Cristina García Rodero's photography debuts at the ambitious new Seltz gallery in Barcelona.

It seemed that Barcelona's art galleries were clearly tending to abandon the central Consell de Cent area due to rising rents. But it turns out not to be, at least not for now. This is where some of the best exhibitions this spring are taking place.

And the opening of the new and ambitious Seltz gallery is good news, in the Balmes Street location that for many years housed the Joan Prats gallery.

Seltz opened last Thursday with an exhibition by Cristina García Rodero. It brings together a generous selection of photographs that reflect the exhibition's title: With Her Mouth Open .

The selection is suggestive and representative of some manifestations of the human condition, since human beings can open their mouths quite a bit or a lot, whether from hunger or from screaming, from sexual or religious ecstasy or from a tedious yawn.

All this reminds me of the feature film Crits (1986), from the television series Arsenal .

Seltzer's opening demonstrated an unusual power of convening.

Nearby, at the 3 Punts gallery, Roman Klonek, a Polish artist based in Düsseldorf, opened his first solo exhibition in Barcelona. His pop woodcuts are a mixture of images, faithful to the global chaos that seduces or threatens us. His scenes draw on the popular culture of different countries: Poland, Japan, Germany, Korea, Russia...

Works like Days Like Dogs and Friendly Radar have the virtue of recognizing disaster and yet not losing their good humor.

These are images that could have graced the covers of the most avant-garde comic book publications, such as the New York-based Raw or the Majorcan-based Nosotros Somos Los Muertos (NSLM).

On the southern sidewalk of Consell de Cent, Mayoral announces an upcoming exhibition by Marria Pratts, but historical exhibits predominate.

Eude celebrates its 50th anniversary with a diverse selection: from photos by Joaquim Gomis and Humberto Rivas to graphic works by Brossa, Joan Ponç, and Max Bill.

And the Joan Gaspar gallery is exhibiting drawings by Juli (or Julio, as he used to sign himself) González. This Barcelona-born sculptor was one of the most influential of the 20th century.

The first to imitate him was Picasso, followed by Miró and many other Anglo-Saxon sculptors. He was despised in his city: a disastrous and, unfortunately, surviving local tradition.

It is worth remembering that, with the donation offered, which Barcelona rejected, the great museum of Valencia was founded: the IVAM.

It's clear that Tomás Llorens knew much more about art than those responsible for cultural policy in Barcelona and Catalonia. And now some people assume that Julio (or Juli) González is Valencian, not Catalan.

Meanwhile, the Miguel Marcos gallery presents Pinturas 1983-1994 , a select exhibition by Xavier Grau (Barcelona, ​​1951-2020). These are five large-scale works that deserve to be displayed in any of the world's finest museums, alongside other abstract expressionist painters.

And also pay attention to the abstract painting by Jaume Ribas, which is on display at the Atelier gallery.

L'infern dels pantsalons , by Joaquim Pibernat (Barcelona, ​​1952-2022), is a great book of aphorisms – almost a thousand – nihilistic and yet vitalist, which its author wanted to be posthumous. It includes aphorisms like this: "It is difficult to go against the current drift at the moment. But it is at the point of achieving it."

It was presented at the Fundació Palau (Caldes d'Estrac), in the context of the exhibition L'Art de les Ics , which has also generated an interesting book.

Finally, although media attention is often focused on conventional products and spectacular or supposedly transgressive nonsense, I want to celebrate the fact that films like The Brutalist (2024), directed by Brady Corbet, are still being made, where cinematic wisdom serves to express a vital, historical and ideological lucidity.

It's the best narrative film I've seen since an underrated Irish marvel called The Quiet Girl (2022).