The Sala Oval, the MNAC's large public square, has become in recent years a stimulating ground for experimentation and artistic creation. Francesc Torres hung a Republican bomber upside down (specifically, a Soviet Túpolev SB-82 from the Civil War) as if it were a Saint Peter on the Cross; the North American choreographer William Forsythe installed a giant castle inside which the public was involved in a collective dance of San Vito thanks to the movements of the others; Antoni Miralda suspended from the ceiling the quilt of the trousseau of the wedding between Columbus and the Statue of Liberty that he himself had officiated in Las Vegas in 1992; Fito Conesa played the organ again, which had remained mute since 1974...
Now it is the turn of Laia Estruch (Barcelona, 1981), who has taken advantage of the invitation to intervene in the gigantic space to also think big. Halfway between sculpture, performance and the musical instrument, the artist has created a living and habitable organism. A huge inflatable creature, Trena, inside which visitors can circulate as if they were the blood flow of the museum itself.
A playful and festive work, which proposes a joyful and sensual experience that basically has to do with intimacy, but which accumulates many other layers of meaning. It is made up of three braided tubes 2.2 meters in diameter by 35 meters long and wants to bring to the surface "things that cannot be seen, the inside of our bodies, all that braiding of nerves, veins, but also the tubes , channels and cables that cross the earth, both for electricity and the internet, which are under the sea and it seems to me a crazy thing," says Estruch, who confesses having fought throughout the process to prevent "it from being like a water park or a playground."
The visitor can only circulate through one of the tubes. A second is reserved for the artist, who will perform two performances on July 17 and September 3, to mark the closing of the installation. The third is filled with the noise of the engines and a piece of music that is activated on the hour, produced in collaboration with the composer Xavi Lloses.
For Àlex Mitrani, curator of modern and contemporary art at the museum, Trena is a worthy heir to Hon (“she” in Swedish), the joyous 23-meter female figure created by Niki de Saint Phalle in 1966 whose interior (lungs, heart, stomach...) the public accessed through the vagina. An orifice in the shape of a female sexual organ also serves as the entrance (and exit) door for the inflatable, which is also reminiscent of the utopian architectures of the Instant City created in 1971 in Eivissa on the occasion of the ICSID congress. "The artist has pushed herself to the limit and she has pushed us as a museum to the limit," confesses Lluís Alabern, who explains that up to eight industrialists gave up on making the piece.
"It's not easy being an artist," admits Estruch, who has been able to work in collaboration with an engineer provided by the MNAC. “Being an artist is a constant struggle, all my colleagues know it. And being given an opportunity like this is very valuable, I will remember it for the rest of my life. Having this opportunity at school, to learn, to interact with other professionals is what allows you to build muscle and jump to another stadium”.
