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Raphael again in concert in Seville
Oh Rapahel! We almost died of boredom when we were six, seven years old listening to your records our mothers would constantly play all day long. Rapahel is such an important part of the spanish and latin culture it´s impossible to erase him. Songs such as “Maravilloso Corazón”, “Yo soy aquel”, “Como yo te amo” y “Mi gran noche” have been part of the collective Spanish culture for decades. The success of this divo lies not just in his mannerisms or his irreverence but in his great voice and unique charisma that have managed to keep him, despite of fashions and trends in the hearts of everyone Take a walk for a moment as you read this article into YouTube. Search for Raphael performances back in the 60´s and savor that bitter taste of this star which came from the time of Franco´s dictatorship, but was never related to any political movement. His style was then on the crest of the new wave of Spanish pop: his outstanding voice, completely dressed in black, (one of his trademarks ) and that dreamy face of his, leading the Spanish pop movement without causing a stir, believing blindly in romance and love, reaching out to every single adolescent in the country and beyond the borders of Spain. Then the crazier, wilder era would come, the long hair, jumping theatricality up and down on stage, almost rolling on the floor, perhaps this was his best time, a beautiful moment of an extremely high-caliber showman. In some performances his full-blooded quasi flamenco dancing merged with a less tight clothed version of Jim Morrison shocking...
Chris Cunningham in Barcelona
Chris Cunningham is nowadays one of the most acclaimed young visual artists in the world due to the terrifying aesthetics of his videos like “All is full of love” done for the Icelandic singer Bjork, in this video two robot-girls fall in love with each other and try to have sex, and “Frozen”, in which he turned Madonna into a flock of crows and shadows. He was born in 1970 in Reading, England. From a very young age, he fell in love with arts; first he started drawing, then doing sculptures and later photographing. He started his artistic career in the comic magazine “2000AD”, publishing works under the pseudonym of Chris Halls. Then, he participated in the creation of the special effects of “Alien 3”, “Alien: Resurrection” and “Judge Dredd”. But the project that gave him world fame was the video clip of the song “Come to Daddy” by Aphex Twin, an acclaimed composer of electronic music. In this video Cunningham challenges the imagination of the spectators while building his aesthetics in the creation of videos with endless series of monstrous and misshapen figures, where horror and terror are very close to us, they are actually totally immersed in the reality we know. As it might be easy to suppose, at the beginning he provoked a scandal in the commercial video world and especially in MTV, where there was an esthetic uniformity that was ignored by Cunningham in a very clever way. The video shows six-year-old children with adult faces running in a psychedelic city and as they hit fences with metal bars, he synchronizes the blows with the...
Lartigue’s Floating World- Madrid
The photographic exhibition of Jacques Henri Lartigue (1894 – 1986) can be seen in Caixa Forum in Madrid until the 19th of June. Perhaps the most impacting impression people have when visiting the exhibition is the facial expression of the other visitors as they move in slow motion through the different rooms, which seem to have been designed to stop time. Until 1963, Lartigue’s photographic works were completely anonymous, but after the success of his exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, his works started to receive their deserved recognition. From that very moment, his prestige has not stopped growing. That can be explained by the facial expressions we referred to in the first paragraph, since all of them show in different but unequivocal ways the invincible power of suggestion of some snapshots that he began to take when he was eight years old. These snapshots were taken almost daily, and they were accompanied by several brief texts, with the firm intention of facing the fleetingness and expiration of things. One of the most important concepts in Japanese aesthetics called mono no aware. We can approach its definition by saying that it alludes to a deep feeling of empathy towards the perishable beauty of things. That aspect is reflected in Lartigue’s photographs, who was able to photograph as nobody else did, the daily life of the Belle Epoque world –which by the way, was not separated from a certain obsession with the orientalism in general and particularly with the Japanese art–as well as the interwar period. As a document of a whole generation that felt constantly...
PJ Harvey: Distant songs of Gallipoli
One of the great British disasters during the First World War was the Gallipoli battle, during which, after the apparently successful landing of the French and British troops, there remained atrapados in the Helles cape. As well as a considerable loss of war ships, it was estimated that the human loss in the the British army had reached a quarter of a million, with around 50,000 soldier´s lives lost. The disaster then had inevitable political repercussions, bringing about the disgrace of Winston Churchill, who had been the main promotor of the campaign, and a legendary ´national hero´ status to General Atatürk who would be the founder, and first president of the modern Turkish republic. During the Gallipoli battle, as with other battles since the beginning of time, there manifested that sense of the individual being transcended, and becoming a collective experience; as if the soldiers had had mutual dreams, perhaps nightmares too, which they all felt simultaneously. A quality of dream, trench, and mist is what marks the latest album from PJ Harvey, Let England Shake, which is a kind of critical exploration of Englishness, through historical look at wars and their vestiges; destruction near and far, in which the United Kingdom has played a part. Three songs on the record refer directly to the Gallipoli massacre, whilst another refers more generally to the devastation caused by the Great War – or rather the latter revision of the event. There is no clear critical message, and much of the richness of the album is in its ambiguity, and the freedom given to the listener to draw their own conclusions....
The houses of Gaudi in Barcelona
To talk about the works of Antoni Gaudí is similar as expressing in abstract terms the love for something that transcends geometry and becomes poetic. The Catalan architect and artist left a priceless legacy to humanity and forever changed architecture with his creations. Although there are many works from Gaudí, only a few are well known and visited by tourists, especially in the city of Barcelona, who lives and breathes the timeless legacy left behind by this artist, so the following paragraphs are just a brief description of the existing buildings in Barcelona and its surroundings, which may not be as popular as the Sagrada Familia, but are of great importance in the history of the artist Among the most unknown houses of the architect we have Bellesguard. Built in a mythical location where the house of King Martin “The human” (Last King of Catalunya) was located. This house was built in 1408 and subsequently destroyed during the war. Bellesguard was built almost 500 years later and had great significance for Gaudí by this historical fact, something that is very well represented in the medieval and neo-Gothic architecture that makes the building very different from the rest of his constructions, for it is a castle that recalls this moment in the history of Catalunya. The house is located in the district of Sarria, in Bellesguard Street Another of his houses is Casa Vicens, in Carolines Street, between Fontana and Lesseps metro stop. This was Gaudi´s fist assignment after graduating as an architect, so it is perhaps the best example of this first stage of the artist, full of Muslim...
Electrovenice: Electronic Music Festival
On Saturday, the 18th of June, the city of canals will be the scenario of Electrovenice Festival, which will take place in the San Giuliano Park in Venice. The organizers of the Electrovenice 2011 have stated that the most important DJs will participate in this electronic party, an event without precedent for vinyl lovers. Electrovenice Festival was founded in 2010 with the purpose of bringing together electronic music and dance with the cheerful summer atmosphere in a fun outdoor space. This year, the vinyl fever will arrive to Venice again in one of the best European electronic festivals. Among the top performers of this event is the famous German DJ Sven Väth, a well-known minimal techno guru, who has produced a great amount of discs since 1982. He has succeeded as a businessman at Harthouse Records and Eye Q Records and he is also the founder of the record label Cocoon Recording. His work is considered as a prodigy of meticulosity and creativity that arises from the investigation of sounds and his tireless effort to do his best on the stages. Many people consider him as a legend, because he can perform in the stage for hours. Another great performer we will see on stage is the British DJ Fatboy Slim, also known as Norman Cook, although his real name is Quentin Leo Cook. His big beat style with a combination of Hip Hop, Rock, Break-beat and Blues has turned him into a reference artist of his genre with his disc Better Living Through Chemistry (1997). Despite of the fact that his new work Halfway Between The Gutter and...
¿Qué hace esto aquí?: Lázaro Galdiano Museum in Madrid
The Lázaro Galdiano Museum will present the exhibition “Que hace esto Aquí” Contemporary Art from the Maria Jose Jove Foundation at the Lázaro Galdiano Museum and will display a very significant collection of art work of some of the most important European and Spanish origin contemporary artists. The exposition is part of the Maria José Jove Foundation private collection and it is the first time this institution from La Coruña has an exhibition in Mardid The art works that you will be able to enjoy in the museum will be varied and different in view of the fact that the idea behind this exhibition is to provoke in the viewer a hefty variety of feelings. In the exposition you will be able to see paintings from Pablo Picasso, one of the most important painters in the history of Art The art works that have been chosen to present this exhibition are those that somehow or another were significant for the different artistic movements that occured during the XX century. Beside the Modelo en el Taller from Picasso, a cloth from Miró belonging to the fortie can be seen as wel as artwork from Francisco Leiro, Tino Grandío, Antonio Saura, Salvador Dalí, Miquel Barceló, Zurbarán, Goya, Kandinsky, Manolo Millares, Manolo Valdés and Eduardo Chillida amongst other very well known artists More Info: http://www.flg.es/agenda/contenido/exposiciones_temporales.htm Museo Lázaro Galdiano: Serrano 122, Madrid MiLK The exhibition will take place in Madrid until the 20th of June and can be visited in the Lázaro Galdiano Museum. If you want to enjoy ¿Qué hace esto aquí? Contemporary art of the María José Jove Foundation and see...
Teotihuacan, in CaixaForum Barcelona
Barcelona’s CaixaForum is holding an exhibition entitled Teotihuacan la Ciudad de los Dioses (Teotihuacan, City of Gods). It is composed of around 400 pieces of pre-Hispanic Mexican art selected from some of the most important museums in Mexico. The exhibition, open until 19 June, aims to reveal the wealth of this legendary civilisation that is famous for its remarkable political system, its incredible architecture and art, as well as its mysterious disappearance. The city of Teotihuacan is located just 45 kilometres from Mexico City. In 1987 it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Its name comes from the náhuatl tongue and means ‘the place where gods are born’. At its height, The City of Gods extended to over 20 square kilometres and contained a population of around 100, 000. Its culture spanned almost eight decades, beginning 200 years before Christ and coming to an end sometime after 700 AD. The city was organized around great monuments: the pyramids of the sun and the moon, and the magnificent Temple of Quetzalcoatl, with over 366 serpent heads representing the water goddess depicted on its four facades. Like any great city, Teotihuacan was built using urban planning. The Avenue of the Dead was designed to connect the two most important focal points for their culture: the pyramids. Teotihuacan was an incredible city: the most well constructed of any on the Mesoamerican continent, its remains reveal to us a culture with a huge political capacity for creating social cohesion on the basis of control and fear. Its vastness, standing tall in the middle of a wide valley, must have inspired admiration...
The Realism of Courbet in Barcelona
For a long time, Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) was thought of as a revolutionary painter. On the one side, was his professional status as a free man, whose desire was not to depend on any form of power or religion. There was also his political activism; he was an active participant in the Paris Commune, in which he entrusted himself with the administration of the museums of the city – which resulted in a prison sentence and a subsequent period of exile. On the other side, there is the scandal caused by some of his more notorious paintings, such as The Origin of the World, a graphic depiction of sex, and female nudity – or The Dream (also known as The Two Friends, or Laziness and Lust), which shows two naked women sleeping arm in arm, as though having just slept together, with one resting her head on the other´s neck. However, probably the true revolution of Courbet´s work is not in his evident capacity to shock, and challenge the prudish, hypocritical bourgeoisie morality – but rather his way, more in line with the work of Caravaggio two centuries earlier, of opting for the truth, to the detriment of established notions of beauty; of accepting nothing but the most natural. It was one of Courbet´s exhibitions, in a shack in 1855, titled The Realism, which gave name to the entire realism movement, changing the course of modern art forever. And when Courbet painted himself in his shirtsleeves, like a vagabond, it shook the art world, for its unapologetic expression of the world as he saw it, and opened up a...Piccolo Mondo
Piccolo Mondo is an old bar in the city of Venice that characterizes itself for its good taste to choose the music and the good atmosphere that dominate its dancefloors.
