Modern & Contemporary Art Exhibitions in Barcelona

The exhibition, which is heterogeneous in nature, is presented as a non-hermetic ‘whole’ that emphasises the processual dimension of the artworks. The aim is to create a living –and deliberately scattered– testimony to a sort of anarchic manual of anti-isolation and heterogenisation, in which contradiction is celebrated and established codes, circuits and dogmas are shunned. Joan Pallé works on the basis of a suspicion: over-ordering an image too much is also a way of impoverishing it. His method begins, in fact, before the work itself. He jots things down, saves them and remembers them. He collects references in a notebook and returns to them when something –not yet necessarily clear– calls for them. Comics, literature, film, posters, fanzines, photographs found on the internet, advertising, popular culture, scientific illustration and news coexist within a single, non-hierarchical whole. It is not so much a question of producing new images as of reworking those we already have: removing them from their original context, editing them, translating them, ‘sampling’ them and seeing what happens when they come into contact with something else. This process is constantly repeated. Virginia Woolf can coexist with John Carpenter; Daniel el Travieso with Vasili Rozánov’s Apocalypse ( Sketch for the Audacity and Nihilismo. Burocracia y Muerte en Barcelona ‘Nihilism. Bureaucracy and Death in Barcelona’); an

Rituals of Time brings together the works of nine African artists who explore notions of epoch and duration, alongside memory, nostalgia, and longing. It unfolds around the central idea that time is not linear but moves in spirals and returns, following a rhythm of birth, death and renewal that reverberates through bodies and spirits. In the exhibition, the artworks emerge as a fluid, generative force, reimagining and reinterpreting the world beyond temporal constraints. Epochs fold into cycles that unfold according to their own durations, challenging the Western conception of time as continuous progression and memory as linear preservation. The exhibition echoes the Mbari tradition of the Owerri-Igbo communities of southeastern Nigeria, a communal artistic practice rooted in ancestral ritual that serves to remember the past, recreate reality and imagine a better future. As Nigerian novelist and poet Chinua Achebe observed, the House of Mbari embodies an aesthetic of process rather than result, ensuring that each generation receives its own impulse and movement of creation. In the Load Gallery, where images flicker into being and vanish, this same impermanence is refracted through the screen, transforming it into a threshold between what has been, what is, and what may become. Ancestral heritages and knowledge are witnessed and released, while spiritual forces manifest in forms that capture their attributes, whether carved in moving images or rendered in pixels. This notion of time and memory resonates with Kenyan philosopher John S. Mbiti's reflections. For Mbiti time is a compilation of events unfolding through two durations: the recent past alongside the present, and the remote past. Memory is the thread that binds these dimensions, keeping the 'living-dead' present for generations before they fade into collective memory. In Michael Aboya’s Echoes of Time, images become portals where time folds back upon itself, thus exploring the emotional and spiritual intersections of humanity, nature, and time. Similarly, in At the Seams, Spilling Alexis Chivir-ter Tsegba's collage practice assembles and recomposes fragments, allowing past, present and speculative futures to coexist. The memory that surfaces throughout this exhibition does not pretend to recover what has been lost, dismissed or cancelled; rather, it allows a return to the past to activate what may still become. In Àsìkò's What Was Lost Between Worlds, memory is evoked in order to transform. This is staged through the tradition of Egúngún among the Yoruba people of West Africa, an ancestral masquerade that connects the living to the ancestral realm. Here, Egúngún becomes a living archive that dissolves into symbols as a colonial spectrum appears, asking whether embodied knowledge vanishes or transforms into another mode of existence. This artistic expression of Yoruba cosmogony finds its material counterpart in Ancestral Frequency, a sculptural costume created by Melissa Simon-Hartman in dialogue with Àsìkò's work. Made from hand-woven fibres, reclaimed textiles, shells, beads and integrated lighting elements, the work draws on the visual language of Egúngún while reinterpreting it through contemporary collaboration. As a physical presence, Ancestral Frequency is a garment for a body that bridges epochs, a wearable archive of longing, and a testament to the enduring duration of the ancestral within the span of a single life. Notions of nostalgia and longing are central to this exhibition. As reflected in Nana Frimpong Oduro's work, these elements, shaped by time, are understood not as passive states of looking backward, but as active forces that pull the past into the present and reach toward the future. Through a dense constellation of figures, his introspection opens a dialogue between different forces of nature. Here, water, earth, fire and air are explored as agents for bodily experience and ritual transformation, and for the artist's inner consciousness as a vessel for a higher power. Delphine Diallo, in her Motherverse project, imagines a submerged realm of memory where ancient knowledge and future technology converge, while Abdulrahman Adesola Yusuf redraws symbols from the public domain as though 'playing Tetris' to trace the spiritual weight of personal moments and economic pressures. As embodied in the Mbari tradition of creative renewal, the body emerges in Rituals of Time as a central site where time, memory and longing converge. In John Baloy's photographs, the body carries history, resilience and continuity, becoming a site of transmission across time. Osinachi approaches embodiment through a distinctly digital language, pushing the boundaries of Microsoft Word's vector tools to construct domestic interiors and Afrofuturist visions where pixelated digital fills represent Black skin and turn everyday patterns into explorations of vulnerability. Rituals of Time offers an alternative understanding of digital art, not as a site where time and memory are preserved, but as a space where the past changes shape constantly in order to re-enter the present. It is a material in continuous transformation; the future, in turn, stands as a form of memory still possible. In this collective exhibition, the rituals of time do not lead towards a past to which we might return, nor towards a future from which we might escape. For art becomes a place of transit, where what we were, what we are, and what we may yet become enter into a single duration and epoch. Nostalgia ceases to be a 'looking back' and transforms into a 'reaching forward', while longing is not a lament for what is lost but an engine for what may be born.

By David Morán The earth trembles, the ground splits open and a jumble of rocks and rubble seems intent on devouring everything. The forests and fields burn as far as the eye can see. Rivers burst their banks and the sea erodes the shores, sweeping away everything in its path, until it piles it all up into a mass of shapeless debris in the arid centre of the peninsulas. It is a world transformed into permanent devastation as a result of human action. "When the moon is at its highest and brightest, we climb up the cleft to where the flowers grow, pick them so that there is plenty of red, and let the water flow from the spring to that spot" Doris Lessing The earth trembles, the ground splits open and a jumble of rocks and rubble seems intent on devouring everything. The forests and fields burn as far as the eye can see. Rivers burst their banks and the sea erodes the shores, sweeping away everything in its path, until it piles it all up into a mass of shapeless debris in the arid centre of the peninsulas. It is a world transformed into permanent devastation as a result of human action. And yet, amidst the chaos, a space of possibility emerges. When everything is ablaze, it is common to see women carrying animals, children and the elderly; protecting their homes, saving crops and creating neighbourhood rescue networks in which no lives are more important than others, understanding that all depend on the same fabric of relationships. It was upon seeing these women on the news during a summer marked by disaster that Mujeres que cargan animales (Women that carry animals), Gema Polanco ’s (Valencia, 1992) first solo exhibition at ADN Galeria, began to take shape in the artist’s imagination. Comprising recent works that engage in dialogue with earlier pieces—which are fundamental to her career—the exhibition offers a concise introduction to her practice, showcases her most recent concerns and hints at the

Para celebrar su 15.º aniversario, La Plataforma presenta una edición especial de Arte & Venta con la exposición colectiva «A las penas, puñaladas». La muestra reúne a artistas que han acompañado a la galería a lo largo de su trayectoria, junto con aquellos que forman parte de su programa actual. Concebida como una reflexión sobre quince años de recorrido y como una celebración de la creación artística, esta edición aniversario presenta una cuidada selección de obras nuevas realizadas especialmente para la ocasión. La exposición destaca la diversidad, la emoción y la libertad creativa, ofreciendo una perspectiva amplia y dinámica de las voces artísticas que dan forma a La Plataforma.

Yatreda ያጥሬዳ, a family collective from Ethiopia, founded by creative director Kiya Tadele (Ethiopia, 1993), has built an astonishing artistic career in just four years: from minting their first series, Kingdoms of Ethiopia, in 2021 to LACMA announcing the acquisition of four works in 2025. It is a head-spinning trajectory, and Load is proud to present a concise survey of Yatreda’s work and their singular approach to video art in their first European solo exhibition. Rooted in tizita —a profound sense of nostalgia and longing for the past—their practice weaves childhood memories, oral histories, and folk tales with the rich heritage and legends that shape contemporary Ethiopian identity. By bridging ancestral knowledge and digital innovation, Yatreda invites viewers to contemplate the cyclical nature of history, ensuring that Ethiopia’s cultural legacy is both celebrated in the present and safeguarded for the future. Yatreda ያጥሬዳ is known for its black-and-white short loops, in which people move very slightly, creating the impression that a photograph has come to life. Many of their motion portraits feature historical costumes and jewellery, either sourced from antique shops or sewn by members of the collective, and are grounded in research. Yatreda’s ያጥሬዳ Strong Hair documents the rich diversity of traditional hairstyles found across Ethiopia, honouring the labour and artistry embedded in hair culture. Strong Hair received the Award of Distinction at Prix Ars Electronica (2022) and was later exhibited at Museum Folkwang (Essen, Germany). Also featured is The End of Innocence from Adam and Hewan that reimagines the Genesis narrative by placing Ethiopia — and Africa more broadly — at the birthplace of humanity. The work introduced many of the themes that would define the collective’s later practice: origin, memory, moral tension and the quiet drama contained in stillness. Another work, My Land, 1896, captures the final moments of the Battle of Adwa, when Ethiopia defeated Italy’s invading colonial army and became the only African nation to resist colonisation on the battlefield. The loop shows a Black Ethiopian warrior delivering the final blow to a white Italian soldier — an image still rare and unsettling within dominant visual histories. Precisely because of this inversion, the work confronts colonial narratives head-on and insists on anti-colonial resistance as a central, not marginal, part of discourse. “ [LINK text='The coffee you drink while running will disappear' href='https://gvrpdp.clicks.mlsend.com/tj/cl/eyJ2Ijoie1wiYVwiOjgwMjE4MyxcImxcIjoxNzAxNDUyODEzMzkyOTU1NTEsXCJyXCI6MTcwMTQ1MjkxOTM0NzkwMzcxfSIsInMiOiI1MjNmYzZjMThmZGEwYWI3In0'] ” ሲሮጡ የጠጡት ቡና ሲሮጡ ይጠፋል, premiered earlier this year at Loop Fair, offers an alternative to the Western temporal regime, in which time has been commodified and coffee reduced to a stimulant of productivity. Shot in a single take, it translates the Ethiopian coffee ceremony into a living score where movement, sound, and scent converge. As incense bridges material and spiritual realms, and the masenqo fills the space with nostalgic melodies that suspend time, the ceremony culminates in a collective dance: an eruption of joy, proposing togetherness, rhythm, and embodied awareness as counter-models to introspective and extractive time. Written by Anna Leven