The legendary Bulevard Rosa galleries on Passeig de Gràcia, closed since 2018, are transformed into an immersive museum. The space, named White Rabbit, will open its doors to the public next week in one of the city’s quintessential commercial and tourist arteries with a proposal that mixes the latest technology, art and Catalan culture.
Behind the new project on Passeig de Gràcia is Kike Vives, the grandson of Enrique Vives, the promoter of Bulevard Rosa. He remembers his grandfather as “a visionary” who helped energize the walk “when he did not have the recognition and prominence of today.” Now, they are betting on an innovative initiative in which “you can enjoy culture, but also from the perspective of entertainment.”
The new space has been adapted after eight months of work. In total, 1,300 m2 and ten artistic installations. This is not a traditional museum. The visitor has to come with an open mind and experience art actively. The place, designed with low ceilings, recreates as if you were entering a burrow. Some of the artistic proposals are interactive with the seal of the Fura dels Baus and revive, for example, the opening ceremony of the ’92 Olympic Games. Virtual reality is also present and one can be part of a castell or a group of devils in a correfoc. There is more prominence of popular culture with a gigantic golden caganer or a display of big heads, some of them with a contemporary image with tattoos and piercings, the work of sculptor Carles Piera.
Another immersive digital art installation reinterprets through artificial intelligence such characteristic elements of modernist architecture as the trencadís, stained glass windows and iconic spaces of the city, from the Sagrada Família to the fountains of Montjuïc.
The works have been designed by artists from Barcelona or linked to the city. One of them is the urban artist Salvatore Benintende, better known as TVBoy. He has reproduced on a wall of the premises one of his street works that was a turning point in his career: the iconic kiss between Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. “This kiss between two football rivals is a metaphor that we have to understand each other and know how to dialogue,” says TVBoy. The work was placed on a marquee precisely on Passeig de Gràcia before a classic in 2017. As ephemeral art, someone stole it After a few days and it ended up at auction without the artist’s consent. In fact, they asked him to certify the work but he made it a requirement, which was not accepted, that the proceeds would go to charity.
For 20 years, Barcelona has become his first home, where he has put down roots with his family and has his studio. “It is a city that always inspires me and infects you with his energy,” he comments. This multifaceted artist does not stop and if all goes well in October he will exhibit his work in an exhibition at a museum in Los Angeles.
The new museum will open its doors to the public on Tuesday, May 14 and during these days the last test visits will be made. Its promoters want to attract both the local public and tourists. “We reopened an iconic venue that people remember with great nostalgia and now we have the opportunity with this new experience to take advantage of the curiosities that make Catalans and Barcelonans unique. We address the local public but also the tourist who has a space with these curiosities that if you don’t have a friend to show you, it is very difficult to find them,” says Vives. The Bulevard Rosa galleries give way to the White Rabbit.
