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Anselm Kiefer in Venice
One of the most important conceptual artists, and father of the modern “alchemy,” Anselm Kiefer presents his new installation “Salt of the Heart” at La Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova, on until the 30th of November. Kiefer is without a doubt one of the most important conceptual artists alive today. He´s also a pioneer of reinventing the use of alchemy in the plastic arts. Born in Donaueschingen, Germany in 1945, he studied painting with Peter Dreher and Horst, and later in Düsseldorf, where he was student of Joseph Beuys. His persistent thirst for knowledge also took him to study law and French. If his beginnings were in a more purist style of painting, he soon became interested in the world of installation and “happenings,” and his personal style quickly transformed. His first one-man show was in 1969, with a series of paintings called “Occupations.” Kiefer´s work has been described by critics as a kind of experimental poem, with an aesthetic quality which transmutes, and mixes things up together with a controversial edge, casting a critical eye over reality, and the history of the world. The artist pays particular attention to ways in which the history of his country have been revised, and its past relationship with Nazism. A clear example of this is his work based on the poems written by Paul Celan during his imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps. Here, Celan´s work, “Todesfuge”, with its recollections of a traumatic process, is transformed into a spectacular canvas, titled “Margarethe” (1980). Also a key, visible part of Kiefer´s work are themes such as mysticism, philosophy, literature, and the cosmos. Kiefer´s...
Roman Landscapes in the Museo del Prado
The Prado Museum has had really interesting and relevant expositions but the one which is currently opened, called “Roma: Nature and Ideal. Landscapes. 1600-1650,” is according to its promoters one of the most ambitious ones that recently have been exposed and one which gathers more works related to the subject of the exposition than ever before. The exhibition was previously at the Grand Palais in Paris and in Madrid now reaches one of the most important museums that will be presented from July 5th until September 25th. At it you will see more than one hundred works of which 83 are paintings and 19 drawings. In the presentation there are some amazing works of incalculable value not only in relation to the theme of the expo, but also as far as artistic value is concerned. You will enjoy the works of Velázquez, Claude Lorrain, Poussin, Caravaggio, Raphael, Giorgione and Titian, among many others. According to the curator of the presentation, Andres Ubeda, the show will be full of surprises and the work “Marina” by artist Salvator Rosa, who was not exposed ever before will be there for your visual enjoyment The only difference that exists with the presentation that was held at the Grand Palais and the one held at the Museo del Prado is that the drawings presented are different due to a conservation issue (they could not move locations without risk) Also in Madrid there is a section that did not exist in the French capital. The explanation of the the ordering by Philip IV of the elaboration of many landscapes that would be used to decorate...
Streetmatching, an application to flirt
When you´re walking down the street, either going for a walk or nearly running to make administrative dealings, you look around. Observe the landscape, the city´s movement, the cars, the buildings, but what you give the most attention to is looking at all the attractive people that come across them. Many times, us women tell our friends “You won´t guess the man I´ve just come across at the bakery, he was an angel fallen from the sky”. But (nearly) always this love at first sight never materializes because the other person never realised we exist. The same happens to men, the look a lot around the street but few of them find the courage to talk to the beautiful women they´ve seen go past. With the advance of new technologies and the popularization of smartphones, personal relations are changing and there´s already an application that allows us to flirt in the street, without being creepy or out of place. The application is called Streetmatching and it´s free but only when compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. It´s available in various languages (Spanish, English, French, Italian and Portuguese) and it can be used in any city in the world. The procedure for using this application is very easy. You download it to your phone and when it installs you complete your personal details (e-mail, phone number, address). When you´re walking down the street and you see someone attractive who´s caught your eye it immediately localizes your “flirt” and later registers it in Streetmatching. That way, if there´s another person that felt an attraction to you in the same direction,...
Xijing: contemporary Asian art in Venice
What happens when you erase the borders between nations? That is, we have no real frontiers: the flow of information around the globe is determined by the geographical location of your participation in the real world and is becoming less important or recognizable. The faces of the world change. A Spainard loses his identity as well as a Pakistani or an Egyptian or a German: the geographical features of the body will dissolve with the next generation and no one will know where we come from, we will all be all patriots of the great network of information, perhaps united but with a lack of races and creeds, maybe… Part of the flow of territories and information declines in real or imaginary cities. The fiction of the city is based on its products and its people, their ability to make everything believable and accurate to produce and consume. But what happens if we create a fictional reality within the virtual world?The Xijing collective proposal presented in the Piazza San Marco, seeks to challenge these strategic building networks of real and fictitious economies, as we have come to believe, or have been led to believe that the degree of likelihood of all there is is accessible when the final part is not. Are the notions of equality likelihood in the East and West? The exhibition is organized by the Xijing Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation and Arthub Asia, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the production of art in Asia. This is the first exhibition devoted to the Xijing art collective, a team of participating artists: Shaoxiong Chen (China), Tsuyoshi Ozawa (Japan)...
Rosa Crux, Narsilion and Trobar de Morte in Barcelona
Rosa Crux can always be relied upon to deliver a top quality, intimate gig, as a French band who stand out for their innovative, investigative approach to music. The art and language of performance are themes which have become an integral part of the group´s unique identity. Rosa Crux was born in 1986, when Olivier Tarabo and Claude Feeny got together for an artistic musical project which could be described as “gothic medieval ritual” – though as it was so much more besides, it is difficult to classify; not least because they make many of the instruments used in their compositions and live shows themselves. Another characteristic of the “Rosa Crux identity” is that their pieces are sung in Latin, and are mainly inspired by ritualistic texts from the 18th century, and myths of cannibalism and alchemy which the band have investigated and decided to put to music, and bring to the public. Though their four albums may seem like few, given how many years the band has been around, they are all complete, rounded works of art; the products of lengthy periods of research. I would highly recommend each and every one of them, and though they may not be to everyone´s tastes and ears, I´d also add that once you hear them, you are either instantly drawn into the magic, and history of the band or not all – there is certainly no middle ground with Rosa Crux. Their Barcelona show is on the 23rd of July – and comes all the more recommended as they will be accompanied by local band Trobar de Morte, who have...
Sting in Venice
Probably most people don’t even know who is Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, but this is actually the real name of one of the most famous musicians of all times: Sting. The artist, who was part of the band The Police (which led him to become famous around the world), is touring around the globe presenting his latest production, called “Symphonicities”, and this time comes to Venice to give a concert on the 29th of July. Sting was born in northern England in 1951 and was the bassist and lead singer of The Police, a group that broke up in ´84 and returned for a series of sporadic presentations between 2007 and 2008. Sting is as always doing things related to music and last year released his last studio album, “Symphonicities”. As a member of The Police and also during his solo career, Sting has beaten an incredible sum of 100 million albums and won several awards of all kinds: 16 Grammys and even an Oscar nomination. Sting showed a natural talent for music since he was a kid and already at 8 he was able to play his first songs using a guitar that his uncle had thrown away. As he grew older he started being part of several bands. These bands included: Phoenix Jazzmen, Last Exit and Newcastle Big Band. The highlight came in ´77 when The Police was born, and from that moment the trio began to make history. Sting launched 18 solo albums and still has great success creating productions. More information: http://www.ticketbis.com/entradas-sting-venezia/ev5729 Piazza San Marco: Piazza San Marco, 30100 Venice, Italy MiLK So, if you...
Annika Ström in Seville
While it is very possible that nothing hurts as much as music is also true that perhaps nothing has a similar potential to transform the personal and collective reality of humanity. Perhaps it is not at all strange if we view the universe and life in a Pythagorean manner, as a harmony of musical worlds or spheres, in alignment or with the ancient Hindu tradition that places dancing in the universal creation and destruction of Shiva with the revelation of cosmic truth, either way akin to modern theories of quantum strings that posit a multidimensional poliverse that consists of simultaneous non-vibrational states of a non poetic sense of eternity. In Woody Guthrie´s guitar you could read the phrase “This machine kills fascists” to illustrate the case in a straightforward way. Through the affiliation of music social changes are almost as old as the history of mankind. It is possible that at first songs came to bring the collective union together according to a rhythmical pattern, creating a harmonious union between the different people involved in tasks. Similarly, the great epic poems that were sung for generations contributed to the feeling of belonging to a community with a history and common values. Throughout the Middle Ages poems remained inseparable from music, the art of the Muses contributed decisively to the creation of a collective imagination of a world view of a particular generator that could in turn be subverted by the very form of expression . Thus, we could genuinely generate movements such as the Goliards or the dance of death, where the songs were the essential element, not to...
Jamiroquai in Venice
Jamiroquai is one of those artists that marked a trend. Not only because of their innovative and contagious funky music but also for the amazing dance moves of singer Kay and his extravagant dress code, although nowadays not such a surprise, certainly a visual trip that renovates constantly. The group was formed in England in 1992 by singer Jason “Jay” Kay (hence the name), the man known for his strange smooth dance moves and weird hats. But in addition to Jay in the band there also is Derrick McKenzie, the drummer, Sola Akingbola, a percussionist , Rob Harris on guitar, Matt Johnson on keyboards and Paul Turner on bass. Today the group is synonymous of funk music and considered one of the most relevant, important and trend-setting bands in this musical style. The name of the band comes from the union of the name of the singer Jason Kay with the name of an Indian tribe called the Iroquois. According to Jason he identifies himself with the mentality of this tribe. In addition it also comes from the English word “jamming” meaning musical improvisation and for this reason as well they decided to use Jamiroquai as their monicker Throughout its history Jamiroquai has released seven studio albums and in them they are some of the most danced songs in clubs around the world. Tunes such as “Space Cowboy”, “Virtual Insanity” or “Cosmic Girl” have become absolute classics and essential at any club It all started when Jay Kay showed up to be the singer of the band Brand New Heavies and it just didn´t happen. After that he decided...Gran Vía
The Gran Vía is known as the most important street in Madrid because, along its way, it houses clothes shops, cinemas, theatres and striking buildings.
