Can the excessive popularity of a work affect the work itself retrospectively, as if, due to the fact of being well-known -recognized and appreciated by the majority- had to lose quintals of importance?

It is undoubtedly a romantic myth, eventually snobbish, that which advocates the misunderstood character of the "true artist" as a sine qua non condition of his art, as if artists could only be valued in posthumous way, and by a few particularly sensitive or trained individuals. In fact, some great creators enjoyed a massive fame during their lifetime, both in the field of music -Vivaldi's case- and in other cultural spheres. We think, for example, of Cervantes. In fact, Michel Foucault has explained that great artists are those who provoke, in their time of life or afterwards, the possibility of re-visitations, of creating new meanings. Vivaldi’s Four seasons have not only led to equally original continuations, with their own idiosyncrasies -the Estaciones porteñas, by Astor Piazzolla, which we recommended last month- but have encouraged interventions such as that of Max Richter in his Vivaldi Re-composed. These are much closer to the original versions, with a minimum degree of modification -even if the electronics intervene at some point- that update the meaning of Vivaldi’s and reach the listeners with an unprecedented freshness. The tremendous success of this work in Barcelona’s Auditori (with an audience usually oblivious to classical music), several seasons ago, certifies it. Of course, the other way of updating is the one that is being offered by period versions, performed with old instruments and interpretative modes that seek to reproduce those conditions of the moment in which the composer created his works. In an amazing, counterintuitive way, in the best cases it happens that the emphasis on archeologically reconstructing the original sound gives rise to extremely modern or fresh versions, closer to the current spirit. While it is impossible to make that space-time leap, performances such as Fabio Biondi’s, together with his group Europa Galante, aspire to draw that complex square of the circle, which abounds joyfully in the ex novo repetition of familiar and yet surprising melodies. The pyrotechnics of Vivaldi, the proliferation of rhythms and colours transcend the Venetian tradition of carnival. In fact, they speak of the human need to celebrate life, also in the eloquent experience, emotionally rich, of the progression of the seasons.

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Mozart acknowledges having learned the art of the quartet from Haydn -a fact remembered over and over again by the dedication made explicit in his most celebrated series of quartets - but the truth is that the result of his abilities far transcends mere imitation.

The creative impulse that Mozart showed in those chamber pieces is found in the quintet for strings, a format that, in his case, unlike Boccherini’s, does not double the cello but the viola (an instrument that Mozart himself greatly appreciated, and which he played in his meetings with friends). To the Apollon Musagète Quartet, one of the most successful chamber ensembles in recent years, is joined on the occasion Nils Mönkemeyer, virtuoso of that fifth instrument that has recorded several albums. A meritorious fact, taking into account the primacy in terms of popularity of the immediately more low and high strings, violoncello and violin. In the magnificent Oriol Martorell auditorium of the Auditori -very comfortable and acoustically remarkable- one of the last pieces composed by Mozart can be heard: the "Quintet in C minor that Mozart composed ‎whilst in the midst of major financial hardships and in which he expresses all his disquiet in ‎several opening measures that are full of drama (…) catalogued as K.614 ‎and written in the year of his death, with a sublime Finale where the principal ‎theme conceals, within its lightness, the seed that Mozart would turn into an intense and ‎conflicting fugue”. In addition, Nils Mönkemeyer will face a solo piece as emblematic as the Suite for Cello No. 1, rarely performed with a viola. In short, this is a concert full of inducements, especially for lovers of classical music, whether they may be more or less fond of chamber music. In the end, what seduces is the maximization of expressiveness through a dialogue by few instruments, which are treated and recognized inter pares, without monopolizing the role.

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The year 1929 is fundamental for contemporary art, at least in the city of Barcelona. The exhibition of works at the MACBA explicitly starts from that date, when the city hosted the Universal Exhibition -with such emblematic and influential pavilions as the German one, the work of Mies van der Rohe-, to postulate a new conception of creativity itself, far away from the traditionalist manners.

It is the date -the organizers remember- that Breton wrote his second surrealist manifesto and the MOMA was inaugurated. These, and other concurrences, constitute a context -or, better, a certain climate of artistic renovation- that in the MACBA’s exhibition it is chronologically unfolded. Through a first genealogical immersion, having identified the germs of creative development, those new ways of shaping ideas (architectural, pictorial, literary...) are illustrated, along a fast-paced journey, entitled "A Short Century". It offers a new vision of the permanent collection of the MACBA, by transgressing and unclassifiable creators, such as Basquiat. The organizers explain: "The presentation is conceived to narrate the history of modern and contemporary art through the particular perspectives, policies and themes that the MACBA Collection has developed since its inception”.

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“Comprising over 150 pieces (paintings and graphic arts) and archival documents (journals, letters and photographs) the dialog established here between the works by Picasso and Picabia will reveal the real or imagined links between them”, states a presentation note of the exhibition that the Mapfre Foundation offers until January 13th, 2019.

The multiple influences that are detectable in Picasso's work (influences of the past, recognized by himself, but also many others of his strict contemporaneity, not always made explicit) make that affirmation pay for all the sense. The fluctuation of their creativity, often catalogued in "periods", can also be understood in parallel to the efforts of other creators who, like him, try to reform the expressive media, either from a scarcely academic figurativeness or from the frontal break with any reminiscence to representation. Francis Picabia, so often related to Dadaism due to his refusal to display a universally significant language, is one of the individuals who, from a radicality that is alien to Picasso, gravitate in the same universe, that of experimentation and the incessant renovation of expressive patterns. There are many pieces of the exhibition organized by the Mapfre Foundation that allow building bridges, and many others seem to advance in antithetical directions; something that does not necessarily represent a sign of incompatibility being, actually, an occasion to think them together, from the tension that is inherent in the genuine creative act: "This exhibition is designed to offer a journey through the history of art from the emergence of Cubism around 1910, moving on to Dadaism in 1915 – of which Picabia is undoubtedly one of the prime exponents – and looking at the 1925-1928 period, when both artists shared a taste for what we might call monstrous classicism. The exhibition ends with a selection of their final paintings: whereas until his death in 1973, Picasso relentlessly returned to the human figure, Picabia, whose career finishes in 1953, reduced the act of painting to subtle monochrome works peppered with dots”.

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