Urban imaginaries allow us to approach social and urban reality from symbolic, cultural and intangible dimensions. The anthropologist and cultural critic Néstor García Canclini stated in his book Imaginarios urbanos that “many assumptions that guide the actions and omissions of citizens derive from how we perceive the uses of urban space, the problems of consumption, transit and communication, and also from how we imagine the explanations for these issues.” À la ville de … Barcelona is a play written and directed by Joan Ollé (currently on the bill at the Teatre Lliure in Barcelona) that presents, analyses, dissects and criticises the city of Barcelona, covering everything from the Barcino of Roman times to the current city occupied by tourists and rigid regulations of the City Council that is beginning to become uncomfortable for its inhabitants.
À la ville de… Barcelona is a tableau (not an auca) full of scenes and jumps in time, through which characters, places, ways of relating and living together parade. The journey becomes a kind of kaleidoscope, composed of images that, rather than establishing a linear discourse, evoke associations from fragments and suggestions. The imaginary of Barcelona is emotionally constructed from very diverse references: facts, stories, events, characters, places, songs or objects.
Events such as the exhibitions of 1988 and 1929, the tragic week, the selection of Barcelona as the venue for the 1992 Olympic Games or the dismantling of the beach bars in Barceloneta, are combined with the parade/appearance of characters and prototypes (the night watchman, the bun-haired one, the nerd who goes to the Verdi cinemas, the depressed Barça fan of the 80s, the mayors Maragall and Trías, the regulars at the Liceo, the Pakistani who sells cans on the street…), with objects that recall important events (ranging from the entrance to the Beatles concert in 1966 to the first lollipop that Johann Cruyff ate after quitting smoking), places (bars and clubs, disappeared cinemas, the Boquería) and literary references (here we find a real arsenal: Eduardo Mendoza, Jaime Gil de Biedma, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Joan Maragall, George Orwell, Jean Genet, Joan Salvat-Papasseit, Merçè Rodoreda, Josep Carner, Rafael Duyos, José Agustín Goytisolo, Josep Pedrals, Josep Maria de Sagarra and Jacint Verdaguer).
Although the work is for internal consumption, the ambiguity of a gaze that combines love and hate in equal parts is evident. There are emotional moments, but also merciless criticism: such as a lottery draw in which the numbers are called out (for example: the reports commissioned by public administrations that are useless) and the prizes (“a lot of money”); or a recreation of Millet’s Angelus (in this case Millet is Félix Millet) with his inventory of expenses and attendees at his daughters’ weddings, making clear the link with “the best families” of the city. There are also acidic, very acidic superpositions of scenes: the arrow that lights the cauldron of the Olympic Games is transformed into the bullet that executes Companys or the collective and enthusiastic cry upon learning of the venue of the 1992 games is confused with the uproar produced by the entry of Franco’s troops in 1939.
That is why we get angry when this inclusion of Barcelona is done badly, and especially when it is done badly in contemporary art. For example, every time the MACBA exhibits its collection it tries to shoehorn in references to the context (tracing the legacy of modernity in the construction of the Universal Exposition of 1929, showing the dull and unrecognisable spaces of Barcelona as recorded by Jean-Marc Bustamante or “la ciutat de la gent” portrayed by Craigie Horsfield) without really relating to that context or offering a sympathetic or critical view of it, or both at the same time, because it is precisely in that tension (which À la ville de … Barcelona resolves so well) where the true will to try to understand the world around us or the city in which we live lies.
