The careers of Joan Gaspar and Manel Esclusa recognized in the GAC Awards 2022

On June 7, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (Macba) will host the awards ceremony to be held on Gallery Night. The Awards are organized by Galeries d'Art de Catalunya (GAC) and the Art Barcelona association, in a committee coordinated by the gallery owner Benito Padilla and with a jury chaired by the curator Pilar Parcerisas and also composed by the critic Juan Bufill, the artist Gino Rubert, curator Àlex Mitrani and curator Natalia Chocarro. The solid careers of the gallery owner Joan Gaspar and the photographer Manel Esclusa will be awarded by the Catalan gallery. Both figures will receive the Honorary Awards for Trajectory - Banco Sabadell Foundation.

The chairman of the GAC Awards organizing committee, Benito Padilla - director of Imaginart Gallery - praised the awarding of the two awards as two well-deserved tributes and recognitions. On the one hand, “the figure of a gallery owner who marked an era in Barcelona, such as Joan Gaspar, a member of a lineage that has been key in the positioning and projection of the city in modern and contemporary art. who stood out as an erudite man and sensitive to the spread of the arts ”. And on the other hand, "a prestigious photographer, such as Manel Esclusa, with a brilliant career, which allows him to place this discipline in its rightful place in the field of creations." "Lock," added Benito Padilla, "is one of the benchmarks of contemporary photography and a coherent creator, who has been able to build his own universe."

In addition to the awards for an artistic career and a career as a gallery owner - both in collaboration with the Banco Sabadell Foundation - the GAC Awards will distinguish the following categories: collecting; to criticism; in the media; at the police station; to the best gallery programming; to the best historical gallery exhibition; to the artist for best gallery exhibition and to the mid-career artist for best gallery exhibition.