Barcelona Metropolis

We live in turbulent times, and culture is not immune to the upheaval caused by the change of era in which we find ourselves.

As a result of the new European copyright directive within the single digital market, culture has become ammunition in a legal war between supporters of intellectual property and defenders of freedom of expression. The battle for control over the Internet is an ideological struggle that is fought in the field of culture. We have tried to throw light on a debate that is tainted by flawed apriorisms, giving voice to both sides. Some battles we have already won. We are shown this by Eva Baltasar, who has been awarded this year’s Llibreter Prize for Permagel (Permafrost), the first Catalan novel to treat lesbianism naturally. A sign that women have taken control over how they are portrayed, who they are and what they think about. Marta Rojals spotlights this too in her extraordinary novel El cel no és per a tothom (Heaven is Not for Everyone), which explores the inner workings of two twin sisters with a degree of sharpness and exactitude that is uncommon in Catalan literature. This autumn two women from the art world are turning Montjuïc into the hill of surrealism. The exhibition on Lee Miller takes over from the exhibition on Gala, Salvador Dalí’s muse, wife, secretary and art dealer; these two women finally shine in their own right, aside from the men they served.