An embroidery on a children’s pajama can hide all the pain of a war. When Mounira Al Solh was a child, her mother encouraged her to sew the holes she made in her sleepwear so she could escape the sound of the bombs from the Lebanese civil war. The renowned artist, who lives and works between Beirut and Amsterdam, is currently presenting a textile installation at Bombon Projects inspired by those nights, Nami Nami Noooom, Yalla Tnaaam (“Sleep, sleep, sleep, let’s sleep”), a project that transforms that childhood memory into a collective embroidery with women from Lebanon and the Netherlands. This immersive piece, which was seen this summer at the Serralves Museum in Porto, is complemented at the Barcelona gallery—awarded by the European Federation of Galleries for its creativity and innovation at the last Art Basel—with textile works, cut-out paintings, and drawings that delve into memory, dreams, and the transmission of experience.
Read more Feijóo pressures Brussels to get involved in the Ceuta crisis amid the Government’s «failure»
Al Solh is one of the leading names in the new edition of the Barcelona Gallery Weekend. Directed by Mariña Á. Pino and organized by the ArtBarcelona Galeries association, the festival is the annual event that kicks off the artistic season to put art galleries at the center of Barcelona’s cultural conversation. There are 25 contemporary and modern art spaces—23 in Barcelona and 2 in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat—that open their doors until Sunday, with routes for professionals and the general public.
Another must-see of this edition is Gabriel Ventura’s first solo exhibition in a gallery. The poet and writer—author of the essay The Best of All Possible Worlds (Anagrama) and collaborator of Rosalía and Albert Serra—presents Front for Emancipation and Collective Delirium at the Fuga gallery. Inspired by bands like the Red Brigades, the exhibition traces a brief journey through the archive of the FEDC, a fictional armed organization that sabotages multinationals and tech companies created in the context of his new book. Through a series of pieces in various formats, the exhibition delves into the tactics, theories, and political program of a contemporary anarchist group fighting both for information sovereignty and the psychic freedom of citizens.
What Has Flight, by Laía Argüelles Folch at Chiquita Room is another highlighted stop. The gallery, which has just opened another branch at the Galeries Le Bailli Louise in Brussels, explores in its space in the Sant Antoni neighborhood the work of the visual artist and writer from Zaragoza, who this time focuses her work on the notion of legacy and how we incorporate it to build meaning. Paying special attention to the gesture of drawing and writing, using found or refound materials, Argüelles’s works revisit old strokes or paths already taken to reposition themselves around them and, from there, perform a transformation exercise with techniques ranging from screen printing on textiles to field sound recording, including frottage, composition, and monotypes.
On the eve of its 150th anniversary, the recently saved Parés hall inaugurates two exhibitions. The Great Gatsby, with works by Ángel Mateo Charris, Juan Cuéllar, Marcos Palazzi, Gonzalo Sicre, and Cuqui Guillén interpreting the universe of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel. And Companion Paintings, 2025–2026, by Guillermo Pérez Villalta.
In total, there will be 38 exhibitions dedicated to about fifty creators. For the second year, the general exhibition program coexists with FLASH, a program with 12 ephemeral exhibitions that can only be seen until Sunday. Among them stands out the Theory of Fire by Lúa Coderch (Iquitos, Peru, 1982), in dialogue with the proposal by Eulàlia Valldosera. What is burning? A video creation, made from a very brief sequence filmed in 35 mm, takes combustion as a metaphor to explore the passions that consume us.
The galleries that can be visited these days within the event are, by area: House of Chappaz, in Gràcia; ADN Galeria, Galeria Marc Domènech, Mayoral, ProjecteSD, RocioSantaCruz, SELTZ by Ritter Ferrer, Victor Lope Arte Contemporáneo, and Zielinsky, in the Eixample; 3 Punts Galeria, Al-Tiba9 Gallery, Bombon Projects, Dilalica, Escat Gallery, FUGA, Pigment Gallery, Prats Nogueras Blanchard, Sorondo Projects, and Suburbia Contemporary, located in Trafalgar and adjacent streets; PALMADOTZE, with a pop-up at FoodCultura, in Poblenou; àngels barcelona and Sala Parés, in Ciutat Vella; and Chiquita Room in Sant Antoni. In the Santa Eulàlia neighborhood of L’Hospitalet, ethall and Galería Alegría.
Besides visiting the galleries, the program includes various parallel activities such as meetings with artists, performances, talks, screenings, conversations, vermouths, guided tours, and visits for families with children over two weekends.
Read more Defense companies seek to grow in size to transfer innovation to industrial production
