March 11: Catalunya Gallery Association

Time flies, suddenly it comes the last day of this amazing journey. Going out in the sun and walking around in Gothic Quarter, visiting three galleries that is different organized however aim for essentially same goals- preserve and promotes contemporary art. For arts in Barcelona, 40% of gallery is focus on contemporary. They usually present their art work in a more exclusive way, which Henry run project on gallery only focus on Barcelona. Another interesting point our tour guide Rubén Torres pointed out- who also showed us his own gallery- is there is an contemporary art fair in Barcelona which is going yo be held on 4th of October, more than 70 galleries around world will come and bring their new proposals and he’s going to work as a curator for the event this year which is really exciting.

The first gallery we went was the Y.O.T art gallery, and we got the chance to talks to Fabian, who is running the gallery. She told us that she took her personal approach on the gallery, which focus on street art. One fun fact is that the building they are located right now is actually the place that Joan Miro was born. They are in a good location- Gothic quarter whether tourist come around all the time. They are the first ones who made a business with street art when it wasn’t a thing back then, and start to promote it sine then. We all had fun in this space, since they gave art works we can purchase from 5 euros to 10,000 euros. It is not for every galley I went, that I have the felling that I can actually buy some art works here and have fun.

After that we walked to del Villa Arte galleries, which is also a contemporary art gallery that have artist from both local and internationally. Their goal is to celebrate artist that are alive and does not accept the passed ones. Their management structure is with 3 person on board, in the way that the criteria of select artist goes along with the quality of the work, the number of the work, and the experience they had in the past. The gallery work along with the government for culture concern. People come to the space for specific artist, or just simply walk around and see the gallery. The also do have a very successful social media account, benefit from the decision to establish the roll of social media manager.

The last gallery we went was the first gallery in Spain. Their sustainability gained from their special approach and sensitivity of the current economy. The director of Sala Parés shared about how selling changed in the time period. 10 years ago, they can just Ellington to people that passed by o the street, now people go to gallery because they see in the websites, mails, ads and attracted by the expiation they are holding. They prefer to know what to expect, what is the exhibition the gallery is having now, etc before they actually come to the museum. Their website has more than 45,000 visitor per year, whereas 5,000 site visitors. 

Author: Yi Zhu