'Out of Focus. Another Vision of Art' Exhibition
21 May 2026 – 27 September 2026 · 10:00
CaixaForum Barcelona, la Font de la Guatlla, Sants-Montjuïc
Monet's Water Lilies series introduced the concept of blur into art, using the hazy and imprecise as expressive elements. This exhibition explores how the phenomenon opened up a new way of understanding the world for later artists and offers a key to rereading part of modern and contemporary visual art. Long regarded as a paradigm of abstract painting, the series was also a precursor of large-scale immersive installations. Yet the blurred, out-of-focus effect characterising the broad expanses of water on the canvases had never been analysed and is now viewed as a genuine aesthetic choice. Starting from the aesthetic roots of blur in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and following the intellectual, scientific, social and artistic upheavals within which Impressionism developed, the exhibition is structured into sections combining paintings, videos, photographs and installations by artists including Alberto Giacometti, Gerhard Richter, Mark Rothko, Eva Nielsens, Claude Monet, Thomas Ruff, Alfredo Jaar, Soledad Sevilla, Christian Boltanski, Mame-Diarra Niang and Bill Viola, among others.
Source: Ajuntament de Barcelona · checked on 8 September 2026