The Sitges Museums open a new season to connect the collections to the communities

The Museums of Sitges are facing a new stage with the challenge of updating their spaces and, at the same time, renewing the way of explaining and sharing the collections. An evolution that starts from its essential mission: to guarantee the conservation of heritage, deepen research and contribute to the creation of knowledge and critical thinking. From this base, the objective is to move towards museums that are more open, accessible and connected to the reality of Sitges, capable of bringing the heritage closer to the different communities that live in the town.

The program for the fall of 2026, collected in the fourth issue of the Laboratorio de las Artes, advances in this direction and continues to bet on diverse formulas of approach to heritage. Exhibitions and research coexist with conversations, music, literature, contemporary art, sensory experiences, family activities and proposals that invite you to look at and interpret the collections from new perspectives. A program that understands the museum not only as a space for preservation and transmission of heritage, but also as a place to generate knowledge, questions, dialogue and critical thinking.

This way of understanding the Museums will have continuity during 2027, with new exhibition and research projects, the updating of spaces, new readings of the collections and a reinforced will to connect the heritage with the challenges of the present and with the plurality of the Sitgetan society.

EXHIBITIONS

An autumn with Deering, Lola Anglada and contemporary art

Until October 25, the Museo de Maricel will keep the exhibition Ausencias y presencias open. Charles Deering's artists in the Banco Sabadell Art Collection. In the last weeks of the exhibition, they will arrive accompanied by different activities to better understand the figure of the American collector and the artistic world that surrounded Maricel's creation.

There will be the visit The Footsteps of Charles Deering, with Sebastià Sánchez Sauleda; a lecture by Ignasi Domènech on the golden age of Hispanic art collecting in the United States; an American jazz concert from 1900 to 1929, with the Apocadixie Quartet, and an observation of seabirds from the Museo de Maricel with Biodiversidad Sitges.

Autumn will also bring the return of a part of the Lola Anglada Doll Collection. From October 8, Espai Rocamora will host a small sample of twenty restored dolls, which will open a new stage to give visibility to this heritage. The space will have a permanent character and rotating contents, with selections dedicated both to Lola Anglada's collection and to other dolls and toys preserved in the Museums of Sitges. The rotation will make it possible to show these funds progressively and, at the same time, guarantee their necessary conservation conditions.

Contemporary art will continue to play a prominent role in the programming, not only as an area of ​​creation, but also as a mediating tool with heritage and the generation of new readings about the collections. In October, the Stämpfli Foundation – Contemporary Art will host the talk The Museums of Sitges, contemporary online spaces, while the collaboration with the International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia will bring to Espai Rocamora an installation related to David Lynch's Blue Velvet.

This line will be reinforced from 2027, when emerging contemporary artists will enter into dialogue with the Museo del Cau Ferrat and the legacy of Santiago Rusiñol through the Rusiñoladas project and the Past and Present program of the Generalitat de Catalunya. In this way, the current creation will become a way to revisit the heritage from the present, generate new interpretations and bring it closer to different sensibilities and audiences.

Subirachs, the bridge between 2026 and 2027

One of the outstanding projects at the end of the year will be Habitar el art. The Subirachs collection. The exhibition will open on November 20 at the Maricel Museum and can be visited until March 28, 2027.

Curated by Susanna Portell and Ignasi Domènech, it will bring together a wide selection of works that were part of the personal environment of Josep Maria Subirachs. There will be pieces by Will Faber, Albert Ràfols Casamada, Mercè Vallverdú, Esther Boix, Olga Sacharoff or Antoni Tàpies, along with artists admired by Subirachs such as Isidre Nonell, Ismael Smith, Enric Casanovas, Pau Gargallo or Manolo Hugué.

The exhibition will also pave the way for the commemoration of the Subirachs Year 2027 and will be one of the projects that will connect the programming of the two years.

Ángeles Santos and Grau Sala, among the 2027 projects

While the autumn program progresses, the Museums of Sitges are already working on 2027. Among the projects in preparation is an exhibition dedicated to Ángeles Santos and Emili Grau Sala, two artists also united in life and with a close connection to Sitges.

The exhibition will allow us to recover this relationship and delve deeper into the stories that connect the artists to the town, reinforcing a local perspective on the collections and on the history of art.

INVESTIGATION

Investigate the collections to generate knowledge and new perspectives

On October 30, the Gold Hall of the Palacio de Maricel will once again bring together researchers and specialists in the 15th Day of the Art Market, Collecting and Museums. The appointment will allow one more year to delve into the history of collecting, the art market and the formation of collections.

In November, El papel del Cau Ferrat. The museum that is not seen will open a door to a lesser-known part of the museum: the collection of drawings by Santiago Rusiñol. The activity will include exceptional access to the paper reserve, where works that cannot normally be seen by the public are preserved.

On November 26, the Maricel Museum will host Miró-Rusiñol, viaje y evasión, a conversation between Vinyet Panyella and Xavier Albertí within the Miró project. Art and territory of the Network of Art Museums of Catalonia. The proposal will bring Joan Miró and Santiago Rusiñol into dialogue and will contribute the view of Sitges to a project shared with museums from all over Catalonia.

The autumn will be completed with new sessions of the Piece of the Month, book presentations, the Club de la Mirada, the new Santiago Rusiñol Reading Club, family activities, sensory experiences and Christmas proposals. The Piece of the Month will continue to evolve to incorporate experiences that enrich the participation of the attending public and, at the same time, will reinforce its vocation as a space of knowledge, supporting researchers who are committed to researching the works and collections of the Sitges Museums. In this way, the program wants to bring research closer to the public and encourage the new knowledge generated around the collections to also be shared.

Climate change and new perspectives on the provenance of collections

The research of 2027 will also address issues that allow heritage to be reviewed from the concerns and tools of the present. One of the new lines will study the effects that climate change can have on the historical and artistic heritage of Sitges, especially in an environment strongly conditioned by the proximity of the sea.

At the same time, the Sitges Museums will deepen the search for the Philippine collection of Jesús Pérez-Rosales, studying the origin of the pieces and their contexts. This research will be developed in the framework of (Tr)african(t)s. Museums and collections of Catalonia facing colonialism, a project linked to the Autonomous University of Barcelona that works on collections from the territories of the former Spanish colonial empire preserved in Catalan museums.

ACQUISITIONS

Expand the collections to expand the stories

The commitment to contemporary art and a greater diversity of creators and stories will also continue. This view is already being transferred to the acquisitions policy of the Museums of Sitges, aimed at expanding and completing the collections, reinforcing the presence of female artists and incorporating creators, collectives and sensibilities that until now have been underrepresented.

The acquisitions promoted during 2026, with names such as Amèlia Riera, Elisea Lluch or Flavita Banana, are some examples. At the same time, the representation of artists linked to the artistic history of Sitges, such as Artur Carbonell, José Zamora, José Mirabent Gatell, Luisa Denís, José Miguel Serrano, Fernando Krahn, Santiago Rusiñol or Mariano Andrés, among others, will continue to be completed.

An acquisitions policy that will have continuity in 2027 and that will make it possible to fill gaps, enrich the funds and build, from the same collections, broader, diverse and representative stories of the artistic heritage of Sitges.

CONSERVATION

Make visible what the museums also keep

Another of the lines of 2027 will be to make more accessible funds and collections that are not usually visible, either because of conservation issues, space or because of the nature of the materials themselves, and to generate new knowledge and new stories from this heritage.

In this sense, one of the outstanding projects will be the imminent incorporation of the exceptional legacy of the Archivo Nazario in the Museums of Sitges. His legacy will open a new line of work linked to the cataloguing, conservation, study and dissemination of the fund, which will allow us to delve deeper into the figure and trajectory of Nazario and generate, progressively, new content and stories based on this legacy.

Its incorporation will also contribute to broadening the perspectives and stories presented in the Sitges Museums, reinforcing attention to creators and sensitivities that allow contemporary culture to be explained from more diverse perspectives.

In the Museo del Cau Ferrat, one of the priorities will continue to be the preventive conservation of works on paper, especially sensitive to continued exposure. With the advice of the Generalidad de Catalunya, progress will be made in the progressive replacement of the originals exhibited by high-quality facsimiles, a measure that will allow the pieces to be preserved without renouncing the reading and understanding of the museum collection such as the Santiago Rusiñol legó.

At the same time, work will be done on the creation of a reserve that can be visited as a pilot experience, which will allow the public to access the originals on paper under conditions compatible with their conservation. The proposal wants to explore new formulas to reconcile preservation and accessibility, offering at the same time an experience closer to conservation work and that part of the museum that is usually out of sight of the visitor.

COMMUNITY

Art as a space of well-being, inclusion and community

In 2027, the proposals that relate art, heritage, health and well-being will have continuity, a line that the Museums of Sitges have already begun to work on through different experiences.

Among these initiatives are Vínculos. Art that creates links, developed in collaboration with CAP Sitges, which has used art and the collections of the Museums as a starting point to promote personal links, participation and emotional well-being.

The Club de la Mirada will also continue, a proposal that invites you to observe the works with time, share impressions and generate conversation around them. Two different ways of approaching heritage that share the same idea: making museums spaces for encounter, relationship and well-being.

This will will be accompanied by continued work to open the Museums to the different communities and sensibilities of the town, taking into account the social diversity of Sitges and incorporating in a transversal way aspects such as accessibility, the feminist perspective, the diversity of identities and the representation of diverse groups, at the same time strengthening the link with the town's traditional and popular culture.

Diversity is thus considered a transversal criterion in the way of programming, interpreting the collections and relating to the public. The objective is to move towards more open and inclusive museums, able to listen, dialogue and establish links with a plural society, enhancing the cultural expressions that are part of Sitges' identity.

A heritage that continues to tell new stories

The programming for the last quarter of 2026, collected in the fourth issue of Laboratorio de las Artes, and the projects that are already being prepared for 2027 show some museums in Sitges that continue to explore new ways of conserving, researching, interpreting and sharing heritage.

Charles Deering, Lola Anglada, Santiago Rusiñol, Joan Miró and Josep Maria Subirachs will live together with Ángeles Santos, Grau Sala and Nazario. Research on the collections will open up new perspectives, while their conservation will continue to be one of the Museums' priorities, also in the face of challenges such as the effects of climate change on heritage. Likewise, contemporary art, diversity, accessibility, health and well-being will contribute to broadening views and ways of relating to museums.

This transformation will also reach the spaces. A new signage will give Can Rocamora its own uniqueness, as the Museo del Cau Ferrat and the Museo de Maricel already have, and will reinforce its role as a space for mediation, reception and relationship with people. At the same time, the ground floor of the Museo de Maricel will update the presentation of the Pérez-Rosales Collection, recovering collecting as the guiding thread of this space and proposing a new reading of the works that make it up.

In the coming months, the Museums of Sitges will therefore face the conservation of the collections, research and the generation of knowledge and critical thinking as priorities, but also with the challenge of updating the spaces and the stories, making the heritage more accessible and bringing it closer to the diverse communities and sensibilities of Sitges.

Museums that preserve and study the past, but also question it from the present, to continue generating new stories, new perspectives and new links with the town.