Rafael Tous
By Charlotte Stace
MACBA welcomes its latest exhibition, In Real Time. Rafael Tous Collection of Conceptual Art. Born in Barcelona in 1940, Tous began collecting art as a young man. He forged close relationships with many of the artists of his generation.
His collection includes pieces by representatives of the Catalan conceptualism of the 1970s, the political criticism of Francesc Abad, the social art of Joan Rabascall and Eulàlia Grau, the material and object research of Pere Noguera, and work by Els Catalans de París (the Catalans of Paris), among others.
This exhibition aims to offer an important journey through the experimental practices of the seventies and eighties in Catalunya. The pieces help to frame a narrative around a number of issues of the time such as the new consumerism, and social and political critique.
The works presented here illuminate the inclinations and preferences of this private collector, who, in the act of collecting, found his own way of expressing himself.