The exhibition “Of places and things. Banco Sabadell Art Collection” is open to visitors at the Sabadell-Herrero Exhibition Space, in Oviedo, from 1 July to 19 September 2021.

“A place is a given space capable of accommodating something.

The very nature of a place, what characterises it and distinguishes it from other places, depends precisely on what it accommodates, be it things, people or thoughts, and on the processes and time of its foundation. The name of a place – what we call it – harks back to the shape of the terrain, its physical appearance, the presence of landmarks, animals and plants, men and women, gods or roads.

The origin of the names of places is usually known, while the time of their foundation generally belongs to the more or less distant past of which only a vague memory is preserved. So, when we ask how long a certain place has been called such and such a name, the answer is usually “forever”. Place names are resistant to change because they reside in people’s memory, linked to locations and to feelings of identity and of belonging.

The word “place” has other meanings that may help to understand the works on display in this exhibition. We say “in place of” to indicate that something substitutes something else, or we talk about “putting ourselves in someone else’s place” so that we may imagine that we are that “someone” or to understand their perspective. To “take place” means that something is happening and, consequently, when something “does not take place” it means that some event does not happen.

The works selected for the exhibition all reflect this relationship of construction, foundation and the development of meaning and symbolism between places and things: historical places and those that reside in memory; geometry and space; boundaries and empty places; bodies, words and space; habitable places, the city and the territory.”