By Invitation is the modern and contemporary art salon of the Círculo Ecuestre, Barcelona’s oldest business club, headquartered in a modernist palace designed in 1910 by architect Joan Josep Hervás i Arizmendi and decorated by Joan Esteva, located at the intersection of Balmes Street and Diagonal Avenue.

The event opens the doors of this exclusive club to the art world through a carefully curated programme that reaffirms the Círculo Ecuestre’s long-standing commitment to the promotion of culture and the arts.

The project’s vision is to contribute to cultivating a new culture of collecting from Barcelona, conceived as a practice that is transmitted and enriched through intergenerational dialogue, placing art and artists at the centre of the cultural experience.

The artistic programme is complemented by a collectors and professionals programme, a patronage programme, and a series of talks. With over 10,000 visitors in its latest edition, and thanks to the support of leading sponsors, By Invitation has established itself as a distinctive event within the national art calendar.

OPEN THREADS  is the concept of the 2026 edition of By Invitation. It proposes thinking of art as a space where new forms of social relations, imaginaries of the present, and narratives about the future are woven, intertwined, and constructed.

In this context, the club makes its most emblematic rooms available to host selected exhibition projects, becoming the setting for often unprecedented encounters between artists from different geographies and generations, historical and emerging galleries, as well as collectors, professionals, and institutions who, from diverse perspectives and intentions, contribute to the broader cultural landscape within both the artistic ecosystem and society at large.

The notion of “thread” originates in a material dimension — as a set of threads that, when interlaced, form a fabric — and expands into a narrative dimension: a network of stories that emerges when different voices meet, creating a plural intersection where singular narratives give way to multiplicity and complexity.

Participation in By Invitation is exclusively by direct invitation, in keeping with the curated nature of the project.