Desires and Necessities. New Incorporations to the MACBA Collection

This exhibition presents 86 works, including new acquisitions made in the last three years – over half of which are exhibited here for the first time – shown alongside contemporary pieces of local heritage, to form a dense tissue with multiple versions of beauty, emotion, knowledge and pleasure. The title is inspired by Lawrence Weiner's 'Some Objects of Desire', a work that has presided over the atrium of the Meier building since 2009, and which invites viewers to think about the sometimes irreconcilable fragility of human beings' relationship with objects in our world. Curated by Bartomeu Marí, the exhibition brings together four generations of artists who, in their work, deal with issues that illustrate the arc of possibilities between desire (what we want, independent of whether that's good or affects our lives) and necessity (that without which we cannot exist or which can be no other way).