Sculpture from The Box's art collection goes on display in Barcelona
4 October 2024
A well-known sculpture from The Box's art collection has gone on loan to an exciting new exhibition in Barcelona. 'Art in Stone' can be seen at the Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera's Casa Milà until early next year. It features works by a wide range of famous artists and shows how the materials they chose influenced and shaped their ideas.
Art in Stone features over 80 works from private and public collections by some of the most noteworthy sculptors of the 20th century alongside pieces by contemporary artists. With nearly 50 sculptures and 30 drawings and engravings, it's been curated by British art historian and curator Penelope Curtis, former director of Tate Britain in London and Lisbon’s Museu Calouste Gulbenkian.
Stone has played a key role in humanity’s material and spiritual development since ancient times. It's also played a crucial role in the evolution of modern sculpture.
In the 1930s, Barbara Hepworth became the leader of a generation that breathed new life into sculpture. Over the following decades she and many other artists used stone in surprisingly inventive and experimental ways, pushing the limits of what the material could do.
The Box has loaned Constellation - a distinctive carrara marble sculpture created by Hepworth in 1973 - to the exhibition. Pieces from the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, Henry Moore Foundation in Hertfordshire, Galerie Maeght in Paris, Pier Arts Centre in Stromness and Tate amongst others are also on display by many of her contemporaries including Hans Arp, Louise Bourgeois, Eduardo Chillida, Naum Gabo, Henry Moore, Isamu Noguchi and Jorge Oteiza. They show how each artist expressed themselves and also highlight the things they had in common.
Works by members of the generation that followed these ground breaking artists — Stephen Cox, Luciano Fabro, Barry Flanagan, Cristina Iglesias, Anish Kapoor, Ettore Spalletti and Alison Wilding — show how stone has and continues to inspire.
Art in Stone also celebrates Antoni Gaudi's Casa Milà. The building was the last private residence to be designed by the famous Spanish architect and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. Due to its unconventional appearance it's popularly known as La Pedrera (meaning 'the stone quarry'). The exhibition will be on display until 2 February 2025. If you're visiting Barcelona why not check it out? More information is available from the La Pedrera website.