March 16. Galleries Tour

By Emma Muminovic.

I love all of them!

As we come to a close of the 2024 Barcelona Arts Administration trip, our group was given the opportunity to tour three diverging galleries: Galeria Rubén Torres, Sala Parés, Arte Vista. 

The walls are a rich, dark color and couches are placed underneath artworks from Spanish artists, even several works from Picasso. In the heart of the Gothic Quarter, Galeria Rubén Torres blends his tastes of classical and contemporary artwork to make clients envision their own art collections in their homes. 

This is a huge contrast from the second gallery, Sala Parés, which boasts the oldest gallery in Spain. Their walls are clean, simple, and decorated with the contemporary artists majority of which are from Spain. Sala Parés exhibits young, middle, and established artists with the expectation of quality that has kept their clients and artists returning for 147 years. We were graciously invited into the behind the scenes of Sala Parés to see the storage of the art works and sale room where the original structure of the gallery has been persevered for client sales.

The final stop on our Galeria tour was the eclectic, colorful Arte Vista street art gallery. We took time exploring the nooks of each collage, learning she works only with Barcelona artists in order to support local artists and keep Barcelona as a healthy ecosystem of the arts. In the end, she concludes she never looks for artists, but they find her and she is happy to become part of their journey as artists.

The sentiment of keeping art local and boosting the already flourishing hub of artists in the area is a commonality between all three galleries. Maintaining a fluid and robust relationship between artists and galleries is one of the main jobs of each of the owners of these contrasting spaces, but in the end they all agree when asked which artwork is their favorite: “I love all of them!”