This season we celebrate the twenty years of the reappearance of the Gran Teatro del Liceo after the unfortunate fire of 1994, for this reason we want to pay tribute to two historical entities involucrate with the development of culture in Barcelona: the LICEU and the SALA PARÉS.

Beyond the physical proximity of the entities, Las Ramblas and Petritxol Street, their beginnings coincide in time and respond to the cultural questions of Barcelona in the early 19th century.

The need to create a music conservatory in a full economic and demographic expansion Barcelona, led to the adaptation of the “Sociedad Dramática de Aficionados” in 1847 into the Liceo Filarmónico Dramático Barcelonés de SM la Reina Isabel II, which added to the theatre the art of singing and Italian music. The success of the Liceo Filarmónico, together with the will of a group of prominent memberships of the Barcelona bourgeoisie, carried out the construction of a new and ambitious theatre, worthy of the importance of the city, which has lasted over more than a century and a half, on the place of the old convent of the Trinitarians of La Rambla.

At the same time, in 1840 the Casa Parés began its activity as part of an interesting process of change of the commercial models around the artistic object. The existence of a growing collecting movement in nineteenth-century Barcelona, the increase of demand and artistic consumption by the bourgeoisie, as well as the increase of the population of artists fighting for their professional consolidation, marked the beginning of a change from the small establishment dedicated to the sale of prints, material for painters, frames and mouldings, towards a new topology: The Art Gallery, making its great transformation in 1877.

Through its history and its function as cultural and artistic centres, Barcelona has been fortunate, to be able to enjoy the best voices and the best brushes from the 19th to the 21st centuries.

With LICEUS’ exhibition, we present the gaze of seven contemporary artists linked to Sala Parés, who feel an admiration and esteem in verse to the Liceu’s work and propose different interpretations of Barcelona’s theatre through its pictorial languages.