The Gae Archivet and the MNAC

The Power of Display. Gae Archive
8-Channel Video Installation

With the collaboration of Adolf Alcañiz, Hannes Berger, Cèlia Marcé Oller, Sofía Núñez Rodríguez, and Miquel Àngel Martín. With Emilio Jofre Domènech at the Fenaquistoscopi

Let’s imagine that we take the wrong staircase and enter the MNAC through the basement. The Museum’s security system and an overwhelming darkness signal that we’ve taken the wrong door. We nevertheless follow the path and discover that the visible parts of the MNAC have an almost symmetrical space underneath, criss-crossed by endless corridors that contain the heart and lungs that allow each of the works in the collection to breathe. Vital organs beating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

This basement is not merely a storage area, rather it is a malleable space that varies greatly depending on the route we take and the aims of our visit. We could speak of a new museum dreamt up within the Museum itself. On this imaginary journey, a young man appears out of a dark space and we suddenly realise that we are in the bowels of the Museum’s Sala Oval. The young man, a kind of acrobatic tightrope walker, guides us to show us that it is a set design, or rather that it could be.

But let’s start at the beginning...

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Created for the Educart (Oculus) and Cardona (Romanesque) Rooms at the Museu d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona. 2024/25

https://www.museunacional.cat/en/power-display-gae-archive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9kUW8-lvyM&t=4s