Barcelona
Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA)
Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA) Commissioning contemporary art for a historical space always risks a vacuous result. This thought lingered in the back of my mind when I went to see Carlos Bunga’s three-part installation in the Convent dels Àngels at the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA), but it quickly evaporated. His discerning interventions could not have been less glib. In fact, they functioned as a lever to promote reflection on issues ranging from the complex’s evolving visual, material, spatial, and functional characteristics to the idiosyncrasies of the built environment and the continuing evolution of the urban fabric. The Gothic-style nave contained the most visually dramatic part of the exhibition. Here, Bunga assembled what appeared to be the ghost of a majestic pre-existing structure. Slapped together out of nothing more than sheets of corrugated cardboard, plastic packing tape, and house paint, the columns and wall panels not only soared up to the ribbed vaults of the ceiling, but also seemed to pass through that delimitation. Observant viewers also noticed the video Espacio invisible (Invisible Space) playing on a pair of small monitors tucked into an out- of-the-way corner …see the entire review in the print version of July/August’s Sculpture magazine.
