LOOP Barcelona

The tradition & historical record

LOOP Barcelona is an annual arts platform in Barcelona dedicated to artists' film and moving-image art. Founded in 2003, the platform is structured around three sections: Loop Festival, Loop Fair and Loop Symposium. Over a two-week period, the Loop Festival presents works of 800 artists to nearly 200,000 visitors in 100 different locations across Barcelona, such as, museums, restaurants and shops. 44 galleries are annually invited by the Committee of the Loop fair, to present recent works of emerging and well-known artists to 4000 professionals, journalists, curators, and collectors. This selection is completed with presentations of magazines and distribution companies. Loop is supported by the Government of Catalonia, the Spanish Ministry of Culture, as well as other institutional and corporate sponsors. ¹

2003 ¹

Loop Barcelona was created by the Barcelona Art Association in 2003 as a platform for active dissemination, discussion and creation of audiovisual art. Together with its network of professionals, the Barcelona Art Association wanted to contemplate video art as a way of removing the boundaries between art and society. Loop emerged from the New Art Fair, which had filled the rooms of a hotel as presenting spaces. In 2003, Loop Fair was held from November 27 to the 30th, at the Hotel Barceló Sants in Barcelona. 2004 ¹

From November 18 to 21, 50 rooms on the first floor of the Hotel Barceló Sants were occupied by 50 galleries presenting video art. There was also an area of 900m2 in which institutions and museums could present their collections of video art. Magazines and publications specialized in contemporary art also occupied the Fair Loop. To encourage collectors, Loop '04 created a program of video art patronage, formed by a group of institutions and enterprises engaged in the acquisition of works presented at the fair. At the same time, arts centers, galleries and other spaces in Barcelona presented videos through the Off Loop festival. A series of conferences in the media library of CaixaForum and a course organized by the Friends of the Museums of Catalunya were also scheduled. 2005 ¹

Loop Festival returned from November 7 to 20 with more than 350 participating artists presenting their video art works along 8 main routes: Route El Raval, Route Eixample, Route Calle Montcada, Route Montjuïc, Route Gràcia, Route Born/Ciutat Vella, Route Playa and Route Nau Ivanow. The Video London exhibition, with more than 150 participants, included the panorama of contemporary video art by young artists who study, work or exhibit in London. ¹

The awards are the following: ¹

Screen Projects Award. In recognition of the best contribution made by a gallery present at the Fair, awarded 2000 Euros and the invitation to participate in the next edition. Loop Catalonia Award. 6000 Euros are awarded to the gallery with the best work. MACBA Award. The video art work will become part of the artistic background of the MACBA. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “LOOP Barcelona”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

LOOP Barcelona is annual videoart festival in Barcelona, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

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