The twenty-five years that separate 1999 from 2024 constitute a period of time that has radically changed everything. The Internet and digitization have transformed the world we live in: how we move, how we relate, how we travel, how we communicate, how we receive and disseminate information. The world of art is not left out. The year 2000 meant the transition to an inescapable globalization and not without negative consequences, and we are suffering from it now. Countless possibilities have opened up to travel and access everything that is happening on the other side of the world but, at the same time, this openness has diversified, multiplied and made precarious the number of cultural agents operating around the world.
Artistic mobility
The internationalization or the presence of Catalan creation on the international scene, in the twenties and thirties of the last century, had as its main milestone, first, the trip to Paris, in order to learn about the most avant-garde artistic trends and be part of them and , later, in New York. In the sixties and seventies, the diaspora of Catalan artists took this same route, in Paris (Rabascall, Miralda, Rossell) and New York (Muntadas, Torres). From the 2000s, the mobility of the artistic sector is favored by the ease of travel (with the cheapening of airplane prices), a little more moderate nowadays.
In the mid-1990s, international curatorial programs emerged at Le Magasin, De Appel, Bard College or Goldsmith, which involved mobility and the creation of work and exchange networks. The same happens with artistic residencies, which continue to play a fundamental role for temporary situations of research and production.
Without intending to make an exhaustive tour here, we will stop at some specific moments in which the will to be and do within the international panorama, with more or less fortune, has played a relevant role.
Exchanges and international representation
In this sense, it is necessary to distinguish between institutional representation and the cultural policies that make it possible and organic exchange, concrete people who live and work in other geographical places and who play an active role in the international scene, either on a personal level (we remember the role of “hosts” in Berlin by the artist Chema Alvargonzález or in New York by Muntadas) or, from their institutions (such as the cases of Martí Manen in Stockholm, Chus Martínez in Basel or Marta Gili in France ), without ceasing to be part of the Catalan context while creating links and fabric.
When we talk about institutional representation we have to go back to the creation, in 1991, of the Catalan Consorci de Promoció Exterior de la Cultura (COPEC), which explicitly introduced the axis of internationalization to Catalan cultural policy. Since then, actions have been taken to promote this representation, either through specific exchange policies, aid or the appearance of institutions such as the Ramon Llull Institute, in 2002, with the aim of promoting the outside the Catalan language and culture.
A review of CONCA’s annual reports, since 2010, shows how in the years in which the economic crisis and precariousness have not occupied the central arguments, the focus is on the need for internationalization and keys are provided for new models based on institutional coordination, strategic events and impact on training.
Whether from the Ramon Llull Institute, the OSIC, the ICEC, city councils or the Ministry of Culture, it is essential to promote through grants for mobility both for artists, professional critics and curators or galleries for participate in international fairs or also for the translation into other languages of texts about artists.
Desperate optimism
Another important aspect is the presence of creation made in Catalonia at biennials, fairs and other international events. Since 2009, the Ramon Llull Institute has been promoting the Catalan Pavilion in Venice, “the great event” of contemporary art, often with risky and innovative bets. As an example, we remember The Unconfessable Community, curated by Valentín Roma (2009), or Llim, by the artist Lara Fluxà (2022).
But, when talking about strategic events to promote the internationalization of the context, organized from Catalonia, we often start with great expectations that are not always met. We remember the Triennial Barcelona Art Report, which had its first and only edition in 2001. Recently, the MACBA within the [contra]panorama program dedicated a study to it by Antonio Gagliano and Verónica Lahitte Reconstruction: Barcelona Art Report [ 2001], with a precise diagnosis: “There is a kind of desperate optimism in the repeated attempts of triennials or biennials to define the present and plant their flag in the future. They are always somehow late for the appointment. The accelerated temporality with which the art system adopts and considers its subjects of interest to be exhausted only increases this feeling that everything grows old quickly. Now that the future has ceased to be the repository of all the unfulfilled promises of modernity and has become a source of planetary anxieties, what is the point of continuing to organize biennials?”.
Strategic alliances
The desire to join international strategic events is accompanied by the consolidation of these through the creation of “franchises”. We constantly see this in successful festivals in other disciplines, such as Sónar or Primavera Sound. This is the case of the presence in Barcelona of Ars Electrònica (2021), a pioneering event in art and technology that expanded from its original location in Linz to different locations around the world. Surely, participation in this type of event contributes to better local coordination when developing joint projects that articulate part of the sector.
Another example is the celebration of Manifesta 15 in the metropolitan area of Barcelona (September – November 2024). From its previous nomadic contemporary art biennial format, it has become a project to propose models for the challenges that cities and regions face. Very pertinent, if it weren’t for the fact that its definition and execution is centralized from the management of the Manifesta Foundation in the Netherlands.
The evaluation of all these initiatives is linked to the management of resources. A balance is needed when allocating public resources to events that are considered strategic, as long as they do not go to the detriment of the weakest part of the sector, artists and other independent professionals who, let’s not forget, constitute the most important part in the generation and consolidation of the artistic and cultural fabric.
[Article published in Bonart 200, September 2024 – February 2025]