b-inspired Art Events
Street Gallery
Ánima Animal
Street Gallery is a unique project to Barcelona (which is hoped will eventually be repeated in other cities) that consists of a city street being converted into a public art gallery over a number of weeks and months. This fascinating first edition is located on Nou de la Rambla with "Anima Animal" the work of local artist Nu Díaz who has lived on this street for the last 25 years. Díaz normally works through the digital idiom but for this project se has created a series of 50 animal portraits in black and white acrylic which are framed and mounted on cardboard within either the shop windows of the various participating establishments or are displayed prominently somewhere within.
The decision to use animal portraits is connected with the nature of this extraordinary street, inhabited by a diverse cross section of Barcelona residents whose cultures reflect the ethnic diversity of the Raval today. The artist has endeavoured to bring the community together and the resulting works are as compelling as the background of how the project was organised and put together given the complexity of the organization of this kind of initiative which is completely privately funded with no official involvement of the ayuntamiento (city council). While putting the project together Nu Díaz forged a relationship with many of the street’s business owners and discovered underlying and not always obvious layers of culture, the owner of the Ferretería Navarro (hardware shop) is writing a history of the street.
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Ostrich, Noval Noval, plantas y flores
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London Bar, Nu Díaz with two of the animal portraits of the exhibition and the owner of London Bar
Nou de la Rambla (previously Conde del Asalto until 199?) was set out by Royal charter during the 1700s, anchored at one end by Bagdad Club and the old Arnau theatre and at the other by one of the first Pakistani restaurants and supermarkets on the street. The Pasteleria Estrella, owned by the Pujol family must surely be one of the city’s most beautiful old style pastry shops, the Zapatería Rápido is the only cobblers left in Barcelona that repairs flamenco shoes, the London Bar with its trapeze act and authentic modernista interior décor; this is a street worthy of closer attention – which is exactly what the artist achieves here.
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Zapatería Rápido, one of Barcelona's last cobblers to offer a repair service for flamenco shoes
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Giraffe, Vendo lo que tengo
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Baboon, Sospedra tailors
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Carp, Tribardos Fruit shop
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Lechuza, Centro Civico
Nu Díaz has a varied career an artist, designer and art director. She was the director of the first Master of Multimedia in Spain in 1994, and headed the department of Interaction Design at the Elisava school until 2010. She has also developed artistic projects using digital manufacturing through the Fab-art concept.
- From 25 June to 12 July
- Nou de la Rambla, Barcelona
- www.streetgallerybcn.com
- www.streetgallerybcn.com
- From June 25th through July 12th