Francesco Clemente. Like a Dance of Starlings. MACBA Collection - Thirty Years and Infinite Ways of Being (group show)

The celebration of MACBA’s thirtieth anniversary is an apt moment to take stock and look back over how the museum’s past has shaped its present, as well as a welcome opportunity to appreciate how it has evolved. This is not only a tribute but also a critical reassessment of the interwoven threads that have fashioned the museum we know today. From the outset, the MACBA Collection has gradually taken shape by embracing the challenges of its contemporaneity and taking the necessary risks to become a platform for bold, politically engaged practices. Year on year, it unfolds like a growing murmuration, a constellation of voices emerging from the past to produce a polyphonic resonance with infinite, boundless and diverse ambitions. 

Although this introduction forms part of the museum's thirtieth anniversary celebrations, the exhibition itself is not a commemorative survey but a show with its own identity. This particular murmuration of the collection is a choreography of the contemporary subject. Eschewing a chronological narrative, the exhibition is structured around connective nodes that explore ideas of the subject as a malleable entity whose identity is constructed not in isolation but collectively, in dialogue with shared experiences, social struggles and intercultural contexts. Intertwined and constantly shifting existences are the focus of many works in the MACBA Collection and offer a range of plural, flexible and dynamic perspectives. 

Here, then, we explore the concept of the hybrid subject, which challenges rigid identities fixed by categories such as gender, race, nationality or class. This hybridisation flows from ongoing interactions between different worlds and, like birds in collective flight, lets us present works that evoke a self that has been forged organically through community and nature, without neglecting the vital role played by sacred relationships with spiritual worlds. The experiences of dreaming, play and ritual will be key to portraying an identity that connects with the invisible, transcendental dimensions of existence, and even with delirium as a source of strength. 

More information: MACBA