Art inside prison: La Model exhibit reflects on 20th century

Barcelona’s infamous La Model prison, in the heart of the city, now stands solemnly in remembrance of the years lived under the Francoist dictatorship repression – and now, a new exhibit also reminds us what life was like, away from the outside world.

The exhibit, called ‘L’art irreductible: Miratges de l’Art Brut’ in Catalan, features so-called outsider art. Created by various people outside of what is usually considered the art sphere, many of the pieces were in fact done at the hand of prisoners, or psychiatric inmates, or artists with mental illnesses.

This is the first original exhibit that the Barcelona prison welcomes – repurposed from a penitentiary center to a cultural one. The show also helps visitors imagine the conditions in which the artists created their work. It can be visited until February 2019.