One indispensable museum in the city features the world’s best collection of Romanesque mural painting, together with works of the foremost artists of Catalan Modernisme, including Gaudí and Casas. It’s the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC), located in the National Palace on Montjuïc, which also contains other outstanding collections of Medieval, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Modern art. Likewise, MNAC holds temporary exhibitions, like the one on the Barcelona photographer Oriol Maspons, who contributed decisively to the renovation of the photographic language in the 1960s. Running until January of 2020, it presents pictures he made in over four decades of intense activity.

By contrast, the acclaimed Contemporary Culture Centre of Barcelona (CCCB) is a ground-breaking multidisciplinary institution. Its current exhibitions include ‘Feminisms!’, highlighting the dialogue, continuities and ruptures between the radical feminism of the 1970s and today’s feminisms. It is running until December. Of course, people who like contemporary art should be sure not to miss the Barcelona Contemporary Art Museum (MACBA). Until March of 2020, this celebrated museum is featuring ‘Charlotte Posenenske: Work in Progress’, an exhibition on this great German artist, whose work ranged from Minimal art to Conceptualism. Likewise, the show here on the Greek artist Takis, which will be running until April of 2020, presents the works of a pioneer in the creation of new artistic forms, using magnetism, light and sound.