Step back to mid 20th century Barcelona at cutting-edge immersive exhibition
IDEAL digital arts centre exhibition brings the work of six Catalan photographers to life
oriol maspons
‘Useful photography’ in Catalonia’s National Art Museum
A new exhibition based on the work of Oriol Maspons looks at whether art can be ‘useful’ to society
Oriol Maspons, the photographer who depicted life in Barcelona between the 1950s and 1980s, dies aged 84
Maspons was one of the greatest Catalan photographers of all time. He is famous for his pictures of the former Somorrostro slum in the Barceloneta beach, party life in Ibiza during the 1970s and Barcelona’s left-wing group of bourgeois intellectuals from the 1970s, known as ‘Gauche Divine’. Maspons worked mostly in Catalonia, but also in Paris and the States. In fact, New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) exhibits pictures taken by Oriol Maspons. He received top honours in Catalonia, such as the Catalan Government’s Sant Jordi Cross and Barcelona City’s Gold Medal. In 2010, he donated his private collection of some 5,500 pictures to Catalonia’s National Museum of Art (MNAC), which will organise a “large exhibition” on his work.