Published on http://artmag.saatchigallery.com/bjork-digital/

Björk Digital opened at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) during the same week the Icelandic artist participated at Sónar 2017 with an exclusive four-hour DJ set, prempted by a conversation with Brandon Stosuy of Pitchfork. Every year Sonar organises a large, articulate series of talks and conferences framed as Sónar+D, where art and technology are disucussed in detail by an international mix of professionals across both fields. 

This virtual reality experience, now staged in Barcelona until the end of September, has already passed through Tokyo, Sydney, Montreal, Reykjavik, London and Los Angeles. Throughout the ninety minutes of the show you’re given the opportunity to live inside the many collaborations Björk realised with top-notch videographers and visionaries like Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, Alexander McQueen, Nick Knight, Stephane Sednaoui, and, more recently, Jesse Kanda, Andrew Thomas Huang, Warren du Prees and Nick Thornton Jones. Prepare to trigger the never before Björk-ified parts of your brain with colourful new sensations. If you choose to believe in what you see, that is.

Conceptually referencing classic Greek tragedies, Björk tells her story, asking us to not only witness but participate with our emotions as fellow travellers of time and space. Well-known for her ever-eccentric style (fashionwise and many otherwises), Björk invites visitors to occupy her favourite locales. A black island in Iceland where she likes to write; the setting for a video she co-produced with MoMa a little while back; even the inside of her throat.

The journey takes places among small knots of visitors, grouped together for large chunks of the exhibition. It’s ultimately a personal choice, though, to lose oneself in the strange propagandist magic of Björk’s tales or to remain alert for the duration of the show and leave with an intact worldview.

Whether you’re a fan of the singer, are haunted by memories of that swan dress, or are just keen to check out this new-age sort event, Björk Digital equates to an agreeable hour and a half spent.  If you’ve never tried to get lost in technologies like this, perhaps it’s a good time to give it a chance, since it seems to be the direction cultural interaction is heading in a hurry. And it feels only natural for a Björk (for there’s really no other sufficiently descriptive noun but a Björk) of such deepening mystique to embrace limitless augmented realities with open arms and vocal cords.

Published on /artmag.saatchigallery.com/brian-eno-lightformssoundforms/

Lightforms/Soundforms, an enlightening (quite literally) show on view until 1 October at Arts Santa Mónica in Barcelona devles into the current state of affairs of visual artist and musician Brian Eno. Brian Eno who claims with verve to love this city, where he recently delivered inspiring talks at Sonar 2016 and the CCCB Center, and attended a 1992 conference at the same Santa Mónica location. So, honouring this personal link, he chose to showcase his own work here, too.
Produced in collaboration with Sonar+D, in a building owned by the Generalitat de Barcelona, the show occupies three floors. One site-specific installation called New Space Music is placed in an old cloister, Claustro Max Cahner, where the acoustics are rather sweet indeed. It also promises to be a popular hangout spot for the whole city, as it’s found at a popular spot near the end of the famous Ramblas.

Curated with passion by Lluis Nacenta, this exhibition might require some framing for the average viewer who is not overly familiar with Eno’s work. His research his based on the use of light as a primary medium fused with sound components, both redefining chosen architectural spaces (each piece lives comfortably in its home) and the multi-sensorial possibilities that come from such combinations.

On the third floor of Lightforms/Soundforms is Eno’s 77 Million Paintings, a large-scale audiovisual installation that requires some time to be enjoyed properly in all its beauty. Perhaps the same amount of time needed to spend before his light boxes on the second floor, to appreciate the shades and nuances of colours blossoming almost meditatively into other hues that the artist calls “colourscapes.” The aim is to lose yourself within these pieces, to therapeutic effect.

The show doesn’t cut off at Arts Santa Mónica, but is extended to Barcelona’s El Prat Airport, where travellers hear Eno’s compositions at baggage claim, an experiment he already tested in other cities.  This other, non-museumy side of the exhibition is freer and wide open to all sorts of interpretations. Just like David Bowie and Bjork, who both have retrospectives hanging at this moment, Eno has been capable of stretching the form of pop music into something else, andLightforms/Soundforms is perfect proof of this.

During the press review, I had a chance to ask his opinion about the state of the art world and its future; where is everything headed, Brian Eno?
He sagely replied, “I have this idea that we have spent most of the last five hundred years thinking that there are some people called artists and then there are some people called the audience. And the people in the audience are not the same as the people who do the art. A lot of what I am doing is trying to break that idea down. I think as we move into a future where anything that can be automated will be automated, that means all the non-creative jobs will be automated soon. We have to accept that we are all now in the position of being artists of some kind.
“Now, some of us do it for a living, like I do. Most people do not realise it, but they spend a lot of their time thinking like artists, thinking creatively. So I believe we should start to dignify that. And start to say that is actually the most essential part of our education. In my third world country we just moved away from that idea. We now have a system that says the most important things are science, technology, engineering and maths. They do not include arts on the list. And this to me is such a fatal mistake.

“Of course those four things are important, it is essential that we know about those. But it is also essential that we understand that we are in the process of making the world, all of us, creating the world, we are not just containters into which you plug the right information so we can go and do nice office jobs, we are the people who will make the future, and we have to accept the responsibility and the joy of being creative people.
“So I am very pleased to see that now everybody is a photographer. For example, everybody has their phone and suddenly everybody is taking amazing pictures. It’s bad news for photographers, ’cause they’re out of a job, but it is very good news for everybody else. And I am very pleased to know that everybody can make an album now, and they do not need to struggle to convince someone in a record company to give them the money to do so.
“I have this phrase that I use sometimes which is: children learn through play (we all know that), but adults play through art. So I think that the continuation of our learning life is that we carry on thinking of ourselves as children and as artists and I am looking forward to see art developed in that way. That’s the direction I want art to go in.”

Published on http://artmag.saatchigallery.com/david-bowie-is/

An immersive and exciting experience. It’s one way you could summarise, in a few insufficient words, the show David Bowie Is. Co-produced by the Victoria and Albert Museum and curated by Victoria Broackes and Geoffrey Marsh (who have been culling materials from his outstanding archive in NYC), the exhibition has landed in Barcelona at the Museu del Disseny. Sumptuously showcased are more than 300 objects, including lyrics, costumes, photographs, videos, set designs and instruments, that pertained to the glitter-dusted life of the world’s best-loved Starman.

Bowie’s creative process, ways of working and communicating favoured by this musical innovator and cultural icon, are explored through shifting styles and his continuous reinventions of himself, his collaborations with other musicians and evidence of his being influenced by a diversified spectrum of visual art, design, drama and beyond.

This majorly articulate show has already been on worldwide tour since 2013, visiting nine venues (next stop: Tokyo, Japan) and it promises to attract lots of visitors in Barcelona, too, where an exciting series of special events have been organised in relation to the show over the upcoming summer months.
While walking through this impressive collection of memorabilia, you will listen to his music and get lost in his fantastic charisma, that still pops electrically off vintage album covers and photo ops. From his calligraphy to the colourfully crazy clothing he chose to wear (often designed by fashion’s most-famous names), his eclectic persona shines through the things on view inside the museum, far from cold relics. Though it is Bowie’s remarkable energy and inimitable personality —  which expressed itself through many kinds of media, and over several decades —  that is undeniably the true source of inspiration meant for the viewer to admire.

Disclaimer: you might just find yourself dancing during the show.
David Bowie Is.  The title stands as a lingering statement, because there is no single answer to encapsulate what the man represents; it is up to us to think about on this very special occasion. David Bowie here is still alive, his presence continues to influence us as average people and generations of artists that will follow after. His example encourages individuals in the creative industry to question the existing rules to create novel and more personal standards, and hopes we all will discover what’s inside of ourselves and chase after our dearest, most bizarre dreams.

In this same way David Jones, born in Brixton, South London, transformed into David Bowie (and Ziggy Stardust, among others), by believing in his own fantasies and sorting out sources of inspiration for himself in the great artists he admired.
The exhibition is a pure treat for lovers of Bowie’s complex story and those who are not so familiar with his legacy. Not only because his work was often groundbreaking, but also because the show is in fact extremely well curated and appealing to physically explore. It was clearly put together with great attention to all the details and deep love for this amazing human.

Against all pressure to conform to society’s bland regulations, there’ll always remain the example of David Bowie, who was ever shocking everybody with a new direction, who is an eternal herald, calling us to wake up and see the world glimmer in a brighter light of our own making.

Published on http://artmag.saatchigallery.com/gustavo-diaz-sosa-if-anyone-has-eyes-let-him-see/

Presented by Gallery Victor Lope, lodged the unique frame that only the city of Barcelona can provide, a solo show of Gustavo Díaz Sosa‘s work provides us a perfect chance to get to know the artist better. Please enjoy some images and ideas conceived for this occasion, discussed in his very own words.
This monographic exhibition of yours has a great title, would you mind explaining your choice to us?
Nowadays, we are individuals who are part of a Whole. This Whole, Society, is full of mysteries and successes which sometimes go unnoticed by most of its functioning parts. Like sheep, and in a gregarious way, everyone joins the flow that leads to consumerism; steeped in shallow knowledge and others’ tastes it can be difficult to choose the right path or find a proper sense of life for ourselves.  It is because of this that, in a poetic way, I represent an anonymous crowd, lost and guided along the path that someone with more power has designed for his convenience.
Most of us, blinded by the comparison between equals, competition, ambition, cravings for power and possession; trying to elevate ourselves and touch some form of His Glory by dealing in clichés and hiding in agglomerations, ceasing to be authentic and to take part in new stratagems. But not all know (nor want to),  see or understand how regrettable the situation is. This is why, as a simile of the warnings of Saint John in his Revelation, I convene the public to find the truth, but to do it, they must take away the bandage that blinds them and know how to use their authentic eyes…”If anyone has ears, let him hear!”, “If anyone has eyes, let him see!”

Interview

​Your sketchbooks are prominently on view, how do you work and what paths lead you from ideas to finished compositions?
My notebooks and sketches display the constant and unceasing search for myself. It is my way of liberating myself from the bandage, which I just mentioned, that blinds humanity. Usually I never expose my notebooks, no. On this occasion, though, exceptionally, I let the public have access to the research process that leads me to final renderings. It’s in the notebooks where you can find the real work of art. It is the thought unveiled in ink. It is the voice that echoes outrageously in my brain, looking for and fighting to find the truth.
My artwork is constant, is the continuous reflection of myself as an individual and as a social being, and, consequently, as the society I’m part of. These notebooks are the tool I use to rub my eyes clean. The notebooks are the spontaneous instant, the eruption, the outbreak…The final work, the canvas or the sculpture, is just the finished image, already consolidated, of a thought or an idea. The process of creation on a canvas is an enrichment ritual, a fight, almost esoteric and of a great metaphysical connotation, which materialises the thought in a physical object, and this way the work that later will be given over to the public is born.

What art historical references fuel your creativity, and what inspires you?
Regrettably, this is the most classical question when interviewing an artist. I always avoid replying to it or cross my fingers so no one asks me that. I don’t consider my muses the ones that the public, journalists or critics expect to hear. Nonetheless, I try to please the interlocutor using German expressionism as my main reference, because it is the most obvious one. For example, I reckon Fritz Lang has caused a ruckus in the aesthetic and conceptual evolution of my work. So has Anselm Kiefer and other significant representatives of film noir and German expressionism. I also have to mention the literature of George Orwell, Franz Kafka, Goethe, Dante, Schiller, and lots more.
I can’t not mention the South-African William Kentridge, or the American artists trading in new figuration. But if I want to give a complete response, I can’t ignore the work of Leonardo and the mysteries of his notebooks, or the unbeatable drawings of Michelangelo, or simply the never-ending narrations of El Bosco…But if I want to be even more honest, I must confess that the architecture of Antiquity and its mysteries are a bigger source of inspiration…

What specifically about the visual arts appeals to you and how does the outside world affect your work?
In the visual arts, I just try to communicate, unveil, transmit, materialise, discover and experiment through my thoughts and emotions. I don’t look for anything specific, I find everything along the way. I consider my work as intimate and, honestly, I find it hard to share it with the world. Nonetheless, I feel like it’s accomplishing its duty towards society and it would be unfair to not share with others the fascinating stories I discover in it.
I don’t intend to do anything with my artwork. My ambition is only to have the chance to keep on creating in a sincere way and, consequently, continue that search with myself, connect with the Universe, and stay out of the flow originated by those who don’t want to see. I try to cultivate the virtue of Being in this investigative process and I consider that this way I contribute to the illumination of society.


What is your dream as an artist and what do you see yourself doing in the future?
My dream as an artist is to always be able to create whenever I wish to, that this creation is honest and that I can have all the time I need to finish the artwork. As any other artist, I’ve wished that someday my work will be appreciated on the walls of big museums or art galleries, but it’s not my ambition, nor my greatest dream. My dream is not having limits to create. To have time and enough materials for infinite creation. Creating is to me a process of education, permanent learning and personal overcoming; so not having limitations to work is the only thing I desire. Where are my steps taking me? I don’t know. I don’t know where the path I’ve chosen will pass by in the future, but I trust it’s leading me to the light.

​
Diana di Nuzzo

Published on artmag.saatchigallery.com/on-video-jafet-blanch/

On Carrer Enric Granados, a stunning street in Barcelona’s Eixample neighbourhood, an excellent show titled Fetén is currently hanging by Catalan figurative painter Jafet Blanch. The scenes presented inside N2 Gallery delight the eyes with images inspired by childhood, pulled from dreamlike atmospheres and echoing of brighter spaces and times that hook viewers at first glance. 

Blanch blossomed in the world of street art and now regularly exposes his mature compositions. Nature in all her archetypal beauty peeks into his framing with juxtapositions of flowers, leaves and delicious fruits, lending the scent of exotic springtime to his works.

Nearby the paintings are curated a few sculptures (this is the very first time Blanch has turned his talents to three-dimensional representations) that flood the senses with fun, unpredictable charm.  For instance, a unicorn with a melty ice cream cone for a horn appeals to grown up and fledgling spirits alike, while a looping video shares glimpses into Blanch’s process and hectic studio space leading up to the show.

During our video interview, the artist speaks about the exhibition and his reasons for approaching the Fetén theme, discusses his working methods and, finally, responds to a question concerning how the internet and the buzzing world of social media has affected his role as an artist.

Please meet him inside N2 Gallery and peruse the pieces he’s created and gathered together for this occasion. He’ll soon be showing in Taiwan and is planning to launch a Kickstarter campaign in the immediate future for a painting tool of his own invention, too.
Go ahead and follow him on Instagram (@jafetblanch) to keep track of his dynamic career and await further artistic developments formed by his hands and his heart.

Published on http://artmag.saatchigallery.com/picassos-people/  on March 20, 2017 

Barcelona has art history in her DNA, and as many of you know, Pablo Picasso, among many great others, spent a pivotal part of his life in the city. During an already culturally exciting moment, the show Picasso. Retrats has just opened at the Museu Picasso de Barcelona in the El Born neighbourhood. Realised thanks to long collaborations with London’s National Portrait Gallery, it will be on view until 25 June.

Curated by Elizabeth Cowling, Professor Emeritus of Art History at the University of Edinburgh, the exhibition gathers together more than eighty of Picasso’s portraits and caricatures pulled from public and private collections. Those portrayed were linked to the artist in various ways, as friends, lovers, fellow intellectuals and great sources of inspiration. (Picasso was particularly fond of Velázquez and Degas.)

Gorgeous images of Dora Maar, Guillaume Apollinaire, Jean Cocteau, Nusch Éluard, Françoise Gilot, Max Jacob, Lee Miller, Fernande Olivier, Jacqueline Roque, Olga Khokhlova, Jaume Sabartés, Erik Satie, Igor Stravinsky, Miguel Utrillo, Marie-Thérèse Walter and many others are on display during this unique occasion in Spain. We’re allowed to admire the genius of Picasso, who expressed himself through differing sorts of styles, and to appreciate his view of all those muses, musicians, poets, surrealists, thinkers, bohemians, femmes fatales and fellow painters he surrounded himself with.

Getting the chance to take in this articulate exhibition, where the structure of the Museu itself, especially its antiquated central patio, will take your breath away, is a real treat for the eyes. You’re welcomed by a well-thought out series of photographs of Picasso’s sitters, side by side with his own artistic renditions. Gallery spaces in all directions are animated by curious-looking characters peeking out at you; some embodied in paintings, some as charming sculptures, others as etchings.

Observing all these personable masterpieces, it’s easy to catch yourself smiling while regarding them, interpreting through your twenty-first century brain the bold perspective of a man that changed visuals forever. It’s important to remember that Picasso would rarely accept commissions, instead plucking subjects from his surroundings and depicting them with a freedom still-unseen in professional portrait painting circles of his day.

He hyperbolised and used truly abnormal distortions to convey inner traits and connotations belonging to the personages he profiled in his art. Senses of satire, irony and humour are essential to enjoying Picasso’s viewpoint. And since this exposition is assembled thematically, you can sometimes enjoy  multiple representations of the same model executed with fluctuating modulations of manner and tone, recollecting a rainbow of emotions and shadows of the human soul.

​

Published on http://artmag.saatchigallery.com/chatting-with-gino-rubert/ on March 2, 2017

Gino Rubert, a painter born and raised in Mexico, now splits his time between Barcelona and Berlin. His process results in a striking combination between painting and photography.
While painted elements showcase a vast array of vivid colours, photorealistic details in black and white emerge to to create a perfect, hypnotic juxtaposition. Usually focusing the photographic elements on the faces he portrays, he also mixes in additional “paper materials” with his works to create 3D or specifically textured surfaces. All is wonderfully revealed when the viewer steps forward for a closer look.
 I met up with Rubert for the quick interview below at his show Lab36 at Galeria Senda in Barcelona, where we discussed major themes found within his body of work, motivations behind his multi-media technique and more.

Published on http://artmag.saatchigallery.com/miraldas-stateside-perceptions/ on February 22, 2017 

If there’s one lesson to learn from travelling abroad, it’s the fact that all of us are the product of one culture or another, the product of specific national histories, ways of thinking and behaving heavily determined by where we have lived much of our lives.
When artists in particular travel, they take with them a baggage train of personal truths and beliefs and often apply them to their perspective of the new place they are visiting and experiencing.

So did Antoni Miralda, born in Terrassa, Spain in 1942, who is currently enjoying a solo exhibition at MACBA (the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona) until April 2017. MIRALDA  MADEINUSAis curated by Vincent Todolí and was developed by the institution in close collaboration with the artist. The show documents the projects Miralda completed in the States from 1972 until the late 1990’s; photographs, installations, sculptures, drawings and manipulations made of all sorts of materials.

In the ’70s Miralda moved to New York City where he gave his life away to performances and happenings involving loads of people. Sangría 228 West B’Way was a march of sorts against property speculation organised in collaboration with the neighbours and shopkeepers of the Big Apple’s Ninth Avenue. In Houston in 1977, he presented his quite literal Breadline (currently re-created inside MACBA’s display) and later took Wheat and Steak to Kansas City in 1981, another epic and unsettling food parade.

Following these events, from 1984-1986, Miralda established and artistic and social experiment called International Tapas Bar and Restaurant, also currently reincarnated with offerings of cocktails and sharing plates reflecting the original menu on Fridays and Saturdays through the run of the exhibition.

During the late ’80s the artist pieced together his Honeymoon Project, a work representing the symbolic wedding of the Statue of Liberty and the Columbus Monument in Barcelona (the two famed public sculptures do in fact lie on the same latitude, and are thus, it’s nice to think, in love).

And finally there’s Miralda’s Santa Comida, holy food, perhaps the most interesting and open installation in the whole show. Afro-Caribbean culture is picked apart, its icons, patterns and miscellaneous artifacts have been placed in the chapel outside the Meier Building, where everybody, taking their shoes off, walks on a wonderful rug made of many hues and images.

Food culture (www.foodcultura.org/) is easily named one of the main themes in Miralda’s body of work, but it’s not the most important component. The participatory nature of his projects, his general attitude towards life and its relationships and colours, the irony always heavy in his sentiments, such are the elements that leave the viewer fascinated and pleased to witness such diversified examples of one man’s vocation now gathered together.

 Published on /artmag.saatchigallery.com/montjuic-cemetery-a-place-to-rest-your-soul/ on February 13, 2017 ​

There’s few creepier things than walking about places where the dead gather, but such is not the case when you step into the Montjuïc Cemetery. This astounding necropolis could easily be considered a peaceful open-air sculpture garden with an impressive amount of exquisite statuary to admire.
Strolling through the paths of the hallowed space, first opened March 17, 1883 by the city of Barcelona, is mesmerising. Important local families would hire the best architects and sculptors of their day to bestow a little artistic immortality to their dearly departed.

During the nineteenth century, Barcelona went through an economic metamorphosis, growing vastly in population, and therefore had an increasing demand for burial grounds. Today, the cemetery contains over one million burials and urns of cremated ashes within 150,000 plots, niches and mausoleums.

The early monuments inside were inspired by Classical and Gothic styles, while others clearly display an Art Nouveau influence. In Catalonia, Art Nouveau takes the name of Modernisme (as it was first known in the Catalan language), and is one of the main visual traits that helps create the Barcelonean aesthetic.

The talents whose commemorative work can be seen within the cemetery were architects like: Joan Martorell, Antoni Rovira i Rabassa, Leandre Albareda, Josep Vilaseca, Lluís Domènech i Montaner, Miquel Pascual i Tintorer, Juli Maria Fossas, Ubaldo Iranzo, Emilio Sala Cortés, Pere Garcia Fària, Enric Sagnier, Jaume Bayó i Font, Bonaventura Bassegoda i Amigó, Salvador Soteras i Taberner, Josep Puig i Cadafalch, Antoni Maria Gallissà, Josep Maria Jujol, Tiberi Sabater, Camil Oliveras and Josep Domènech i Estapà…

…and they involved visionary sculptors such as Josep Llimona, Enric Clarasó, Rossend Nobas, Josep Campeny, Rafael Atché, Manuel Fuxà, Josep Reynés, Eduard Alentorn, Josep Clarà, Eusebi Arnau  and Josep Maria Subirachs.

It truly is a treasure trove here, of memories, mysteries and masterpieces.
So make sure not to just swing by Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia when you mull over which historical monuments to visit while in Catalonia, because Barcelona is full to bursting with such beautiful gems.

Published on http://artmag.saatchigallery.com/ladies-of-surrealism/ on February 6, 2017

 These days there are lots of art shows, all around the globe, that are seriously considering the profiles of women who have effectively contributed to art history, not only as muses or lovers of male geniuses, but as creators of new, fascinating, self-supporting pieces of art worthy of study.

 Following this trend, the Galeria Mayoral in Barcelona is presenting something related to this subject, Dones Surrealistes. Curated by Victoria Combalia, it gathers together artists such as Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, Frida Kahlo, Dora Maar, Lee Miller, Maruja Mallo, Angeles Santos and Valentine Hugo. All these unique, charming and mysterious women have had a link with the territory of Catalonia, and until the first of April it will be possible to appreciate some selected works — lent by private collections and the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya alike — in this location in the Eixample.

 Without doubt, the name that is known best nowadays is Frida (who was in love with the catalan Josep Bartolí). Here she appears in a multiple self-portrait, showing herself in the three different stages of life. In another piece, she looks like she is drawing herself in different positions simultaneously, as in a futurist painting.
 Another masterpiece is a drawings of horses by Leonora Carrington, a surrealist painter best known for her personal relationship with Max Ernst (she dated him before the war in Europe, but then she had to flee to Mexico, where she became one of the most recognised artist of her time). Leonora portrayed magical landscapes filled with fantastic animals, bringing them to life from the British folk stories of her youth. These memories of her homeland followed her all the way to Central America (she passed through Catalonia while escaping from Europe and luckily found her promised land in Mexico City).

 A close friend of hers is also featured in the show, Remedios Varo, who lived in Barcelona with her Catalonian lover. Dona o l’esperit de la nit (Woman or Spirit of the Night) of 1952 is one of her paintings that captures your eyes with a female protagonist sporting an intense and deep look, pouring out of a body of elongated, murky shapes.

 Then there are the pictures of Dora Maar, well known as one of Picasso’s lover, less known as a photographer and painter in her own right. And those of Lee Miller, a good looking and talented woman who ventured into the field of portraiture and documentary photography during World War II. In addition to being a lover to Man Ray, Miller was married to the surrealist painter and historian Roland Penrose.
​
 There is a common quality underlying the images chosen: an enigmatic sensibility directed towards dreamlike worlds, an attention to details and those lost in them, and a strong love for life in all its declinations.