Culture

The pieces are an equestrian sculpture of Franco, the head of which was pulled off in an act of vandalism a couple of years ago, and ‘Victoria’, by sculptor Frederic Marés. After many years of being kept in a Barcelona City Hall warehouse the Francoist sculptures were erected this Monday on the esplanade before the ‘El Born’ Cultural Centre, in Barcelona’s historic centre, amid criticism from citizens and political parties. Indeed, several people booed the workers while they erected the sculptures this morning and threw eggs at them. According to Barcelona’s deputy mayor, Gerardo Pisarello, the exhibition ‘Franco-Victory-Republic: impunity and urban space’ aims to “force society to think about what Franco’s dictatorship represented” and the “impunity” this period has had “during Spain’s democracy”. 

24 photographs from Miquel Ruiz, a Catalan photographer, are being displayed at an exhibition in Sarajevo, which kicked off on Thursday. The picture of the Library of Sarajevo destroyed by Serb artillery during the siege of the Bosnian capital is one of the masterpieces of the exposition ‘We don’t forget’, which takes place precisely in the same monumental building which appears in ruins in the image and which was restored in 2014. The Catalan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Raül Romeva, stated during his visit to the exhibition that it recalls that “Catalonia has always been with Sarajevo and Bosnia, even when the EU turned its back on them”. Romeva added that the images call us “to persevere in the construction of peace".

‘Brick lane’, in East London, is the venue of the first edition of the international contemporary art fair ‘Crossroads’, taking place until the 9^th of October. The event features some fifty galleries from 15 different countries: Argentina, Austria, Bolivia, Colombia, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, the UAE, the USA and the UK. The Catalan participation, though, is one of the most relevant as it accounts for 20% of the total number of participants. In total, 10 Catalan galleries, most of them from Barcelona but also from other spots, are displaying their contemporary art pieces. The participation of the Catalan galleries has been facilitated by the Art Barcelona association, who for third time has brought together a representation of Catalonia’s galleries, with financial support from the Ministry of Culture. Already in 2014 eight Catalan galleries took part at ArtRío in Brazil and twelve attended ArtInternational Istanbul.

Over 50 speakers from all around the globe are to attend this week the Second World Gaudí Congress. From the 4th to the 7th of October the Historic Building of the University of Barcelona is hosting this biennial event organised by the Gaudí Research Institute (TGRI) and the University of Barcelona, ??where Antoni Gaudí received the title of architect in 1878. One of the main attractions of the congress is the thesis that the Blessed Sacrament Chapel of the Church of Sant Joan de Gràcia, in Barcelona, is a work by Gaudí, an idea defended by the biographer of the Catalan architect, Josep Maria Tarragona. This second edition has as a novelty the incorporation of the three-day session in Shanghai, which took place between the 21st and the 23rd of June, in collaboration with several Chinese universities of Tsinghua and with the support of the City of Shanghai. 

Impressive aerial shots showing the riot of colour on display at the 26^th edition of the Castells Competition in Tarragona, southern Catalonia, have travelled around the world. Media outlets such as the BBC, Russia Today and The Los Angeles Times published videos, pictures and articles on the contest. Catalonia’s ‘human tower’ competition, ‘Concurs de Castells’, took place at Tarraco Arena Place, an old bullring, attracting 20,000 spectators and 32 teams. The biennial event saw one group, ‘Els castellers de Vilafranca’, secure its eighth title on the trot. However, one of the most applauded performances was that of the Chinese team ‘Els Xiquets de Hangzhou’, the first ever international team to compete at the contest. Around 380 professionals from 120 different media outlets covered the event on Saturday and Sunday. 

Temporada Alta, the renowned performing arts festival which takes place in Girona, reaches this year its 25th birthday. The benchmark festival at national and European level is offering a multidisciplinary programme designed for all audiences. Between this Friday and the 4^th of December, well-known international artists such as Polish theatre director Krystian Lupa, British director Peter Brook and the Belgian-born choreographer Alain Platel will present their creations at the festival. In its 25^th edition, it has programmed 26 international shows, from 17 different countries. However, there will also be room for Catalan productions and, indeed, Catalan director Lluís Pasqual has been given the responsibility of raising the curtain on the festival with ‘In memoriam - La quinta del biberón’, a work that has grown out of testaments from witnesses to the Battle of the Ebro. 

More than 120 media outlets will cover the 26th edition of the Castells Competition, taking place this weekend at the Tàrraco Arena Place, an old bullring located in Tarragona, southern Catalonia. This year’s edition will become an international window for Catalan culture as 380 journalists from China, Australia, United Kingdom, America and all around the globe have been accredited and will witness the event. 32 human tower groups (‘colles’) will perform, one of them from China: the Children of Hangzhou. Tarragona’s Mayor, Josep Fèlix Ballesteros, stated that this international media presence proves that the impact of castells “goes beyond our territory and is global”. More than 25,000 people will attend the competition this weekend, in an edition that is expected to be the most international and historic one, due to the high level of the human tower groups. 

Great success at this year’s edition of La Mercè Festival Barcelona. The festival was closed on Sunday with a Pyromusical performance in which fireworks, light and music were synchronised. Around 90,000 people gathered to see the show, which honoured Paris, the guest city of the 2016 celebration, and David Bowie and Prince, who passed away in January and April, respectively. The festival had a French and international accent and included performances of French artists like the street and circus art cooperative 2r2 and the prestigious theatre group Company Théâtre Silvia Monfort. However, during the celebration there were also several Catalan traditional activities such as human towers.

Paris, the city of light, is the guest at this year’s edition of ‘La Mercè’, the festival of Barcelona’s patron saint. From the 22nd to the 25th of September many French artists will perform at Ciutadella Park. “Our desire is to keep the spirit of an open and cosmopolitan city in contact with other capitals, in this case, Paris", said Jaume Collboni, Barcelona’s Deputy Mayor for Culture. Popular activities such as ‘cercaviles’, parades which include all the folklore symbols of the city, and ‘castellers’, traditional Catalan human towers, will also be part of the programme. The festival will finish with the traditional ‘Pyromusical’, a performance where music and fireworks are synchronised.

El Vendrell, a coastal town near Tarragona in southern Catalonia, will hold from the 29th of September to the 30th of October some 20 activities to commemorate the 140th anniversary of Pau Casals’ birth. The programme for ‘Pau Casals Month’ includes conferences, concerts and exhibitions which aim to pay tribute to the prominent cellist. The two principal activities will be the talks given by Casals’s widow and the Abbot of Montserrat, Josep Maria Soler Canals. The commemoration, which last year went on for a week, has been extended to a month this 2016. El Vendrell’s Councillor for Culture, Eva Serramià, stated during the presentation of the programme on Monday that the goal of this extension is to “surpass the local sphere and situate El Vendrell in the international scene”.

The Tàrrega Theatre Fair, in the county of Urgell, in Western Catalonia, lowered the curtain on this year’s festival this Sunday. Between the 8^th and the 11^thof September, the town welcomed a programme with 60 performances from 57 national and international companies and 263 sessions in 26 different exhibition spaces. More than 887 professionals, 547 of whom were Catalan, with 180 hailing from Spain and 190 from abroad, took part in this traditional event that every year fills with colour the streets of this city near Lleida. This 36^th edition closed with a positive balance: 14,450 tickets sold, in comparison to the 13,000 visitors of last year, and an occupancy rate above 87% at the theatre shows. A total of 3,315 people stayed at the camping area of the event. The artistic director of FiraTàrrega, Jordi Duran, is satisfied with the results: “It was a show rich in content and we enjoyed the good weather”, he stated. 

The Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, posthumously handed over the Gold Medal of the Government to pro-independence Muriel Casals, who died on the 14th of February this year. The prize is the highest recognition of those individuals or institutions whose work in the political, social, economic, cultural or scientific field has been outstanding. Casals presided at the head of the civil association promoting Catalan language and culture Òmnium Cultural andwas one of the main figures responsible for the massive pro-independence rallies which have taken to the streets of Barcelona for the past six years. In 2015, she joined pro-independence cross-party list 'Junts Pel Sí' and ran for the 27-S Catalan Elections. “Muriel leaves a space which will be really difficult to fill” stated Puigdemont during the ceremony held this Thursday.

Publishers released 11,348 titles in Catalan in 2015, according to a new study by the publishing industry that also shows that sales for books in this language amounted to €230 million. The Catalan publishing industry is in good health, as 43% of all books released in Spanish are also published in Catalonia, but figures could be improved, said the coordinator of ‘Catalan Book Week’, Joan Sala. In fact, the Association of Publishers in Catalan Language is “worried” because of a decline in child and teenage books sales. Its president, Montse Ayats, said that it is very important to attract young readers because reading improves a child’s school performance.

Street art is capable of addressing very different people and contexts, and this year’s edition of FiraTàrrega is marked precisely by an ambition to overcome differences and explore the intercultural potential of art. ‘Manifesta’, a large format coproduction of the festival, is the latest creation from Bobskené. A fun and festive song that celebrates difference while mixing text, music and circus, and which audiences will be able to enjoy for the first time on the 8th of September. The text is a multilingual manifesto, written in Catalan, Spanish, French and English, that reflects the seven nationalities of the artists that take part in the performance. “The manifesto makes us question the times that we live in and invites us to relax, to arrive to ecstasy and end up dancing”, said the director of the performance, Ricard Soler i Mallol.

The so-called ‘Casa de les Punxes’ (‘House of Spikes’) has opened its doors to the public after being closed for a century. Standing in the middle of Barcelona’s Avinguda Diagonal, this modernist building in the shape of a Gothic castle was completed in 1905 and designed by architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch, who was together with Antoni Gaudi one of the most outstanding figures of the modernist art movement. Officially called ‘Casa Terradas’ the building catches the eye of the visitor to the Catalan capital because of its triangular structure, embracing three different streets in Barcelona’s city centre, and also for its conical roofs ending in spikes, which explains its nickname ‘House of Spikes’. Visits to the castle will be organised around three main areas: the building itself, the figure of its architect and the legend of Sant Jordi, Catalonia’s patron Saint.