Ephemeral? Barcelona's walls (and the internet) as art gallery

Abstract

This ethnographic essay presents street art in Barcelona's Ciutat Vella neighborhood. The historic and tourist center of the city, the neighborhood is also an open-air art gallery. I traveled around Ciutat Vella throughout 2022 trying to think of its walls as a free art gallery, horizontalized, without a curator and without mediators. In them I met and started to follow many artists and original modalities of intervention. I present some artists, collectives, and companies that use street art to build visibility through public space. Performed as ephemeral urban interventions, street art works are incorporated into the public space for a limited time, but enough to build visibility for some artists and companies. I elaborate here on how this neighborhood/gallery makes it possible to learn about and acquire (through the internet) works of art.