BAR Resident Project: The Pormishuevista Route in Barcelona: The Olympic Chimera, Erik Harley

What is Pormishuevismo?
Saturday 14th November

A delirious cacophony that includes illegal spas, travelling bridges, record-breaking skyscrapers, historical cases of corruption, economic miracles, dreams of future, the avant-garde of papier-mâché, bricks, cement and an odd roundabout. Pormishuevismo is a movement that seeks to transcend the real by means of the constructive impulse of the absurd and irrational. Although practically unknown, this movement represents more than 35% of Spain’s heritage and explains (better than any other) the most booming pages of the History of Politics, Architecture, Town Planning and Civil Engineering in the Iberian country. The pormishuevista practice is carried out in multiple supports and formats. It can be shown in the curatorship of a contemporary art exhibition, thinking about the strategy of a marketing campaign or during the construction of a bridge. As long as it is an exhibition with fake works, an advertising campaign which costs millions or a bridge that is absolutely unnecessary. If there is one thing that characterises the practice of the pormishuevista artists, it is the versatility of their cajolery.

The Pormishuevista Route in Barcelona: The Olympic Chimera
My studio visit. The city as studio
Saturday 21st November

We are going on an Olympic route to discover the urban shenanigans that Barcelona played when the 1992 Olympic Games were still a chimera. There is an artistic movement that cannot be explained in the universities. An excessive and saucy typology that does not understand aesthetics, philosophy or social context. The Pormishuevismo has marked the most boomed pages in the history of architecture, urban planning and civil engineering based on ‘salsa’ and corruption.