Around and about the arts in Barcelona (1939-1960)supporting roles, select circles and small venues

Abstract

"Around and about the Arts in Barcelona" explores the slow, difficult introduction of music and visual arts of the avant-garde into the city between the years 1939 and 1960. It looks at the formation of a small audience with an affinity for these forms of art expression, at a time when not even artists such as Miró, and even less the music of Schoenberg, had a place in the cultural life of Barcelona. A first hypothesis of this dissertation is that an alliance existed between some supporting roles who formed select circles to cultivate modernity in small alternative venues, faced with the bleak environment of Early Francoism. In turn, these same select circles, which were enthusiastic about the visual arts of the avant-garde, were equally interested in the latest music, both by composers of the Second Viennese School and the most ground-breaking proposals of the Darmstadt Summer Courses. These supporting roles gained considerable autonomy beyond the artists they promoted and were essential actors to understand the artistic and musical life of Barcelona in the period 1939-1960. Thus, Joan Prats and photographer Joaquim Gomis promoted an account that would lead to an understanding of Miró's work and, in turn, supported various projects to recover Gaudí based on this avant-garde approach. Prats maintained the same approach when he organised the listening sessions of records by Bartók for Club 49. In addition, this dissertation indicates that only in some small venues (Sala Gaspar, Institut Français or Bartomeu House) was it possible to find the combination of calm and curiosity required for active education in the new art. These spaces for socialising housed the select circles that are addressed in this study: the sophisticated Club 49, the specialised Manuel de Falla Circle and the active Juventudes Musicales Españolas. To prioritise the clarity of the presentation, the first part of the dissertation is on the visual arts, with a focus on the experience of the "fotoscop", and the second part is on art music. However, in reality, the sociocultural and political framework is the same in both parts. Hence, the events and the people involved often coincide in time and space, to create a rich network of relationships that it is almost impossible to unpick but has been woven throughout the text. The accounts outlined in each of the two parts use different strategies. In the first part, Gomis and Prats wonder how to photograph a work of art. In this account, two creators are intertwined: Miró, their close friend with whom they shared desires, confidences and projects, and Gaudí, a hero who had already died, who only left behind his architectural works in the city's streets. The "fotoscop" transmits these questions and provides interpretations of considerable impact on previous studies. In contrast, in the second part, it was necessary to start from zero. To explain the singularity of the music cycles of "Música oberta", promoted by Juan Hidalgo and Josep Maria Mestres Quadreny, the paths of the musicians, patrons and platforms of dissemination of the music in Barcelona from the end of the Spanish Civil War had to be reconstructed archaeologically. Previous analyses had only established a few aspects of a topic that this dissertation has addressed from a perspective of greater complexity: that of the vital constitution of a rich network between the agents. The two objects of study, the "fotoscop" and "Música oberta", continued until the death of Joan Prats in 1970. However, the dissertation has tried to show that in 1960, they were already sufficiently defined as a concept and a form in the process of institutionalisation of the avant-garde. Thus, this study is based on an analysis of the artistic situation of the avant-garde in Barcelona in the decade of the 1960s, considering the development in the modes of cultural intervention that had been forged in previous years.