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Carlos Poy i Nadal is a man committed to Art. Born in Tarragona Province, he has developed his works from Barcelona for the rest of Catalonia, Spain and North America. A Critic and a culture curator, he has spent years in this world of the art, aiming at valuing Culture, not only of Barcelona and Catalonia but also the Spanish and Latin ones, in general.
His great dream and present endeavour go towards reuniting the most distinguished Latin creators of different fields, in a festival or series of regular events that will show to the world that Latin culture exists, is alive and should occupy the slot that it deserves in the World's artistic panorama.
He is an expert and a key connoisseur of the city reality. This year, he published together with Actar, a book that visits the Art creators' labs in BCN. Barcelona Lab, appears as a sequel to a first book Barcelona +. What is intended with this work?Both titles are part of the same spirit of investigation even though they focus on the theme of creation and culture from distinct angles. They deal with aspects and ideas that derive from distinct points of departure and nevertheless in essence, they dwell on the same theme.
Ramon Prat was the soul of both editions and Anna Tetas and I strove to fill with intensity each of their pages.
In Barcelona + we intended to dwell into that Creative crossroads of people living in the same city, where the work and the individual producing it ended up by being the origin and the end of the book. Of course. Actar's book are never plain and linear but rather play along with the idea of a "sponge" book that actively takes part in the subject matter that fills its pages; that is to say, the edition makes sense in itself, has its roots and participates of that creative nodule. If Barcelona + displayed creation as a result of the behaviour of an individual; Barcelona Lab shows creation as a result of a series of crossways and individual connections, as part of a transmission network, of information. The book thus, lets us observe the individual in his working place, his laboratory.
Now a laboratory shared and expressed collectedly...There are 68 creators, portrayed in this book, I suppose that many were left out.
It wasn’t anything like doing a Who's who in Barcelona Lab. Of course, books have a limit and this doesn’t mean signalling creative talent in order to exclude the rest of the authors that are not featured.
In this moment these 68 creative people take part in the same project as expressed in the edition, but it is not clearly intended to carry out a school examination.
What's important is that we have chosen the maximum possible of creators within the limits of a book with these characteristics.
What conclusions have you drawn and have learnt of the contact with people who work in such distinct areas as design, cuisine, poetry, etc.With people with such diverse professional backgrounds, it resulted a very enriching experience, not only for the fact of getting to know individual creative processes but because it afforded me a global vision, of a cultural thematic very open.
With this project you have been working almost a full year. What have you learnt about the city?That Barcelona, sums up a series of historical and cultural positive conditions, a great cultural movement but that there remains a very hard and difficult problem to be overcome, and that are the infrastructures.
What is missing then?An impetus on part of the private domain, where there must be respect among the different ideas. And then they must be supported, not as subvention, but backed by public institutions. There's where there can be an important change.
The public institution has to go on to a second terminus that is, the creator is the author and this is what the politicians have to understand because they can inclusively benefit from this.
What place does Barcelona occupy in the European Artistic map?It is running well behind. It is in the back of the purposes that you envisage.
It is on the first line of the creation concept. There are extraordinary people: Josep Abril, Gabriel Torres, Curro Claret, Meritxell Duran, Gallardo, Nina Pawloski, María Mazás,
Pep Duran... there are really brilliant people in Barcelona and there are people who come from everywhere exactly looking for.... that creativity. What’s missing is that local people could realise their own present reality and that they may move to transmitting it outwards.
In past conversation and interviews I have noticed that the foreigners who came here dreaming of doing new things, meet with difficulties and it is hard to be accepted.Local people also encounter many difficulties. There have been excellent private agents like Benet Costa or Marisa among others, who carried out excellent jobs but ended up by being defeated.
Barcelona is going through a very precarious time because we have had the same gentleman in charge for more than twenty years... Nowadays... it looks like private initiative has come to the conclusion that their projects will succeed.
But there's Sónar, no?Sómar is quite another subject. It's a project that originated in private initiative and has become a phenomenon. It is also easier because it deals with musical activities and these are events that attract people.
This is something to be learnt by the people who dedicate themselves to the plastic arts, photography, design, theatre, internet, that are not regarded as performances. It's important that what has happened in the case of Sónar, whose process I well know, to be broadened to other disciplines.
The private, the private.
Among others you have done a very interesting work on AIDS and Sex.Together with Ruth Turner, we organised an international meeting around this problem in '93, which was then more obvious, because many people had died and constituted still a problem that people didn’t know about.
In "Members Only" we managed to gather all the information about prevention. We staged a big exhibition for two months where 180 international artists showed their works related to "the members" and through eroticism made it understood that sex was important, but with precautions. The result was extraordinary and we published a book.
It was all about a moment of a very strong breach in the sexual freedom that we then enjoyed.
You are very dedicated in doing something that congregates the most distinct creators of the Latin work, in what way can this Latin culture be made more visible to the world?I believe it is necessary that people without rivalling anyone, should know what was the beginning of nowadays culture in the world. And a very important part of it, has been the Latin one. Then, there were pirates, who normally were Anglo-Saxon, but culture was born in the Mediterranean. Then, why are we not known nowadays? It is nothing about fighting and competing with anyone. It is simply the fact that people should acknowledge who we are. There have been very important cultures; the Greek and the Roman and then two key propagators that have been Portugal and Spanish, who didn’t know how to take advantage of the fact, but the results stretch throughout the entire Latin America from the northernmost point in Mexico down to Tierra del Fuego.
And Miami and California- why not?Yes, of course, all the southern part of the United States.
Then there must be a cultural manifestation, a meeting that reunites folklore, music, dance, plastic Arts, architecture... It is an immense market with tremendous potentiality underused. Underused by us. We'll have to start respecting ourselves.
The starting step can originate in Barcelona?Hopefully...yes.
Ricardo Nuno, December '02