FORA DE Si
In the late 1970s, art critic Rosalind E. Krauss published Sculpture in the Expanded Field (1979), an essay where she reflected on sculpture at a moment when the discipline was starting to include many different media and practices. Sculpture was no longer only understood as an object or monument, but as a field connected to architecture, landscape and other ways of working with space.
Although the text was written at a time when architecture and landscape had not changed in the same way as the visual arts, today we can clearly see that the exchange between disciplines is constant. Art, architecture, landscape, design, cinema, music or poetry are no longer isolated fields. They influence each other and create new ways of thinking about space, matter and culture.
Barcelona can also be understood within this context. Since the democratic transition, and especially since the city opened itself to the world in the 1990s, many artistic practices have moved towards more open and hybrid territories. Tradition is no longer something fixed, but something that can be reread through new methods, spaces, ideas and materials.
This situation allows us to speak about a new creative context. The aim is not to place each practice inside a closed category, but to understand the methods, interests and questions that shape the artistic and spatial practices of the city.
In this sense, the third edition of FORA DE Si wants to show this creative energy through a research project about Barcelona’s cultural ecosystem. The exhibition brings together databases, photographic records, archive materials and audiovisual documents in order to recognise and understand the importance of the present moment.
