Hangar, The Spider’s Strategy

By Pablo G. Polite

“We need more wood. Timber!”
Groucho Marx, “Go West”, 1940

Following a 2006 to forget, due to a progressive reduction in space for creative work in Poblenou (Barcelona) as a result of the first stage of work on the so-called technological district 22@, the centre of visual art production, Hangar, celebrated its tenth anniversary in June without really knowing if it had anything to celebrate –or how to celebrate it. Hangar is the sole institution to survive the conflict which has affected the productive milieu of Can Ricart, following the disappearance of Nau, Ca Font and Flea, and other like-minded artistic collectives who, like many others in the neighbourhood, have been obliged to move to the outskirts or disappear altogether faced with administrative passivity. Controversies and contretemps notwithstanding, Hangar has always overcome the obstacles in its way, and ten years later stands as an example to follow and a model for the application of Barcelona City Council’s Strategic Cultural Plan, with its policy of establishing centres for creative production. From being a prototype for productive centres, Hangar has become a reference point due both to its nature as an artistic laboratory open to all visual disciplines and its capacity to generate ideas and initiatives which go beyond mere production, and also due to its unequivocal commitment to the public and involvement with its milieu.

Hangar Pure Data & Processings Workshops. Courtesy of Hangar.

Founded on the 20th of June 1997 by the AAVC (Catalonian Association of Visual Artists), from its very beginnings Hangar has constitutes a community of artists created by artists for artists. A cell active in the production of contemporary art which has been providing answers to the necessities generated by the environmental context of Barcelona, and by the changes which have arisen in the fields of creativity and cultural and artistic production. As well as its 15 workshops, which have artists in residence for periods of between several months to two years, the centre has a media lab (or laboratory of new technologies), two film sets, and an equipment, technician and production assistant hire service. Thus it is not merely a contemporary art centre as we normally understand it, that is, an exhibition centre, but a centre for research, experimentation and creation, providing artists with the resources necessary for taking their work forward. The Centre’s activities –basically workshops and presentations– have covered a wide range of materials and interests, from feminism and pornography to open coded software such as Processing, or interventions by well-known artists such as El Perro or Estúdio Livre from Brazil, artists who have worked beneath the roof of Hangar, as have Susana Solano, Pep Duran, Tere Recarens, Ibon Aramberri, Jordi Mitjà, Antoni Abad, Joan Morey, Vicens Casassas, Eulàlia Valldosera, girlswholikeporno, Evol, Juan Perdiguero, Virginia Colwell, Gabinete de Crisis, Zach Lieberman, Rubén Santiago, Pauline Fondevila, Johanna Reich, Graffiti Research Lab, Ricardo Iglesias, Sebastián Romo, Juan Carlos Bracho, Gerard Kögler and Simona Levi.

Johanna Reich, Orange. Cortesy of the author.

The artists who have passed through this, the only centre for artistic production in Barcelona, are many. A place in the style of Kunstler Bethanien in Berlin, or the Cité des Arts in Paris –although in another context and with quite a few more limitations– which has a lot to offer them: international exchanges with Mexico, Holland, France and Italy; on-going education in audiovisuals; workshops on the latest technologies and their artistic applications; equipment rental, and , most importantly, space. Space to carry out work, regardless of the discipline. Ten years ago, the workshops were dominated by painters and sculptors; now, only one painter remains, and the other artists work in performance and the new technologies, although painting, drawing, photography and video continue to have a presence in the majority of the works of the artists in residence at the Hangar. The Centre’s policy is, as it has always been, on the one hand democratic and open access to the resources for creativity, and on the other, support for the specific projects conceived by respected artists such as Antoni Abad, Montserrat Soto or Alicia Framis. Three artists, to name only three, who have worked practically hand in hand whilst Hangar fought new battles and developed its latest great initiative; the Catalonian Visual Art Production Centre Network, an organism which has been created, as is customary, to fill the vacuum, and facilitate access to production resources for artists from all over Catalonian territory. At present it comprises, among others, the Centre d’Art in Girona, La Capsa in El Prat de Llobregat, the Centre d’Art in Vic, the Nau Côclea in Caballera, Comafosca in Alella, the Centre d’Art La Rectoria in Granollers, Can Xalant in Mataró and Niu and Experimentem amb l’Art, both in Barcelona.

Pablo G. Polite is a journalist and freelace curator based in Barcelona.