One of the most appreciated of all the activities that can be promoted by cultural centres, museums and other institutions is the staging of temporary exhibitions. For museums, temporary exhibitions are the stimuli that generate loyalty on the part of the public and attract new visitors. They are also the ideal way of dusting off the reserve collections and exhibiting the items arranged from a new point of view and a way of revaluing the works. The temporary exhibition is the vehicle used for displaying the vision of an institution. Moreover, if the field of work is art, the exhibition becomes the quintessential and almost sole tool for bringing artists into contact with the public.

Since the early 20th century, the exhibition has been one of the features that characterise the cultural habits of western society. It is one of the hallmarks of the welfare society, based on leisure and consumerism. The exhibition creates a reality with a ‘use-by’ date that has to be witnessed, enjoyed, here and now. The creation of the event, its ephemeral and unrepeatable nature and the search for ever more spectacular presentations are the strong points of a phenomenon that over the years has shortened the distance between culture and entertainment, even stepping into the delicate terrain of showbusiness.

On one hand, we can question the integrity of this tool due to the risk of cultural interventionism it can embody. On the other hand, it must be valued as an exceptional asset, since it is one of the few channels that allow aspects of culture to reach a sizeable audience in a media-driven age that pitches cultural habits against junk television, videogames and compulsive shopping.

Since the 1980s, temporary exhibitions have been a fundamental attraction for cultural tourism. Another development has been the creation of circuits of travelling exhibitions between different cities and continents. The productions that involve the highest costs and greatest value of contents are generally staged in one major city in the USA and Europe. The most important international axis is composed of New York, London or Paris and Tokyo, and closer to home we can enjoy the circuit consisting of Barcelona or Madrid, Paris and London. The large economic and cultural institutions create their own channels for fostering proposals of the highest quality. It must be understood that, behind the apparently free admission to the museum, investment in exhibitions is highly profitable in terms of image and publicity through the mass media, which always seek to give the appropriate coverage to cultural events.

Broadly speaking, exhibitions can be monographic, historical, thematic or thesis-based. Nowadays they can also be either presential, in the halls, or virtual, via Internet. The Metropolitan, the Tate and the Prado are examples of large producers of monographic shows; the Guggenheim, Thyssen and Reina Sofía Museums have created excellent historical exhibitions; the Georges Pompidou and the CCCB have staged interesting thematic presentations; and we have followed the theses of influential curators like Jan Hoet, Dan Cameron and Catherine David, who have worked for the most important international institutions, materialising conceptions that may sometimes be controversial, visionary or opportunistic, but never aseptic.

In a medium-sized city like Girona, the international system is reproduced on a small scale. Each institution draws up its own policy of temporary exhibitions in accordance with its goals. In the city itself, however, we see an intuitive complementarity of proposals within a certain specialisation on the exhibition centres. Each museum selects for display from among its possessions those that best represent its specific function. Thus, the Art Museum contextualises the art works of its collection, explains periods or processes, authors represented in the collection, etc.; the History Museum focuses more on matters related with the history of the city and society; the Cinema Museum promotes exhibitions thematically linked to its own collection; the halls linked to the savings banks stage thematic exhibitions created for their own circuits.

The La Mercè Cultural Centre has specialised in exhibitions of contemporary art in order to publicise the work of artists who are active in the present day, especially those born or working in Girona – it must not be forgotten that the Centre is municipally-owned. It does this in three locations. The La Mercè Cultural Centre itself gives priority to artists from the Art School, the Rambla Exhibition Hall displays the work of artists who are recognised in professional circuits, and the Chapel of Sant Nicolau is used as a complementary space and for staging third-party events. This type of temporary exhibition is closer to the activity of private galleries than that of museums and cultural centres, with the difference that it does not assess the possibilities of commercialisation of the works displayed. These are exhibitions that bring art close to the viewer and seek to arouse the critical spirit, in contrast with the approach embodied by large art shows and fairs. In the municipal spaces, the focus of the exhibition is the artist’s recent work, and the space provides the resources for display and diffusion. The exhibition sets up a dialogue between the work and the public, and its staging is fundamental for facilitating this communication. The priority is to give projection to contemporary art and a selection of interesting artists, relegating to second place the fact that the artist, once selected, may decide to work with a curator to formalise an exhibition project instead of doing it personally, or may choose a particular form of presentation or technology, provided that it comes within the available budget. And the budget is precisely the factor that determines whether the exhibition project will be more or less professional: it must not be forgotten that the professionalisation of visual artists means allocating fees to compensate economically the work involved in preparing an exhibition. Moreover, the project will have greater or lesser success, more or less audience or resonance, depending on the resources assigned to publicity, diffusion and the publication of the catalogue, an essential element of the make-up of the exhibition, since it is the documentary body that will leave a permanent record of the temporary exhibition.

Carme Sais
Director of the La Mercè Cultural Centre