Sònia Hernández, Minister of Culture of the Government of Catalonia, today announced the Department of Culture’s 2025 acquisitions: 46 contemporary artworks by 40 artists that will enter the Government’s National Collection. The Collection spans contemporary art (from the 1970s onwards), photography, cultural artefacts, comics, illustration, postwar art, and works from the second avant-garde. The acquisitions follow an extensive review of more than 700 applications, assessed by a committee across eleven two-hour meetings.

The 2025 Committee was presided over by Íngrid Llopart, Deputy Director General of Cultural Promotion; Manel Guerrero, a specialist in contemporary art at the Directorate General for Cultural Promotion and Libraries and coordinator of the commission; Marta Gustà, Director of the Visual Arts Area at the Catalan Institute for Cultural Enterprises and coordinator of the commission; Ester Martínez, responsible for support programmes for artistic creation and visual arts; Sònia Blasco, Head of the Museums and Movable Heritage Protection Service; Claudia Segura, Head of Collections at MACBA; Àlex Mitrani, Contemporary Art Curator at the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC); Jesús Navarro, Director of Morera – Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Lleida and representative of the Network of Art Museums of Catalonia; Gisel Noè, Director of M|A|C Mataró; Manel Margalef, Director of Museu d'Art Modern Tarragona (MAMT) of the Diputació de Tarragona; Frederic Montornés, independent curator, nominated by the CoNCA National Council for Culture and the Arts; Álvaro Hernández, Technical Officer of the Management Service of the Directorate-General for Cultural Promotion and Libraries, acting as secretary. Closing the list, Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes, as an expert in contemporary art, proposed by the Plataforma d’Arts Visuals de Catalunya (PAV).

One of the online work sessions.

The 2025 acquisitions were made with a total budget of €983,677.13. In this round, the committee selected 46 works by 40 artists—20 men, 18 women, and two collectives—reflecting a broad range of practices. Just over half of the works (23) entered the collection via galleries, while the remainder were acquired directly from the artists or their rightful owners (17).

Evolution of the acquisition budget since 2018.

Works by mid-career artists such as Carles Congost, Pep Agut, Tom Carr, Pep Duran, Begoña Montalbán, Núria Güell and Oriol Vilapuig, amongst others, have been deposited on long-term loan in twelve museums across Catalunya. With the budget increase to 1 million over the last two years, it has been possible to acquire works by established artists such as Antoni Muntadas, Sílvia Gubern, Nazario, Dorothée Selz, Marga Ximénez, Teresa Gancedo, Magda Bolumar and Joan Fontcuberta, to mention a few. Works by younger generations have also been purchased by artists such as Anna Moreno, Paula Artés, Gerard Ortín, Luz Broto, Eva Fàbregas or Agnès Essonti.

Gerard Ortín Castellví​'s “Bliss Point”​ (2023), a 26-minute film, is now on long-term loan to MACBA Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona. This completes his food trilogy, which is also deposited in the museum (“Future Foods” (2021) is a long-term loan of the Barcelona City Council; and “Agrilogistics” (2022) was a 2024 purchase by the same Generalitat Committee).

Luz Broto, “Contactar cristales enfrentados” (2023), now long-term loan at the Museu de Granollers.

Nazario, Història de Turandot, (1988-1990) 47 original drawings. Now on long-term loan at the MORERA. Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani de Lleida.

The meetings for the 2026 edition of the Acquisitions are now underway until the summer, and will be the third and final year that Mariana serves as Advisor. 

→ RELATED CONTENT:

• Mariana Cánepa Luna in the 2024 Acquisition Committee of the Col·lecció Nacional d'Art Contemporani of the Government of Catalunya, 19 Mar 2025
• Panorama traces, a year on, 21 Oct 2022
• Panorama in Madrid and Córdoba, 14 June 2022
• “Panorama 21: Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls”, MACBA, October 2021–February 2022
  

Views of Claudia Pagès “Gerundi Circular” (2021) at the Saló dels Miralls, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona. MACBA Collection. Government of Catalonia long-term loan. Photo courtesy: Claudia Pagès.

Claudia Pagès's video installation, “Gerundi Circular” (2021), is on display at the Saló dels Miralls (Mirror Hall) in Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu opera house from February 18 to April 6, 2025. This historic hall features allegorical ceiling paintings and texts celebrating art and music.

The installation was commissioned for the exhibition “Panorama 21: Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls” (Notes for an Eye Fire), curated by Latitudes and Hiuwai Chu, that took place at MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona between October 2021 and February 2022. Originally produced by MACBA and ELAMOR, it was later incorporated into the Government of Catalonia National Collection of Contemporary Art in 2022, and deposited as a long-term loan to the MACBA Collection.

Following Pagès’s solo show “Abajo el puerto suena nino-nino, y yo arriba pipí” at The RYDER in Madrid in June 2022, the 360º video installation was presented at Tabakalera in Donostia, Basque Country (September 2022–January 2023).

Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes wrote the wall text for the “Panorama 21: Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls” exhibition, which read:

Claudia Pagès’ mesmerising new video installation revolves around global maritime routes, legal jargon, and the relentless flow of commerce and people that has characterized capitalism in action. Filmed in a seamless 360° loop, the footage blends the rhythmic gestures of three performers and layers of handwritten texts into a series of music-video sequences. 

The panoramic narrative is set around three distinctive and interconnected sites related to the past and present of Barcelona’s commercial port: the ship-shaped business hub of the World Trade Center, the 19th-century customs building, and the harbour breakwater. 

Completing the installation is a cardboard carpet printed with snippets of phrases derived from law manuals in which Pagès mixes up gerunds (a verb form that does not inflect gender or number) and considers bodies as both objects and actants. “Gerundi Circular” bears witness to the logistical intricacies of the city as a seemingly frictionless interface between the open space of the sea and manmade infrastructures, behaviours, and languages.

Acknowledging that some visitors may have been unable to visit the exhibition due to COVID-19 restrictions, significant efforts were made to enhance the online presence of the 2021 exhibition. The website was designed as a repository documenting the exhibition-making process, featuring participant and artwork profiles written by the curators, images of related works, and behind-the-scenes photographs and videos. However, with the launch of MACBA’s new website in 2024, artwork descriptions disappeared, and the connection of the above-mentioned sections with the exhibition for which they were created is no longer available. Part can be found here.

RELATED CONTENT:

• Cover Story, January 2023: Claudia Pagès’ “Gerundi Circular”, 2 Jan 2023
• “Panorama 21” traces, a year on, 21 Oct 2022
• Panorama in Madrid and Córdoba, 14 June 2022