work of Antoni Tàpies, one of the most universal Catalan artists.

U232 Hotel offers you an Art Weekend in Barcelona, a special package including accommodation at our 4 star hotel, with a welcome drink and breakfast, and the Barcelona Art Ticket which entitles to visit the 7 largest museums of Barcelona: MNAC, MACBA, Museu Picasso, Fundació Joan Miró, La Pedrera, Fundació Antoni Tàpies and CCCB.

All Barcelona Museums with one single ticket

Imagine a city where you can see one of the most impressive Romanesque art collections and historical paintings that describe the Mediterranean countries during Middle Ages,  and then, just walking ten minutes you are on a modern building featuring an exceptionally comprehensive collection of works by Joan Miró. But don’t stop there. Continue dreaming about a gothic palace where nobles and knights have been replaced by Pablo Picasso works, a city where buildings seem a quarry or even a dragon…

 Now open your eyes. Welcome to Barcelona !!!

U232 Hotel invites you to discover it on an Art Weekend package, which includes:

• 2 nights stay at our U232 Hotel in Barcelona (on a single, double, triple or family room)
• Breakfast in the exclusive U232 buffet restaurant
• Welcome drink in the U232 bar (1 per person)
• 1 Art Ticket per person that entitle you to visit:
  • Museu Picasso: Picasso lived key years in Barcelona – those of his apprenticeship as an artist. He established and maintained strong links to the city throughout his life and it was here where he wanted his museum to be.
  • Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya: MNAC has the best known display of Romanesque frescoes in the whole of Europe, unique both for the quantity and for the quality of the works on show.
  • Fundació Joan Miró: The Foundation holds an exceptionally comprehensive collection of works by Joan Miró.
  • Centre Cultural Caixa Catalunya  – La Pedrera by Antoni Gaudí: Visit the most famous building bythe most famous architect in Barcelona.
  • Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona: One of the largests collections of Contemporary Art in Europe, in a building by Richard Meier.
  • Fundació Antoni Tàpies
  • Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona

Book now your Art Weekend in Barcelona and discover all the museums of the city !!!

MNAC celebrates 75 years

MNAC is 75 years old and is celebrating this by inviting everyone over to its open evening. It will take place thoday Friday 18/12 and visitors will be able to enter its permanent and temporary exhibitions for free. What’s more, there will be talks on some of the museum’s works and live music.

From 7 pm to 12 am, visitors will be able to see for free both its permanent exhibitions and the temporary exhibitions, Guests of Honour and The Wise Princess. The Santa Caterina de Seu d’Urgell Paintings, organised by MNAC and the Museu Episcopal de Vic.

In addition, the museum will also be offering live music by the Rino Dixie Band, from the Taller de Músics, in the Sala Oval. And there will be talks on the most important items in the permanent collection.

Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya – www.mnac.es
C/Mirador Palau Nacional, 6 – Sants-Montjuïc

This is War! Robert Capa & Gerda Taro at MNAC

Robert Capa (1913-1954) was one of the most outstanding photographers of the 20th century. His pictures were published in the most important illustrated magazines, where he made his name, and in which he honed his technique as a master of modern photojournalism. This is war! Robert Capa at work is a pioneering exhibition that takes a fresh look at Capa’s contribution during the 1930s and 1940s. The title has been taken from the article published on December 3rd 1938 in the British magazine Picture Post, with Capa’s images of the Battle of the River Segre.

Gerda Taro (1910-1937) was a photojournalist ahead of her time whose brief career produced almost exclusively the horrific photographs taken at the front in the Spanish Civil War. Her images, reproduced widely in the French left-wing press, incorporated elements typical of the “New Vision”, a movement appearing in Germany around 1920, along with a physical and emotional proximity to the subject. Taro worked closely with Robert Capa, her collaborator and lover. In July1937, while she was covering the decisive battle for Brunete, she was killed under the tracks of a tank. Her photographs are a splendid although little known testimony to that crucial moment in the history of war photography.

Exhibition organized by the International Center of Photography, New York (ICP) in co-production with the MNAC.

Dates: From 06th July to 27th September 2009.
Location: MNAC (Museu Nacional d’ Art de Catalunya) – Parc de Montjuïc

The B-Hotel is located on Plaza Espanya just a few minutes walk from the MNAC, and from its terrace with a pool on the 7th floor has a privileged view of the Palau Nacional and the entire mountain of Montjuïc.