ANCAROLA’S ARCHITECTURAL REINTERPRETATION AT THE MNAC
The Force of the Display. Gae Archive is the title of the project by Nora Ancarola (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1955) currently on view at the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC). The exhibition is the outcome of her research into the structure of this very institution and the architectural renovation carried out on the building between 1985 and 2004, led by the architect and stage designer Gae Aulenti (Udine, Italy, 1927 – Milan, Italy, 2012).
The result of this process takes shape in a multimedia installation that grants access to the hidden foundations and secrets of the building’s construction and consolidation. Ancarola, who has lived in Barcelona since the late 1970s, filmed several people whose task was to move through and interact with the building. Their actions serve as a necessary catalyst to achieve containment and balance.
The artist approaches the museum’s architecture as an archive and record, one that accumulates layers and experiences reflecting its operation, organizational structure, and history. Through a phenakistiscope, a nineteenth-century optical toy, she evokes the idea of a dynamic vision in which movement, as opposed to stasis, allows for the creation of new relationships.
By questioning the division between the visible and the invisible, Ancarola also points to the interplay between spaces devoted exclusively to exhibition and those that are merely functional, encouraging us to understand the museum as a device that organizes the spectator’s experience of art.
The Force of the Display. Gae Archive can be seen until February 22, 2026, at the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC), Montjuïc Park, Barcelona (Spain).
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