{"id":1611,"date":"2025-06-11T09:50:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T09:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/?p=1611"},"modified":"2025-06-11T15:27:18","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T15:27:18","slug":"anna-eugeni-bach-suspends-celestial-blue-crown-of-eyes-inside-barcelonas-mnac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/11\/anna-eugeni-bach-suspends-celestial-blue-crown-of-eyes-inside-barcelonas-mnac\/","title":{"rendered":"anna & eugeni bach suspends celestial blue \u2018crown of eyes\u2019 inside barcelona\u2019s MNAC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anna & Eugeni Bach installs blue ring in barcelona\u2019s mnac<\/h2>\n

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Anna & Eugeni Bach<\/strong><\/a> completes Crown of Eyes, an installation<\/strong><\/a> hovering six meters above the central hall of Barcelona\u2019s Museu Nacional d\u2019Art de Catalunya (MNAC). The twelve-meter-wide, celestial blue ring is suspended as a contemporary tribute to Francesc d\u2019Ass\u00eds Gal\u00ed (1880\u20131965), one of Catalonia\u2019s most visionary artists, the painter and educator behind the monumental dome murals of the Palau Nacional. The project forms the centerpiece of MNAC\u2019s expansive exhibition<\/strong><\/a> on Gal\u00ed, revealing his wide-ranging legacy as a painter, pedagogue, and exile whose influence rippled through generations, from Joan Mir\u00f3 to Llorens Artigas.<\/p>\n

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all images \u00a9 Eugeni Bach<\/a><\/p>\n

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sixteen medallions shape a crown of eyes<\/h2>\n

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Gal\u00ed\u2019s murals, painted over six months while perched on a fragile structure thirty meters high, crown the Palau\u2019s great dome with 35 allegorical figures that fuse fine arts, science, religion, and earth into a cosmic fresco. Beyond his work as a muralist, Gal\u00ed was also a radical educator. During the Noucentisme movement, he transformed art instruction through his Escola d\u2019Art, urging students to look at the world differently. One of his mantras was to bring no tools to the field, only \u2018a crown of eyes\u2019 to observe nature. This pedagogical idea becomes the poetic seed of the structure by the Barcelona-based<\/strong> duo<\/strong><\/a> Anna & Eugeni Bach.<\/p>\n

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Floating towards the dome, where the eye naturally drifts, the Crown of Eyes anchors viewers between earth and sky. Sixteen medallions are embedded in its circumference, evoking the supporting columns of the dome and Gal\u00ed\u2019s ever-watchful metaphor. Rendered in a deep, radiant blue, the installation mirrors the color of the dome\u2019s apex, inviting visitors to scan the murals with curiosity and intent, as Gal\u00ed once taught his students to scan the Montseny Mountains.<\/p>\n

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Crown of Eyes is a spatial conversation with history, created in collaboration with architects Artur Mu\u00f1oz and Virginia Mars and supported by Roger Molas, Claudia Senovilla, and engineers from Best and BetArq.<\/p>\n

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Anna & Eugeni Bach\u2019s Crown of Eyes hovers six meters above the central hall of MNAC<\/p>\n

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UNCOVERING THE INVISIBLE<\/h2>\n

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While Crown of Eyes floats in the central space of the museum, MNAC\u2019s exhibition ventures deeper into Francesc d\u2019Ass\u00eds Gal\u00ed\u2019s expansive life and legacy. Often working behind the scenes, Gal\u00ed helped shape the very foundations of Catalan modernity, yet he remained deliberately invisible, prioritizing teaching over personal fame and leaving little trace of his own ambitions. This curatorial effort makes visible what he preferred hidden, reclaiming his role as a key cultural agent of the early 20th century. From his mentorship of Joan Mir\u00f3 and Llorens Artigas to his directorial leadership at the Escola de Bells Oficis and the 1929 International Exposition, Gal\u00ed emerges as a figure who consistently moved the needle while stepping out of the frame.<\/p>\n

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His most visible artistic legacy remains the dome of the Palau Nacional, painted with 35 allegorical figures over a grueling half-year suspended on high scaffolding. But the show also highlights his broader work as a painter, draftsman, muralist, and poster artist, tracing a career that moved fluidly through modernism, symbolism, noucentisme, and the avant-garde. A parallel exhibition, Gal\u00ed: Exile and Evasion, at the Museum of Exile (MuME) in La Jonquera, reconstructs his abrupt departure from Spain during the Civil War and the ten years he spent in London. There, his relationship with surrealist painter Ithell Colquhoun introduced new ideas and directions into his later work. Together, the two exhibitions finally position Gal\u00ed not only as a bridge between movements but as a vital thread in the cultural and political fabric of Catalonia.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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the twelve-meter-wide, celestial blue ring is suspended like a phantom scaffold<\/p>\n

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a contemporary tribute to Francesc d\u2019Ass\u00eds Gal\u00ed<\/p>\n

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the project forms the centerpiece of MNAC\u2019s expansive exhibition on Gal\u00ed<\/p>\n

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Gal\u00ed\u2019s murals crown the Palau\u2019s great dome with 35 allegorical figures<\/p>\n

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the Crown of Eyes anchors viewers between earth and sky<\/p>\n

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rendered in a deep, radiant blue, the installation mirrors the color of the dome\u2019s apex<\/p>\n

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sixteen medallions are embedded in the circumference of the artwork<\/p>\n

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project info:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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name:<\/strong> Crown of Eyes<\/p>\n

artist:<\/strong> Anna & Eugeni Bach<\/a> | @eugenibach<\/a>, @anna_k_bach<\/a><\/p>\n

location:<\/strong> Palau Nacional, Barcelona, Spain<\/p>\n

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design team:<\/strong> Artur Mu\u00f1oz, Virginia Mars<\/p>\n

collaborators:<\/strong> Roger Molas, Claudia Senovilla (architects); Nacho Costales \/ Best (structural engineer); Ramon Cisa \/ BetArq (quantity surveyor)<\/p>\n

comissioner:<\/strong> Museu Nacional d\u2019Art de Catalunya (MNAC)<\/a> | @museunacional<\/a><\/p>\n

photographer:<\/strong> \u00a9 Eugeni Bach<\/p>\n

The post anna & eugeni bach suspends celestial blue \u2018crown of eyes\u2019 inside barcelona\u2019s MNAC<\/a> appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anna & Eugeni Bach installs blue ring in barcelona\u2019s mnac \u00a0 Anna & Eugeni Bach completes Crown of Eyes, an installation hovering six meters above the central hall of Barcelona\u2019s Museu Nacional d\u2019Art de Catalunya (MNAC). The twelve-meter-wide, celestial blue ring is suspended as a contemporary tribute to Francesc d\u2019Ass\u00eds Gal\u00ed (1880\u20131965), one of Catalonia\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1611"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1611"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1622,"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1611\/revisions\/1622"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}