Cosmo es una bonita cafetería en Barcelona. Cosmo es también una galería de arte. I’m afraid that after just six weeks of Spanish lessons, that’s about the size of my descriptive prowess. I think we’ve just learnt how to connect two simple phrases, but I’m not about to try anything too heavy on a public forum – besides, Barcelona’s Cosmo deserves a few more adjectives and superlatives than I can delve into my diminutive little sack of Spanish vocabulary for.
Cosmo, or Cosmo Galeria Cafeteria to give it its full name, sits on a pretty pedestrianised street on the left side of the city’s affluent L’Eixample – and it shouldn’t take a native tongue to translate Cosmo’s illustrative suffix: part art gallery, part café. It also does a fine line in kitsch jumble-sale paraphernalia, its wonky interiors as delightfully peachy and eccentric as the revolving art on show. Handsome aesthetics are twinned with an equally likeable atmosphere, convivial café by day, low-key drinks by night – it succeeds in its owners’ ambitions of creating a space that harmoniously coalesces the venue’s two base constituents.
Drop by for Calaveras Gigantes en el Día de Muertos until 30 November, where a brilliant series of huge illustrated skulls celebrating the famed Mexican tradition dominate the back space of the café. A quartet of Mexican artists – LauTanamera, Mama Wolfe, Joan X. Vázquez and elFRK – are involved. ¡Bien hecho!
