Bonart art magazine, from Girona (Catalonia, Spain), long ago is considered by most of us the arts magazine in Catalonia. The award regonize the magazine as an essential institution that is now part of our artistic structure. Without Bonart, we would have a gap in our sector. And that is because Bonart has long transcended its task of reporting the news arística to become a platform. Platform to the best of its forms: a project that is able to gather different sensitivities, which is able to train younger encouraging and screening in our arts. Put briefly: Bonart aglotinant, Bonart trampoline, Bonart quarry.
Since its first issue in November 1999, it has been natural at the magazine to read art critics in our reference: Arnald-Puig, Giralt-Miracle, along with representative figures of contemporary art as David G. Torres and Montse Badia; artists and galleries from all sides; to see the peninsula as Luis Antonio de Villena, but also throughout our territory, arriving in Mallorca, Valencia and Roussillon. And with the most experienced, the opportunity for first-timers. In this section I would like to say something, because I can say that I am very much a product of Bonart quarry. When the magazine was beginning to have a name and reputation, the director did not hesitate to give me a monthly platform: to someone who was still finishing her undergraduate degree. Bonart has been, for many of us, the best training school: what has allowed us to know the area in the foreground and a experience that ultimately led projects and jobs.
Just because I take so many years in the magazine, I would like to give some future consideron about the magazine. We all agree that Bonart has improved every year: new design, new contributors, the magazine. But because the magazine continue to improve, I think he needs a jump: the jump of internationalization. All art capitals of the world have it: Milan, New York, Paris, Berlin. Bonart is the magazine that best represents the visual arts in Catalonia and therefore we must also do the international showcase, prioritizing their translation and dissemination abroad, I am sure that for this task can find the magazine in the necessary administration.
Finally, a greatness of the magazine is its vocation of every issue with a contribution to our culture. And this does not explain without the open, lucid, 2.0, post-humanistic and brilliant fields of magazine’s chief, Ricard Planas, and the team that makes the magazine possible month after month: editor Anna Maria Camps President, Narcissus Planas, head of distribution, Sandra Planas and all those who have been editors over the years: Mireia, Bea, Toni. Bonart family, thank you for being as you are, and for many years.
[The lecture of this text took place at MACBA, 20 march 2013, during ACCA awards ceremony]
albert mercadé 