In the shadow of the book

If you don’t like to look at the strangers in the Metro of Barcelona, then one of the most placid adventures for the journey is to dig your nose into the jaws of a book. Any will do: a thriller by Aznar, the unauthorized bio of Ana Obregón, miraculous healings of Paulo Coelho, some Barbara Cartland trash.

If the attraction of a book lies more in the actual possession of the object and you’re of those beings that have thousands of copies at home, without having never opened a single of them, then don’t miss this exhibition with the peculiar German name:  VisualKultur cat. It’s a homage by writers and artists of Catalonia to their literature that, contrary to any preconception, is not to be sniffed at. 

It’s the first time that the exhibition is shown in Spain – its only previous showing (and a fairly polemic one, too) was at the world’s largest book fair, the Frankfurter Buchmesse. The exhibition contains rarely seen copies, colors, materials from the press, ballot boxes, disturbing texts, sculptures.

I don’t know if the German public reads any more than people here.  But it’s no coincidence that Gutenberg, the inventor of the book press, was born in Mainz, half an hour from Frankfurt, or that Barcelona is the Mecca of the Spanish world of print.

VisualKultur.cat
Sala de Exposiciones del FAD.
Pl. dels Angels, 5-6
Lun-Sab: 11-20h, Dom: 11-15h
Hasta el 14 de septiembre

by JCA