Event
Exhibition “The cult of beauty”
“The cult of beauty” explores a question that runs through eras and cultures: what we understand by beauty and why we continue to pursue it. The exhibition proposes a journey from antiquity to the present to observe how aesthetic ideals have been constructed and what forces have intervened in defining them.
About this event
Through artworks, historical objects and contemporary installations, the exhibition examines the role of philosophy, medicine, religion and the market in shaping canons. Beauty appears here not as something neutral, but as a territory crossed by power relations, where the body—skin, hair, age—becomes a field of dispute.
The project, locally adapted from Janice Li’s original proposal at the Wellcome Collection, brings together diverse voices and perspectives that question the idea of what is normative. Artists from different generations and contexts put dominant models under tension, pointing to the exclusions that have been left outside the official narrative.
Rather than offering answers, “The cult of beauty” invites viewers to reconsider their own gaze. To understand that what we consider attractive is not fixed, but a changing construction that says as much about the person looking as about what is looked at.
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Related guides
- Barcelona and its avant-garde: contemporary art museums to discover
Related topics
- Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona
Names as listed, in their original language.