The start of 2026 at the Barcelona Contemporary Culture Center (CCCB) will again be marked by the major exhibition dedicated to Mercè Rodoreda, inaugurated a few weeks ago, but next year two major themes will arrive, such as the cult of beauty, centered on the tension between norm and transgression; and the atomic age, from its first detonation in 1945 until current rearmament, as a real threat that crosses the world. During the presentation of the new season, CCCB director Judit Carrera highlighted the four principles that the entire program brings together: diversity of voices and points of view; support for creation, particularly local; the simultaneity of international projection and local focus; and the link between disciplines, generations and languages.
As always, the end of the year arrives busy, marked by lists of cultural recommendations and also by forecasts of everything that awaits the new year. At the CCCB, the director took stock this Tuesday of the year that we have left behind us, which she hopes to close with nearly half a million visitors, a little more than in 2023, which was 470,000, with expectations set. Rodoreda, a foresta very large and necessary exhibition which had good audience figures at the start. Likewise, the CCCB highlighted its digital storefront data, as last year 763,000 people viewed its digital files.
For Judit Carrera, the results for 2025 are very positive and reflect the variety of voices, languages and points of view which must be at the heart of the influence of the CCCB. This will continue to be the case next season which, with a budget of 16.8 million euros, will continue with Rodoreda until May 25, then preview material with The cult of beautyscheduled from May 20 to November 8. In collaboration with the Wellcome Collection in London, the exhibition will examine the evolution of the concept of beauty throughout history and explore its philosophical, cultural, artistic, scientific and political dimensions, always with a clear dialectic between the ideal and the material, that is to say, in current language, between normative bodies and dissident bodies. The reflection will be served by works by William Hogarth, Angelicas Dass, Laura Aguilar, Juno Calypso, Isidre Nonell, Colita, Maria Alcaide Colectivo Ayllu and Harriet Davey.
The other big question to address will be The atomic agea stage that has a clear beginning, but of which no one knows if it will end, in the words of Jordi Costa, responsible for exhibitions at the CCCB. In co-production with the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, this project will address nuclear history in the world and also in Spain, with almost 250 works, including paintings, drawings, photographs, videos and installations, as well as documents (some previously unpublished) to reveal the impact on Earth of this physical discovery, full of lights and shadows, like the energy that allows the current way of life and at the same time the threat of total destruction. Among the nearly 250 works, there will be those by Hélène de Beauvior, Henri Becquerel, Eduardo Chillida, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Hilma af Klint, Yoko Ono, Joan Rabascall and Nancy Spero.
The city will be another of the central themes of the season, with different branches and activities. One of them will be the cycle of conferences on Tourist Territories, which will take place in April and May, to address the question of the fascination with visiting cities with their political, ecological and cultural impact, an urgent debate in Barcelona and other cities around the world. But also the tribute to Josep Lluís Sert, one of the main architects of Catalan rationalism and creator of the GATCPAC group, disciple of Le Corbusier. Between June 10 and 11, various experts will analyze its legacy in contemporary architecture and urban planning.
With an inaugural conference by Blanca Garcés and Andreu Domingo on February 2, there will also be a program dedicated to immigration in Catalonia, a group that represents 22% of the population, and in the Raval district, where the CCCB is located, they reach 70%. The conference African diasporas in cities (February 18-20) will be marked by the presence of Nadia Yala Kisukidi, philosopher specializing in Henri Bergson and renowned specialist in Africanism and postcolonialism. The visit on March 17 of Léa Ypi, professor at the London School of Economics, author of titles like The challenge of growing up at the end of the story (Anagrama), a personal, historical and political portrait of the collapse of Stalinism in Albania.
Among the expected visits from international writers, lectures are planned for February 26 by Jeanette Winterson, author of forbidden fruit either written on the bodywho will present the Catalan and Spanish translations of An Aladdin, two lamps; and also by Richard Ford on May 26, who will visit the CCCB on the occasion of the publication of his latest book, who should continue to observe North American society, represented in his works, with his characteristic acuity, and who openly opposed Donald Trump.
Next year, the international residency program will invite Russian writer María Stepanova, who has lived in exile in Berlin since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, and will address the trauma of exile and displacement. Palestinian journalist and researcher Mariam Barghouti, with a project of reflection on the figure of testimony and the role of journalism in the war between Israel and Palestine. Additionally, anthropologist and thinker Eduardo Viverios de Castro will focus on the contribution of indigenous and Amazonian thought in redefining concepts such as nature and culture.
All this is only a part, the programming is much broader and transversal and also focuses on adolescents and young people with the exhibition We are 17 years old, from March 6 to May 17; Bivac, the festival of youth thought, organized by ten young people, which will take place on October 29, or the conversations with high school students within the framework of Critical Thinking for adolescents, which puts at the center some 5,000 young people between 15 and 18 years old, the future of Barcelona and the CCCB.
About The Author
