Mater. Mater of mother and also of mother earth. The popular Casa de la Plaça de l'Oli (which has nothing of a house) is an old 13th century palace with its walls and vaults and iron columns that will open its doors on July 1 and will become the latest attraction in the museum hub of a Barcelona that is greening with more and better culture.
A new neighbor arrives (the address is calle de l'Oli 4 or Mercaders 15) who promises happiness and an original vision of his own in the already populated artistic nest that is increasingly dense and comfortable, expanding with a first exhibition on artists (ultra )locals that include Miralda and Barceló.
Mater completes a map that extends from Trafalgar and its surroundings, with its range of classic and avant-garde galleries, to the shore lined with photographic spaces such as the Fundació Colectania and the KBr of the Fundació Mapfre. At the heart of this whole organism, Picasso, MOCO, the Museu de las Cultures del Món and a long etcetera pumping energy and beauty.
The architect Valentina Asinari di San Marzano and her daughter Taifa are behind this house-museum project that will open to the public next month with an exhibition entitled Ultralocal and that is led by artists who work or worked in this area where it was partly forged the great countercultural and artistic movement of Barcelona in the seventies.
"This is not zero kilometer art, but zero meter art," Asinari smiled proudly yesterday in conversation with La Vanguardia, a few days after making a dream come true that she has been shaping for years and surrounded by history. Asinari di San Marzano, accompanied by her daughter Taifa, and the curator Alexia Sinoble, talk and reminisce surrounded by the works that are already conquering the respective rooms, each one from a different century.
The project began many years ago, when this trained architect, who worked for Óscar Tusquets or Enric Miralles, gave birth to her daughter. Her mother told her to find a place, a refuge to live and dream.
“In 1997, it turned out that (member of the Cercle Artístic de Barcelona) Joan Abelló had the keys to the house and he showed it to me. It was a place that accumulated 700 years of history. Leonor de Aragón, cousin of Pere el Cerimoniós, had lived here”, recalls Asinari, her mother, who bought it and began a meticulous and long restoration process.
The house-museum is also adorned with more domestic and earthly episodes, those that took place in the old inn Hostal Girona where it is said that the bandit Joan de Serrallonga (1594-1634) took refuge. It was in his honor that the gallery of the same name was opened in 1976 with an exhibition by Josep Tharrats.
“Behind the project there is a long investigation into that Barcelona of the seventies”, remarks the curator Alexia Sinoble. In the conversation, names appear such as those of the writers Quim Monzó and Pedro Zarraluki, the illustrators Nazario, Perico Pastor and Mariscal, the magazines Ajoblanco and Makoki, the Zeleste room... and the names of anonymous residents who rose up with the Dictatorship still kicking.
"It's funny because we are nobody," says Taifa Asinari. “We are not collectors – clarifies her mother – but the artists have trusted us”. Robert Llimós has been a key figure in attracting creators (many of his friends) to the project.
In the exhibition you will be able to see works by... there goes the multigenerational list: Francesc Artigau, Marcos Palazzi, Serra de Rivera, Mireya Masó, Francesca Llopis, Maïs Jorba, Rosa Amorós, Sergi Aguilar, Kima Guitart, Ocaña, Leopold Samsó, Francesco Volsi, Miquel Barceló or Antoni Miralda.
