67 uated directly across from the Museu Picasso, the city’s most visited cultural institution. Inside its 1,700-square-meter display space, the MCMB has installed a permanent exhibition, unique in Spain, of nearly 550 works of traditional art from around the world, arranged by continent and shown in a manner that emphasizes their aesthetic qualities. This main installation will be supplemented with a dynamic program of complementary activities, including temporary exhibitions, the first of which is titled Escriptures: Símbols, Paraules, Poders (Writing: Symbols, Words, Powers), a show devoted to writing curated by Dr. Miguel Peyró. It will open in May (the date had not been finalized at the time of this writing) and will remain on view through January 2016. A Regionally Anchored Collection Until now, Barcelona has not been a city with a strong association with tribal art, and many readers will be surprised to learn that, save for a few recent acquisitions, the MCMB’s holdings were already extant. The most important component of its collection is the nearly 2,300 works from the Folch Foundation that the municipality has on a twentyyear renewable loan basis. Formed in 1975 and currently FIG. 4 (right): Commemorative plaque. Edo, Benin Kingdom, Nigeria. AD 1550–1700. Bronze. H: 54 cm. MCMB, Folch Collection, MEB CF 339. © MCMB. Photo: Jordi Puig. under the direction of Stella Folch, the foundation holds one of the most comprehensive private collections of non-European art in Spain. It was compiled by humanist and entrepreneur Albert Folch-Rusiñol, largely from the 1950s through the 1970s, during the course of his world travels, often in the company of his wife, Margarita Corachán, and of friends such as sculptor, ethnologist, and Folch Foundation collaborator, Eudald Serra; and the first director of the Museu Etnològic de Barcelona, August Panyella. This substantial collection, which was seminal to the creation of the MCMB, includes most of the new institution’s most important pieces. It adds to the municipality’s existing holdings of the Museu Etnològic de Barcelona, which were relatively unknown and unutilized. Comprised of nearly thirty thousand objects from Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, mostly collected in situ in the second half of the twentieth century through scientific expeditions, the study and presentation of this institution’s collection is now the responsibility of the MCMB. These two core collections are complemented by works from other private collections,
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