Human beings have been one of the great subjects of art throughout the ages. Artists in all disciplines and styles have strived to explore humans’ multiple facets: their figure and body, their gestures and attitudes, their ideas and feelings, their dreams and passions, their strengths and vulnerabilities.

This exhibition brings together twelve works from the ”la Caixa” Foundation Collection of Contemporary Art to compare and contrast different representations and experiences of what it means to be human. The title of the show is taken from the book of the same name by Josep Maria Esquirol, who felt compelled to write his latest essay after rereading Nietzsche’s Human, All Too Human. His own book subtly subverts the original title by replacing all too with more to reflect his belief that, contrary to Nietzsche, we shouldn’t see the world as a higher plane beyond mundane human existence. Human existence isn’t a condition to be overcome; in fact, by probing, exploring and examining what it really means to be human we can gain invaluable insight into our world and culture. And this means recognising human vulnerability, which, as Esquirol reminds us, is what gives us the ability to feel and suffer, and by the same token, to think and fight.

The show was put together during months of great uncertainty under the lockdown triggered by the global Covid-19 pandemic, a period that has exposed human fragility and caused us great anxiety in isolation, while at the same time sparking profound reflection on our place and role in the world. Enforced social distancing has made us aware of the value of intimacy and led us to appreciate our home as a haven from outside hazards and adversities. Above all, though, it has enabled us to see humans as relational beings and underscored our need to share experiences with others and feel we are not alone. Human beings form part of the world’s rich variety, and our existence depends upon a complex web of interwoven relationships not just with other people, but also with the other living beings and things that inhabit the planet. Although this experience has affected humanity as a whole, we have all experienced it individually, and it has unleashed a tremendous urge to get together again, to feel united once more, to share life and engage with the world to the full.

The word humanity has guided the selection of works on display, together with other terms we have heard repeatedly over these long months: loneliness, body, vulnerability, resilience, the elements, haven, immobility; and, of course, social interaction, togetherness and celebration.

The exhibition is divided into two completely different spaces in which artworks from different periods and genres can be reread through the lens of our own recent experiences. The first comprises four large paintings from the 1980s with the human figure as their central motif. With their dense, vibrant and emotive brushstrokes, these works create a symbolic space overflowing with a multicoloured current of ancient, anthropomorphic bodies with the idea of race very present. A. R. Penck’s repertoire of signs and schematic figures are comprehensible in all cultures. Miquel Barceló captures humans’ animal nature in a tense, impulsive gesture. The sewn-up lips on Jean-Michel Basquiat’s painted mask encapsulate the barbarous monster of racism. And Georg Baselitz sets his figures upside down in an attempt to start over, to relearn from the world and to put emotions back in painting.

The second space contains images closer to reality. Drawing on different experiences of life, this set of works from different disciplines explores the tension between inside and out, private and public, immobility and movement. Forms of confinement and fragility are followed by images of togetherness, fun and collective celebration. Anna Malagrida’s photographs capture how communication can be choked by city life, and Liu Jianhua alludes to the ambitions of global capitalism by representing the fragile foundations of Western architecture in cities in modern-day China. Sam Taylor-Wood portrays contemporary tedium and loneliness, Jean-Marc Bustamante conveys the exuberant energy of a group of teenagers in a nightclub, and Vik Muniz reproduces and reshapes the vast sea of human bodies in Weegee’s photograph of a beach on Coney Island, an iconic image that now seems to belong to an utterly different time and place. Far from madding crowds and human noise, artists such as Txomin Badiola, Jorge Barbi and Gino Rubert explore the effects of isolation as a means of delving deeper into their personal identity. The show ends with the exuberant human mass in Stephen Dean’s video: an explosion of joy as spectators in a crammed football stadium celebrate their team’s victory.

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The ”la Caixa” Foundation Collection of Contemporary Art features a wide variety of different imaginaries that are recast with each new exhibition to create fresh takes on art and open up new ways of seeing the world. Since the early 1980s it has steadily incorporated a wide range of art projects reflecting the ever-expanding world of art and our constantly changing society and culture.