One morning in August 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre without anyone noticing. The painting remained missing for two years. However, far from deterring visitors, this absence had the opposite effect: crowds flocked to the museum to see the empty space on the wall.

Curated by Alexandra Laudo, A Certain Darkness—the third and final show in the 2017–2018 edition of Comisart—starts with this theft at the start of the last century and goes on to explore concepts such as opacity, concealment and absence through the lens of contemporary art. It brings together works from the ”la Caixa” Collection of Contemporary Art and the MACBA Collection, together with pieces from likeminded contexts, to create an exhibition that hides as much as it reveals while inviting us to reflect on the overabundance and abuse of images in today’s world. Travelling in the opposite direction than usual, A Certain Darkness brings out the narrative power of things we cannot see, things we simply feel or know intuitively from their absence, from that darkness hinted at in the title. In Alexandra Laudo’s own words, “The exhibition examines how artists and curators can try out forms of resistance to today’s hypervisual, ocularcentric world.”

In the same vein, and in keeping with a curatorial approach that plays more with expectations than certainties, A Certain Darkness also includes a number of pieces deliberately placed outside the exhibition space, either at other sites across the city or in cyberspace. In contrast to the easily accessible works in the show, these pieces in Vanishing Points will only be found by the most proactive and inquisitive spectators. Much like the curious 20th-century visitors who came to look at the missing Mona Lisa at the Louvre.

The exhibition features pieces by Joan Brossa, José Maldonado, Christo, Tim Rollins, Juan Francisco Isidro, Pedro Mora, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Àngels Ribé, João Maria Gusmão + Pedro Paiva, Pedro G. Romero, Perejaume, Ira Lombardía, David Batchelor, Pol González Novell, Pedro Torres, Michèle Métail  and Martin Parr.

A Certain Darkness is accompanied by a digital catalogue with texts by Alexandra Laudo that explore the exhibition in greater depth. The exhibition space also includes a piece that draws parallels between the theft of the Mona Lisa and the contents of the show.