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OFFF at CCCB in Barcelona
The eleventh International Festival of creation and digital culture OFFF is back with: Let´s feed the future at Barcelona Contemporary Cultural Center between 9 and 11 June. After an absence period, due to a tour in which the festival visited important cities as: New York, Berlin, Paris and Lisbon, the festival director, Hector Ayuso, said that this new edition of OFFF would be an important meeting point for lovers of art and innovation. OFFF was born in Barcelona in the early twenty-first century, with the purpose of holding a festival with an innovative approach to the post-digital culture. This art philosophy is meant to encourage people to look at the constant evolving process of art. One of the festival’s new proposals is to answer the question: How ordinary citizens react, when they look at world’s creations: how was it done? This year OFFF has opened the festival to new innovative proposals. For this reason, it will bring famous and new artists together in numerous lectures, workshops and experimental methods to let people know everything about their creations. The full program will feature 70 activities including: performances, lectures, animations and documentaries. The areas of the festival are divided into: Roots, which is a forum where leading artists display their work; Openroom, a space designed for new artists to show their proposals; Workshops, Showplace, an area for products exchange; Cinexin, where people can watch movies or videos and Chillax, a special area for relaxation. Another innovation of OFFF is the Speaker´s Corner. This event is designed for young artists to showcase their works; they will have all the needful technological setting...
Madrid & Andalusi, a history
Sometimes, history is written from confusing, conflicting fragments of information which are then interpreted to fit an already existing general theory. It probably all starts with a decision about what materials are valid for an historical investigation and which aren´t, according to a previous model of theory. So certain facts are discarded, and hidden in spite of having potential scientific and objective value. Also, especially in the history of political corruption, there occurs a certain fabrication of fake proof where deemed necessary. This is an old practice which is far from dead and gone – it has actually undergone a revival in this era of information technology, in which even newspapers which are considered serious, and trustworthy seem to have denounced the practice of the honest collation of news and facts. In the case of Madrid, such a creation of false evidence has taken place for centuries with the study of the origin and the development of the city, leading to a series of unreliable chronicles which have turned their backs on hard facts such as street and place names, and instead presented a Mozarabic Madrid built by primitive virgins and saints as something beyond debate. Undoubtedly, it was the easiest, most convenient thing, to erase the deep rooted link of the city with Islam – a religion historically dogged by tensions. Clearly, it wasn´t advisable for the Spanish monarchy to remember that its capital, since 1561, was a city of Arabic origins – an essentially Moorish place since the Christian conquest in 1065. Instead it chose to fabricate its own, more acceptable history. In the place where the...
Yugoslav Experimental Cinema at MACBA
The Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, MACBA, holds an exhibition of Yugoslav Experimental Cinema 1960-1980 – as part of the exhibition Museum of parallel narratives – until the 6th of July. This sample is an important part of the international activities that the museum has been carrying out in its agenda 2011. The series curated by Ana Janevski reveals an experimental cinematography that changed the language and the dominant aesthetic in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia between the decades from 60´s to 80´s. “We can’t promise to do other than experiment” was the statement that accompanied the KOD group, consisting of visual artists from Novi Sad on the Danube, city which the Serbian director and screenwriter Dušan Makavejev used as scenario to make a visual performative intervention in 1971. This triggered a revolution of thematic paradigms and Yugoslav film production, which was subject to state censorship. Dušan Makavejev was born in Belgrade in 1932. He studied psychology at the University of Belgrade, and after graduating; he got involved in the cinema and festivals society. There he became fascinated with the image content production, so he started studying at the Academy of Radio, Television and Film. In 1953 he began making his first documentaries, which were directly related to post-war events. His tendency to insert experimental raw footage in other productions, deconstructing and re-signifying their contents, transformed him into one of the most important men in Yugoslav cinema. In his first three films: Man is a bird (1966), Love Affair (1967) and Innocence Unprotected (1968), we can see a strong influence from the filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, particularly in...
Egon Schiele in Vienna: Portraits
From time to time, in the history of art, there are characters who are difficult to classify into streams or styles, artists with an aesthetic language so intense and personal that is in some way, a stimulating mystery that delights and disturbs us, alternately and simultaneously leads us along paths of anxiety and ecstasy that we simply can’t forget. This is exactly the case of Egon Schiele (Tulln, Austria, 1890-Vienna, 1918), an artist whose life and work was full of torments and obsessions. He was rutile and fleeting star in the fascinating, modernist Vienna of the Belle Epoque period, which vanished with his death a whole world of what we call the Danube worldview. Together with Oskar Kokoschka and his mentor Gustav Klimt, who profoundly influenced his work, Schiele was one of the most outstanding artists of Viennese modernism. Although in the beginning of his career, his work was greatly influenced by Art Nouveau, soon he developed a style that combined decorative structures with the use of a broken line and aggressive fractured color, which is one of the best examples of Expressionism. His most powerful and impressive works are perhaps the portraits of nude men and women in which he expresses through their positions a variety of emotions ranging from the desperation to passion. A thrilling polarity between love and loneliness, as well as between death and life, stresses all his work. His penetrating nudes, full of a fleshless eroticism and openly exposed, somehow show an insolent and proud sadness. It is precisely his portraits and self portraits – Schiele painted himself over 150 times, and with the...
Andalusian Center of Contemporanean Art of Seville CAAC
At the Centro Andaluz de Artes Contemporaneas (CAAC) in Seville. The exhibition “A test extending beyond the action” will soon open to everybody. This is the first retrospective exposition of K.P Brehmer who, was born in Berlin in Germany in 1938 and died in Hamburg in 1997. This fantastic exhibition will begin on the31st of May and will last until the 12th of June. At the exhibition of this German artist, one of the most important exponents of pop art, -not only in his country, but all over the world- you will be delighted with some of his most significant art pieces On the other hand, Jessica Diamond will present her exhibition called “Murales” on the exterior of the Cartuja Monastery -which is one of the CAAC headquarters- and where you will be able to view numerous piecs of her art works. This singular female artist who created her own style in the eighties, uses language to express through her paintings her countless criticisms about nowadays popular culture and generates with her art a direct energetic message filled with individuality that very little artists are capable of achieving in their life time Finally CAAC will also present the exposition “Prensadas“of Inmaculada Salinas, who, just as the previous expostion we mentioned, will have a period of visitation up until the 12th of June. Here we can see the latest art pieces of Inmaculada and can enjoy her paintings which have a more ideological content as seen in paintings like “Espejo” “Prensada” “Como Fondo” and “Visión de las vencidas“ More Info: http://www.juntadeandalucia.es/cultura/caac/programa/ex_act.htm Centro Andaluz de Artes Contemporáneo: Av. Américo Vespucio, 2...
Gaudi’s architecture and territory
All animals need a territory, which they sometimes mark with their urine. We humans do it by adorning it with our personal tastes, reflecting the way we think and view the world. We decorate our spaces with objects which mean something to us, or which make us feel loved, and cheer us up – and so if there is something that conjures up a past trauma or conflict, it is going to do the exact opposite. The founder of surrealism, Andre Breton lived in a small apartment in Pigalle – the Parisian neighbourhood famous for Moulin Rouge, cabaret and sex shops. The flat consisted of a couple of narrow rooms which were filled with paintings, curios, and magical African sculptures. Irish novelist Samuel Beckett lived in the top flat of an architecturally ordinary building, with minimal furniture, and plain blank walls. Out the window was a view of a prison wall. Marcel Marceau lived in a mansion, with a park, with trees covered in spiderwebs and walls covered with photographs of himself with famous people – actors, presidents, millionaires and so on. Most of his furniture were chests displaying medals, diplomas, trophies, etc. In a large studio, hung dozens of his posters in all different languages. Catalan architect Gaudi lived in a house full of furniture designed by himself, inside Parque Güell. He was an artist who never sought the vindication of his own ego, preferring instead to just observe nature (“The tree near my workshop is my mentor“) as inspiration for his own aesthetic style, which didn´t call for ornamentation. Gaudi was the first artist to dedicate a...
The Marriage of Figaro in Paris
On at Paris´ Opera Bastille until the 7th of June, is Mozart masterpiece The Weddings of Figaro, featuring some of the best soloists in the world, with Bárbara Fritoli playing Countess Almaviva, and Ekaterina Syurina playing Susanna. The Weddings of Figaro is a great four act which was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from the libretto by Italian poet Lorenzo da Ponte, who had been inspired by the comedy The Marriage of Figaro, by Pierre Agustín Caron de Beaumarchais. Mozart met da Ponte in the house of his first child´s godfather, the Baron of Wetzlar, and they started to put Beaumarchais´ satirical work to music. Da Ponte was an adventurer born in Venice, who had abandoned his religious upbringing to devote himself to literature, going on to hold the post of court playwright. His career working in the court hadn´t brought great success, so the project of adapting Beaumarchais was his great challenge. The piece opened in Paris to a certain amount of suspicion, due to the fact it was inspired by a text written by somebody who served in the French Revolution, and who had written in a satirical style in order to reflect upon the power struggles of the decadent nobility. Emperor Jose II opposed it being shown in Vienna, one of the most eminent places for opera at the time, as he considered it a bad omen, and too risky. Mozart and Da Ponte managed to convince him to show it, on the condition they made some amendments to the libretto, making it more socially acceptable. The fifth act was quickly deleted, and five characters omitted....Avogaria
Avogaria is a modern but classic restaurant in the city of Venice where you´ll find the four foods of the day accompanied by a good service.
Carnival of Cultures in Berlin
From the 10th to 13th of June we will have the opportunity to enjoy the Carnival of Cultures in Berlin. A festival that fills the streets of the German capital, with joy, dancing and debauchery, just as said by those who have experienced one of the best parties of late spring. Carnival of Cultures was created as a celebration of the immigrant population, roughly about 450,000 inhabitants, of the total population of 3.4 million. They brought new influences to the culture of Berlin. In 1995 the city radically changed due to the fall of the Wall and the unification of East and West Berlin. This resulted in conflicts of intolerance and rejection, probably due to the political and economic crisis. Ethnic groups clashed and a unifying thread between the various Cultures was needed. The concepts of City and diversity, gave life to Workshop of Cultures, which brought together communities from different religions, nationalities, races and cultures in order to unify efforts around a political platform based on cultural diversity and tolerance. The carnival was the unifying thread. The Carnival was founded in 1996 with the aim of achieving integration through artistic expression, also by means of the creation of hundreds of jobs generated from the organization and activities performed during the two days of the carnival. Since then, the Carnival became the most important festival for migrants from all over the continent who live in Berlin. European models, mainly Italian and Spanish, inspired the Carnival, although this event has its own idiosyncrasy. Ethnic groups from around the world, gather every year in Berlin to present their arts and expose...
