The CCCB will reflect on the cult of beauty and the atomic age in 2026

The start of 2026 at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) will still be marked by the major exhibition dedicated to Mercè Rodoreda, which opened just a couple of weeks ago, but next year will see the arrival of two major themes: the cult of beauty, focusing on the tension between the norm and transgression; and the atomic age, from its first detonation in 1945 to the current rearmament, as a real threat that is spreading throughout the world. At the presentation of the new season, the director of the CCCB, Judit Carrera, emphasized the four principles that underpin the entire program: diversity of voices and perspectives; support for creation, especially local creation; the simultaneity of international projection and local focus; and the linking of disciplines, generations, and languages. As always, the end of the year is packed with cultural recommendations and predictions for what is to come in the new year. At the CCCB, the director took stock on Tuesday of the year we are leaving behind, which she expects to close with almost half a million visitors, slightly more than in 2023, when there were 470,000, with expectations pinned on Rodoreda, a forest, an extensive and necessary exhibition that has had good visitor numbers since its launch. The CCCB has also highlighted the data from its digital showcase, as 763,000 people have consulted its digital archives in the last year. For Judit Carrera, the balance sheet for 2025 is very positive, reflecting the variety of voices, languages, and perspectives that should be at the heart of the CCCB's outreach. This will continue to be the case next season, which, with a budget of €16.8 million, will continue with Rodoreda until May 25, and then premiere El culto a la belleza (The Cult of Beauty), scheduled 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, in today's language, between normative bodies and dissident bodies. The reflection will be served up with works by William Hogarth, Angelicas Dass, Laura Aguilar, Juno Calypso, Isidre Nonell, Colita, Maria Alcaide Colectivo Ayllu, and Harriet Davey. The other major issue to be addressed will be The Atomic Age, a period that has a clear beginning, but no one knows if it has an end, according to Jordi Costa, head of exhibitions at the CCCB. In co-production with the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris, this project will address nuclear history at a global and Spanish level, with around 250 works, including paintings, drawings, photographs, videos, and installations, along with documents (some unpublished) to unravel the impact on Earth of this physical discovery, full of light and shadow, like the energy that enables today's lifestyle and at the same time threatens total destruction. Among the nearly 250 works, there will be pieces 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 central theme of the season, with various ramifications and activities. One will be the series of conferences entitled Territorios Turísticos (Tourist Territories), to be held in April and May, which will address the relationship between the fascination with visiting cities and its political, ecological, and cultural repercussions, an urgent debate in Barcelona and other cities around the world. But there will also be a tribute to Josep Lluís Sert, one of the key architects of Catalan rationalism and founder of the GATCPAC group, who was a disciple of Le Corbusier. On June 10 and 11, various experts will analyze his legacy in contemporary architecture and urban planning. With an opening lecture 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 neighborhood, where the CCCB is located, they make up 70%. The symposium African Diasporas in Cities (February 18-20) will feature Nadia Yala Kisukidi, a philosopher specializing in Henri Bergson and a renowned scholar of Africanism and postcolonialism. The visit on March 17 by Lea Ypi, professor at the London School of Economics and author of titles such as The Challenge of Growing Up at the End of History (Anagrama), a personal, historical, and political portrait of the collapse of Stalinism in Albania, will focus on literature and the democratic crisis. Among the eagerly awaited visits by international writers are the lectures on February 26 by Jeanette Winterson, author of Forbidden Fruit and Written on the Body, who will be presenting the Catalan and Spanish translations of One Aladdin, Two Lamps; and Richard Ford on May 26, who will visit the CCCB on the occasion of the publication of his latest book, in which he is expected to continue observing American society with his characteristic sharpness, as portrayed in his works, and which has been openly critical of Donald Trump. Next year, the international residency program will invite Russian writer Maria Stepanova, who has been living in exile in Berlin since the invasion of Ukraine began, to address the trauma of exile and displacement. Palestinian journalist and researcher Mariam Barghouti will present a project reflecting on the figure of the witness and the role of journalism in the war between Israel and Palestine. In addition, anthropologist and thinker Eduardo Viverios de Castro will focus on the contribution of indigenous and Amazonian thought to the redefinition of concepts such as nature and culture. This is only part of the program, which is much broader and more cross-cutting and also focuses on teenagers and young people with the exhibition We Are 17, from March 6 to May 17; Bivac, the festival of young thinking, organized by ten young people, which will be held on October 29; and conversations with high school students under the framework Critical Thinking for Teenagers, which brings together some 5,000 young people between the ages of 15 and 18, the future of Barcelona and the CCCB.