Museums in war time

I went to the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC) in Barcelona some weeks ago without much planning my visit and I found by surprise the exhibition ‘El Museu en Perill!‘ (Museum in Danger!).

The exhibition shows how from the first riots to the fall of Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War, the MNAC and its workers undertook the extraordinary task of safeguarding the artistic assets of the entire territory.

Beyond the protection of this heritage, the organisation, classification, cataloguing, documentation and restoration of these assets was also carried out.

Among these people was Joaquim Folch i Torres, the former director of the museum, a figure I had never heard of and whom I am finally glad to meet thanks to this exhibition. I felt particularly identified with him and this story, perhaps because of my origins, my current interests in Museum practice and because (sadly) war is something that we all have so present on our minds these days.

I must highlight how the spatial design helped me to immerse even more in this story. The space was planned as the real storage facility used during these times (as you could see in the top image), all the artworks were installed in wooden crates and structures, the inventory was handwritten on the wood and you could even see the labels that were placed behind the artworks when the Falangists won the war.

For me it was a very inspiring experience, an exhibition about people who are passionate about their work and how vocation is so relevant for our societies.