Barcelona’s Center de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) today opens “Rodoreda,un bosque,” a new exhibition dedicated to the life and work of acclaimed Catalan novelist Mercè Rodoreda. The show explores the enduring themes of Rodoreda’s writing-including exile, desire, and the complexities of the human psyche-through both her literary output and the works of 20th-century artists who influenced and were influenced by her. Following a resurgence in readership sparked by the 2017 republication of her novel La muerte y la primavera, the exhibition offers a deeper look into the author’s profound impact on modern literature.
Barcelona,
Literature is once again taking center stage at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, a venue that has consistently championed literary arts, most recently with a 2013 commemoration of the anniversary of Roberto Bolaño’s death.
A new exhibition, “Rodoreda, un bosque” (Rodoreda, a Forest), curated by essayist Neus Penalba, opens today, celebrating the enduring relevance of the work of Mercè Rodoreda. The show highlights the thematic and formal power of her writing, and explores the complex dualities at the heart of her novels – the interplay between reality and fantasy, cruelty and innocence.
The exhibition’s structure is built around the key themes explored in Rodoreda’s work – innocence, desire, suicide, displacement, scorn, and metaphysics – and also acknowledges a recent surge in readership sparked by the republication of her posthumous novel, La muerte y la primavera (Death and Spring), eight years ago. That novel, like much of her work, delves into the depths of the human psyche with remarkable precision.
Rodoreda’s characters frequently observe, desire, witness death or drowning, and undergo transformations. These motifs unfold within a space designed to resemble a forest, with organically connected rooms representing different facets of her life and work. Visitors will explore her literary and personal roots, her experience of exile, the impact of war on her writing, her diverse influences spanning literature, painting, and cinema, and ultimately, the lasting legacy she created. The final section features new works by visual artists inspired by her stories, including painting, drawing, engraving, sculpture, photography, installations, documents, and audiovisual pieces.
The exhibition also showcases works by 20th-century artists who resonate with Rodoreda’s concerns, such as Remedios Varo, Pina Bausch, Marc Chagall, Leonora Carrington, Picasso, Suzanne Valadon, Ramón Casas, Fina Miralles, Joan Ponç, Tura Sanglas, Dora Maar, Toni Catany, and Man Ray.
Recent critical approaches to Rodoreda’s work have often framed it within opposing perspectives – either as a naive exploration of childhood or as a darkly gothic vision. This exhibition aims to move beyond those labels, inviting viewers to appreciate the complexity and ambiguity that define her writing.
Nature plays a significant role in Rodoreda’s stories and novels, representing not simply a lost paradise, but the setting for the most turbulent of human emotions – themes also explored by the visual artists featured in the show.
The narrative voice in Rodoreda’s work is often characterized by a childlike candor, regardless of the narrator’s age, as seen in characters like Natàlia in La plaza del Diamante and Cecília in La muerte y la primavera. Rodoreda herself believed that seeing the world with a child’s eyes wasn’t naiveté, but rather a form of profound insight, allowing her to convey both beauty and horror to her readers.
Her flowers may be beautiful, but they can also be poisonous, and the forests surrounding them are far from welcoming. Her characters often exhibit unsettling traits, and as they mature, they seek to unravel the secrets of the adult world, often expressing their alienation through suicide, sometimes viewed as a liberation from overwhelming desire, as depicted in Viaje al pueblo de los hombres ahorcados (Journey to the Town of Hanged Men).
A dedicated section of the exhibition explores the theme of desire, examining how Rodoreda portrayed power dynamics while often avoiding sexual stereotypes.
The experience of war profoundly impacted Rodoreda’s life – she was a refugee – and her work, though indirectly. She didn’t focus on the front lines, but on those left behind. The scenes she witnessed in Nazi-occupied Paris undoubtedly influenced the depictions of decay that appear in her writing, and the ways in which conflict shapes her narratives. La plaza del Diamante (The Time of the Doves) is perhaps her most explicit exploration of the Spanish Civil War, though she maintained that historical events appeared in her work unconsciously: “My historical time interests me very relatively. I have lived it too much.”
Exiled for three decades, Rodoreda didn’t return to Catalonia until after Franco’s death. From Geneva, she imagined the streets and houses of Barcelona, repeatedly depicting them in her novels, and there she also crafted her fantastical stories. In some cases, the city merges with her characters, as seen with the orphan Cecilia Ce in La calle de las Camelias (The Street of Camellias).
The heart of the exhibition focuses on metamorphosis – transformations representing a desire for liberation, mirroring Rodoreda’s own experience of exile. The exiles in her texts aren’t simply displaced from their homeland; they are often solitary figures, witches, outcasts, deserters, or prisoners, drawing from literary tradition but also blending it with natural elements like water, fire, and the moon.
Many of Rodoreda’s novels and short stories are narrated in the first person by someone who, after a real or figurative death, recreates their past life. This is evident in works like La plaza del Diamante, La muerte y la primavera, and La salamandra (The Salamander), where a woman seems to recount her misfortune from the perspective of an amphibian. These are monologues from fractured voices narrating from beyond the boundaries of any transformation.
The final section of the exhibition explores the soul and the ultimate transformation that awaits us all when it is theoretically liberated from the body. Rodoreda frequently included angelic presences, evanescent souls perceptible only to the purest of heart, and spirits wandering in torment.
She was interested in synthesizing sources, drawing on Platonic references to the River Lethe and the myth of the winged chariot, finding inspiration in Hindu texts on reincarnation, and depicting the passage of the soul according to Catalan folklore. Spiritualism was not uncommon during her childhood, and there was a greater acceptance that the line between reason and madness wasn’t always clear.
Artists Oriol Vilapuig, Mar Arza, Èlia Llach, Carlota Subirós, and the collective Cabosanroque have created new works for the exhibition, inspired by Rodoreda’s texts.
Vilapuig has used various media – drawing, photography, video, objects – to create a mural in the form of an inverted tree, alluding to the dualities and tensions in Rodoreda’s novels between what can and cannot be said. Arza presents two sculptures made of paper and cement, referencing the violence against desire and individuals in La muerte y la primavera. Llach’s installation intertwines photography, painting, and sound to underscore the impact of historical events on individual lives and the darkness that can engulf attentive readers of Rodoreda’s work.
Carlota Subirós brings echoes of her theatrical adaptation of La plaza del Diamante to the CCCB, while Cabosanroque presents a sound installation based on the combination of beauty and horror found in much of Rodoreda’s literature.
“Rodoreda, un bosque”
CENTRE DE CULTURA CONTEMPORÀNIA DE BARCELONA. CCCB
C/ Montalegre, 5
Barcelona
December 5, 2025 – May 25, 2026
OTHER NEWS ON MASDEARTE:
