On a little side road, right around the corner from the Picasso Museum & Moco Museum, you’ll find a little gem of a museum, a real insider tip. While Picasso will make you wait, you’ll usually be able to enter this museum straight away.

Cross the little courtyard, go to the first floor, and discover modern Spanish and Catalan artists. Sure, these aren’t the big names (yet), but the MEAM collection is really, really good. The artists and museum are devoted to figurative art, so no abstract works here.

The MEAM’s entire concept is worth some discussion itself. For one, it’s a museum of modern art located in an old building that’s never really been modernized. That already gives it a lot of charm. And then there’s the music that plays lightly in the background – not at all something that I’ve seen very often. Also, the artists and the foundation work together directly.

You’ll find a wide array of art forms here – paintings, sculptures, photography, and some sketches, too. The topics are varied, too: social criticism, anti-war art, scenes of the macabre, and religious imagery, too. But the art is completely figurative, and not abstract.