Free activities in Barcelona during summer!

Whatever you’re into, you can enjoy summer to the full in Barcelona! Even if you’re on a budget, there are many free activities this August.

Outdoor cinema buffs can head to the CCCB in the Raval for the annual “Gandules” cycle, which this year complements the contemporary culture centre’s intriguing exhibition on labyrinths.

Films such as Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville or David Lynch’s Lost Highway are screened from Tuesday to Thursday at 10pm. Get there early to grab a sandwich and a seat.

For the ideal combination of art and air conditioning, check out one of the many free exhibition centres in town. They include the Caja Madrid Espai Cultural in Plaça Catalunya, Gaudi’s Pedrera, and Palau Robert on Passeig de Gràcia, which takes you on a tour of the Mediterranean. Caixa Forum on Montjuic explores the work of internationally renowned Majorcan artist Miquel Barceló.

What’s more, other museums and galleries waive their entry charge on Sunday afternoons, including the Picasso and the nearby Design museums in the Born, or the CCCB and the Virreina photography space in the centre.

For those that prefer to be outdoors, the many lovely parks in the city offer a shady haven from the heat, and a very special experience at night, set the scene for free concerts in classical music, jazz and sarsuela.

And if you’re in party spirits don’t miss the lively and colourful street celebrations in Gràcia, in the third week of August, and Sants in the last week, with their extravagant street decorations and live bands in the evenings.

http://www.vimeo.com/13913483

Courbet exhibition at Museu Diocesa

Paintings, drawings, engravings, photographs, documents and personal objects. In all, there are 100 items in “Courbet, between Nature and Culture”, the first major exhibition in Spain dedicated to the father of realism: Gustave Courbet.

Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet (1819 – 1877) was a French painter  who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social commentary in his work.

You can visit this exhibition at Museu Diocesa. It offers an all-round view of Courbet’s character, both as an artist and a democratic activist. It also highlights his relationship with Catalonia and Spain, and the influence his ideas had on other artists, like Picasso and Miró.

The exhibition features masterpieces such as “Le Chateau de Chillon” or “Portrait d’homme d’apres Velazquez” and many landscapes of Normandy.

Where: Museu Diocesa
Av. Catedral, 4 (next to the Cathedral)
When: Until September 5th, 2010.

Loop Barcelona. Videoart Festival

For eleven days, Barcelona will be the great international showcase of video art. Loop Barcelona - now in its 8th year - hosts its most extensive programme ever, featuring over one thousand videos in some hundred venues located throughout the city. 

In a restaurant, in a bookshop and even in a flat specially rented for the occasion, video art comes to the whole city for eleven days of Loop Barcelona, the most important international event in visual creation in existence.

Artists presenting works include Michael Snow, Perejaume, John Baldessari, Miquel Barceló, Isabel Coixet, Eulàlia Valldosera and Bill Viola.

Among the videoforums that have been prepared, you might find yourself inspired by a meeting with film director Hannah Collins, who has a joint project with Ferran Adrià, or by seeing what television arts presenter Jef Cornelis has to say.

You can also see Miquel Barceló’s live creation of a piece of art at the Museu de Ceràmica de Barcelona.

More inf@: Loop Barcelona

Free Museum Night in Barcelona

Museum Night is back for another year. So, this Saturday, 15 May, from 7 pm until 1 am, forty museums and exhibition centres will be open for free. The Museum Night programme for this year has been organised around six areas of the city, each area groups together several centres and museums that are close to each other. The first runs from Montjuïc to Hospitalet, the second from Eixample to Gràcia, the third from the Barri Gòtic to the sea, the fourth from Raval to the port, the fifth covers Badalona, Glòries and Ciutadella, and the sixth Pedralbes, Esplugues and Cornellà.

Among eleven new centres and museums that are to open their collections and temporary exhibitions to the public for the night are Arts Santa Mònica, the Museu Agbar de les Aigües, the Centre Cultural Metropolità Tecla Sala, the Museu Can Tinturé and the Museu Egipci de Barcelona.

This is not all Museum Night has to offer because special activities are being organised, such as concerts, magic shows, dance, theatre, guided tours, storytelling, talks and poetry (coinciding with Poetry Week).

These activities are aimed at everybody and include the farewell party at the Museu de Ciències Naturals de Barcelona, a way of celebrating the start of a new era at its future home in the “Blue Building” at the Forum.

Another event open to everyone is a joint activity involving all the centres and museums at the same time. It is a flash mob which requires everyone to remain quiet for three minutes from midnight.

http://www.vimeo.com/11718119

B-Days: Discover Barcelona at incredible rates

Planning a visit to Barcelona? Check out our calendar and take advantatge of B-Days: the new incredible promotion at B-Hotel. For only 65€ per night, stay in one of our B-Rooms.

 Seamlessly blending avant-garde style with ultimate functionality, B-Rooms are equipped with the latest technologies and electronic devices; they also feature high design furnishings, minimalist decor, total luxury and excellent services, such as free Wi-Fi, natural lighting, and king size beds or two singles. Cots are also available.

B-Hotel in Plaza Espanya is a perfect place to stay when visiting Barcelona; it’s just ten minutes from La Rambla and Plaza Catalunya, as well as all the museums on Montjuïc. Its ideal location, in one of Barcelona’s most exciting areas, and just steps away from Fira de Barcelona fairgrounds, has made B-Hotel a key landmark during business meetings and trade conventions.

Click here and check out our B-Days calendar

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 !!!

Fashion as seen by Outumuro

Hotel Granvia is one of the favourite sets of the photographer

Under the heading “Outumuro. Looks” Disseny Hub Barcelona has put on display more than 200 images by fashion photographer, Manuel Outumuro. The retrospective exhibition, which can be seen until 25 April, covers twenty years of the photographer’s career

 All the top Spanish models have posed before Outumuro’s lense, such as Laura Ponte, Judit Mascó and Martina Klein, whose first photo was taken by him. “We are practically family” he said.

International models have also posed for Outumuro, including many famous figures, such as Penélope Cruz, Rossy de Palma, Alaska, Diane Kruger and Luz Casal, among many others.

Manuel Outumuro fuses the spirit of classicism with a search for elegance, an elegance which portrays femininity in its truest form. The photographer is drawn towards women’s fashion and the only job he ever rejected was taking photos of jeans. His images are timeless, though the photographer tells us that he works without looking for a particular style. “I take photos as I feel them” he says.

Outumuro’s influences are vast, from Harper’s Bazaar magazines of the forties and fifties to the world of cinema and literature.

Hotel Granvia commemorates this year its 75th anniversary. Stablished on 1935 in the former Palace of Serra-Chopitea family (built in 1870), this hotel has been part of Barcelona’s history and has seen all the majors events of the last century in the city. Its unbeatable location next to Passeig de Gràcia and Plaza Catalunya ensures the best of Barcelona to all its guests.

What: Outumuro. Looks
Photographic exhibition
Where: Disseny Hub Barcelona
Montcada, 12 - Ciutat Vella
When: until April 25th, 2010

New visions at the Virreina Image Centre

As the turkish writer Orhan Pamuk said at the CCCB, museums need to evolve, to free themselves of institutional rules and open themselves up more.

This is the premise for the Virreina Centre de la Imatge’s new stage. Under Carles Guerra’s direction, it opting for a rethinking of its layout and contents, to make culture available to the public according to their needs and to create a dialogue instead of one-way messages.

With these new working guidelines oriented towards cultural-policy debates, the Virreina Centre de la Imatge has two exhibitions in line for 2010 that will examine the weight of urban and media images.

The new Image Centre will not be conceived solely as an art centre; it will attempt to turn itself into a place where images and culture reveal the conditions under which they are produced and circulated.

With this in mind, the exhibition rooms will be concentrated on the second floor of the Palau de la Virreina, with a new layout that removes the architectural barriers and will turn the Xavier Miserachs gallery into a new hub of cultural services in the style of a “laboratory” at street level, allowing the public free admission to the auditorium and archives.

The Image Centre will start these activities on 9 March with Guia secreta de la Rambla (Secret Guide to the Rambla), a look at this controversial urban space now saturated with audiovisual and literary images. Accompanying this will be the book Barcelona en blanc i negre (Barcelona in Black and White), which shows the Rambla as an organic entity fully integrated into the city, and a room devoted to Ocaña for the artist’s central role on this avenue.

Virreina Image Centre website  |  NN Hotels: www.nnhotels.com

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

BAC! 09 - The Barcelona Contemporary Art Festival

The Barcelona Contemporary Art Festival BAC! 09 opens Pandora’s box. At least, this year’s date with international creation is subtitled “Pandora’s Boxes“. An ironic title, as we won’t find all humanity’s ills there, rather an assertion of feminine art, but without any of the clichés normally associated with it.

Neither social criticism nor discourses on gender discrimination; the sixty-or-so female artists whose works are on display in BAC!’s main exhibition at the CCCB, free of charge, prefer humour, irony and a fresher perspective.

This is what we find in Ariadna Arnés’s photos, in Hanamaro Chaki’s illustrations and Bárbara Sánchez Barroso’s embroidery. You can be sure to find installations and videoart there too, such as those by Marta Jiménez Salcedo and Ms Woolman.

One of the highlights of this tenth BAC! is the section entitled “BAC! CAM“. This will feature one of the fullest retrospectives on women’s videoart.

To be more specific, the programme called “Indomitable Women” reviews female videoart over the last forty years, from the field’s pioneers like Maya Deren, celebrity names like Yoko Ono and Joan Jonas, up to more recent creators like Dora García, among others.

X Festival Internacional Barcelona Art Contemporani - BAC Pandora’s Boxes  - website Festival
From01/12/2009 to 03/01/2010
Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB): C/Montalegre, 5

NN Hotels: www.nnhotels.com

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