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Opinion
3 July 2016 2.00 h

A look at the art scene

What is Fun­dació Gas­par?
Fun­dació Gas­par is an NGO that aims to pro­mote con­tem­po­rary art in Barcelona. We want to fill a gap and com­ple­ment the other art in­sti­tu­tions by bring­ing rel­e­vant in­ter­na­tional artists never, or rarely, seen in Barcelona be­fore.
How is it con­nected to the leg­endary Sala Gas­par?
The foun­da­tion opened in No­vem­ber, but the mythic Sala Gas­par closed in 1996 and my fam­ily re­mained in the busi­ness but with­out a pub­lic space. In 2012, I opened an ex­hi­bi­tion space as a com­mer­cial gallery but we re­alised it wasn't the best way to do it be­cause what we want to do is re­cover the spirit of Sala Gas­par but with­out re­peat­ing what it did, as the artists they rep­re­sented at that time are now strongly rep­re­sented in the city; we al­ready have a Pi­casso mu­seum, the Miró foun­da­tion, the Tàpies foun­da­tion, and so on. But we did want to re­cover the spirit of Sala Gas­par and be­come a cen­tre for the city's art scene and give a boost to the art world in the city that has been de­pressed for the past eight years due to the cri­sis. We re­alised we couldn't do it in a com­mer­cial gallery so we started think­ing about an in­sti­tu­tional pro­ject and the idea was to do it in the mid-term, but then sud­denly the op­por­tu­nity of hav­ing this amaz­ing lo­ca­tion ap­peared, and every­thing began to go very fast.
It's on car­rer Mont­cada in the Born, isn't it?
It's right next to the Pi­casso mu­seum and the space is stun­ning. It's a 15th-cen­tury Gothic palace and the lo­ca­tion is amaz­ing be­cause there are a mil­lion peo­ple going next door to the Pi­casso mu­seum every year, which makes it a re­ally im­por­tant spot. But the most im­por­tant as­pect is we have re­cov­ered a re­ally mythic art space for the city be­cause that used to be the Maeght gallery and every­one re­mem­bers the big ex­hi­bi­tions they used to put on.
What was the re­cep­tion from the local art world?
They sup­port us be­cause firstly it's great that some­thing new is hap­pen­ing in this de­pressed sit­u­a­tion, so it's also a good thing for them. And then, every­one knows that the more things you have going on in Barcelona is bet­ter for every­one, as it cre­ates more vis­i­tors and more at­ten­tion and every­one ben­e­fits.
You cur­rently have an ex­hi­bi­tion of An­thony Mc­Call.
It's a fan­tas­tic ex­hi­bi­tion and I'm re­ally happy about it. An­thony is a major artist and it is his first solo show in Spain. He's well-known in­ter­na­tion­ally for his solid light in­stal­la­tions, which are amaz­ing in­stal­la­tions that give you the feel­ing that you can touch the light and pass through them, and that's the work he's best known for. But in this show we have a se­lec­tion of his pieces going back to the '70s and the show is a great re­la­tion­ship be­tween the new ones and these older pieces. He was re­ally happy about it be­cause most mu­se­ums are in­ter­ested in the solid light pro­jects.
Is Mc­Call an ex­am­ple of the artists you want to show?
We want to be eclec­tic. One of our found­ing goals is that we want to show as many dif­fer­ent as­pects of con­tem­po­rary art as pos­si­ble. We want to show many dif­fer­ent artists, but al­ways rel­e­vant and great artists, but who have many dif­fer­ent ap­proaches to the con­tem­po­rary art world.
What is com­ing up next?
We are just fin­ish­ing a cou­ple of things for the main pro­gramme, but first we will have a pub­lic in­ter­ven­tion in the down­stairs area with a great young artist from New York, Ken Oki­ishi. He'll make an in­stal­la­tion on the ground floor.
How do you go about or­gan­is­ing an ex­hi­bi­tion?
It de­pends on the show but usu­ally there are two ways of doing it: ei­ther we pro­pose the show, when the first thing to do is con­tact the gallery or the artist, and the other way is some­one pro­poses the show to us, a cu­ra­tor or an artist. Once you de­cide you want to do it, the first thing is to find out what the con­cept of the ex­hi­bi­tion will be, and then you start choos­ing the pieces, then comes all the lo­gis­tics, the trav­el­ling, ship­ping, and so on.
How do the artists react? They can be touchy.
It de­pends on the artist. Some artists want to con­trol every­thing and have every­thing re­ally clear, but then there are other artists who re­ally like to work with the cu­ra­tor or the in­sti­tu­tion. So, each per­son is dif­fer­ent.
Can we say the cri­sis is now over in the art world?
In the local sense we are not done at all; we are still in a huge cri­sis. It will con­tinue until the gov­ern­ment does some­thing to sup­port us, as we are re­ally strug­gling. We need that fa­mous law of pa­tron­age, and then there is the tax prob­lem of the VAT on cul­ture, which is a huge prob­lem for Spain. But in the end we are now in a global sit­u­a­tion and the dif­fer­ence with 2009 or 2010 is that every­one can find us. And then in­ter­na­tion­ally, the cri­sis was over many years ago, in the US or the UK, for ex­am­ple, they are in good shape.
Moishan Gaspar Every Monday at 7.10 pm, El Punt Avui TV's English Hour airs the interview series Going Native. This month, Neil talks to the director of the new Fundació Gaspar about the art scene in Barcelona.
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Neil Stokes
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