Exhibitions
A sentimental exhibition
Understanding contemporary art as a space where the tensions of today's world are made visible, some artists choose to work in a network, offering a broader and more enriching space for dialogue and collaboration. This fact facilitates interdisciplinary work to question the hegemonic forms of representation in visual practices, offer critical alternatives, as well as propose other dynamics that encourage the contribution of new ideas. The joint proposal by Regina Giménez (Barcelona, 1966) and Rafel G. Bianchi (Olot, 1967), entitled A sentimental exhibition and presented by the M|A|C of Mataró, is the result of sharing thoughts, actions and attitudes.
They have jointly imagined a conversation with previous and current works in the form of phrases structured in mosaics that run through all the spaces of the Prison. Unique ideas, personal dances, recognitions of the environment, deconstructions of realities, writings that tell stories... in a flow of felt sensations that understand artistic language with a critical approach to express and interpret the world in which we live. Gina and Rafel were the artists invited to make the 2023 Christmas party: a project that consisted of the limited edition (155 copies) of a plaster piece that reproduced a caganer (which was Robafaves, the giant of Mataró). The success of the initiative caused the demand to make a second edition so that it could be purchased in the M|A|C shop.
This proposal has ended up leading to an exhibition in which the two of them will show the works they have done together, or each of them collaborating with other artists, in a new, very sentimental collective production. It includes joint works, works by each of them made with other artists and also a new production designed especially for the exhibition. Both artists made the proposal for the Miró Foundation in November 2015: an installation called Art de foc, art de badoc, in which they played with the contrast between Christmas traditions and the modern architecture of Sert of the foundation.
The M|A|C Mataró Art Contemporani is a public cultural project resulting from the cooperation between the Mataró City Council and the Department of Culture of the Generalitat de Catalunya which aims to develop research, production and exhibition programs of contemporary artistic projects carried out by local, national and international creators and professionals, with a strong involvement with their context.
Directed by Gisel Noè, it belongs to the Network of Visual Arts Centres of Catalonia along with seven other centres. In January 2022, it inaugurated its new headquarters in the building of the old Mataró Prison (1863). It is the first prison with a panoptic plan in the Spanish State and is a historical and heritage monument declared BCIN in 2001, the work of the architect Elies Rogent.
