A portrait of life’s complexity on the Moll de Mestral
A new open-air exhibition at Port Olímpic, in collaboration with Fundació Mapfre, brings images from the KBr photography center out into the city.
Looking for a reason to stroll by the sea? The Port Olímpic has one: a series of large-format photographs by Helen Levitt, on view at Moll de Mestral through January.
The initiative is part of a collaboration between Fundació Mapfre (which runs the KBr photography center), the City Council’s Institute of Culture and the municipal company BSM. Alongside the exhibition, music students from the Conservatori Liceu will perform pieces inspired by the images.
The works displayed outdoors belong to one of KBr’s photo center (5€) current shows. One is dedicated to the American photographer Helen Levitt, while the other—KBr Flama 2025—presents four emerging Barcelona talents.
Levitt (1913–2009) began photographing the streets of New York in the late 1930s, often capturing children at play in the city’s neighborhoods and parks. A contemporary of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Walker Evans, she portrayed daily life in images that speak for themselves—emotional, unembellished, and attentive to the complexity of existence.
The KBr exhibition surveys her career: from iconic black-and-white scenes of New York’s poorest districts, where the line between public and private space blurs, to little-known work shot in Mexico, and a substantial body of color photography.
Curated by Joshua Chuang, the show revisits the legacy of a pioneer who carved out a voice in a field dominated by men—alongside figures like Consol Kanaga, Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange and Tina Modotti. Levitt was one of the first women to have a solo exhibition at MoMA, and one of the few able to sustain a professional career in photography at the time.
Her work carries a strong social conscience, weaving stories through images that explore the space between individual lives and collective experience.
At the same time, KBr presents KBr Flama 2025, its annual commitment to young photography from Barcelona’s training centers. This edition features Bernat Erra, Irina Cervelló, Abril Coudougnan and Patrick Martin, four different approaches that question how memory—personal, collective or territorial—is built. Expect analog photography, digital experimentation, and reinterpretations of public and private archives.
If you don’t want to miss Helen Levitt’s photographs by the sea—or the full exhibitions Helen Levitt and KBr Flama 2025 at KBr—head to the Port Olímpic and the center itself. Check the websites for details.