Culture

The world famous opera singer Montserrat Caballé reached on Tuesday a prejudicial agreement to avoid trial for tax fraud committed in 2010. The Catalan soprano, aged 81, admitted that her fiscal residence was not set in the fiscal haven of Andorra that year and therefore had evaded paying taxes to the Spanish authorities. Caballé, who is considered one of the greatest sopranos ever by both critics and fans alike, accepted the Public Prosecution’s petition of a 6-month jail sentence and a €240,000 fine, which corresponds to almost half of the evaded money. Since the jail sentence is shorter than 2 years and Caballé has no criminal record, she will not have to be imprisoned. The fine is to be added to the €508,000 she already deposited in the spring to compensate the Spanish Tax Agency. On top of this, she will still have to pay €75,000, corresponding to the interest on the money evaded.

The Design Museum of Barcelona will open on December 14 and showcase the diversity of its collections and their origins, across 4 permanent exhibitions. The new centre, located within the DUHB building, will have a total collection of 70,000 items, coming from the previously existing Museum of Decorative Arts, the Ceramics Museum, the Textile Museum and the Cabinet of Graphic Arts. The aim of the new museum will be to "rediscover" the collections through a discourse that covers decorative and traditional arts, through industrial design, all the way to contemporary poster and graphic design. The DHUB is located in Glòries Square, in an area of Barcelona once known for its industry, but that has been recently opened up through extensive development and investment. According the Mayor of the city, Xavier Trias, the new museum "will reinforce the position of the square as an economic, social and cultural epicentre".

To mark the 150 years since the birth of Catalan sculptor Josep Llimona, the European Museum of Modern Art (MEAM), in Barcelona, is hosting an exhibition of over 60 pieces of his work. The curator, Natàlia Esquinas emphasised that Llimona was the most important Catalan sculptor around 1900 and 2014 marks 150 years since his birth, and 80 since his death, making it the perfect time to host such an exhibition. Speaking to the CNA, Esquinas said that the exhibition was "to rediscover him and see all his work, beyond ‘Desconsol’ (‘Desolation’ in Catalan) his great masterpiece." It will be the most important retrospective of Llimona’s work, featuring some unpublished pieces. The exhibition opens on Wednesday and will run until 1 March 2015. 

The Catalan Film Academy has announced the 10 European films to be candidates for the 7^th Gaudí Awards, the main cinema competition in Catalonia. Among others, these include: 'Deux jours, une nuit' ('Two days, one night'), written and directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne; 'La grande belleza' ('The great beauty'), directed by Paolo Sorrentino; 'La Vénus à fourrure' ('Venus in Furs'), by Roman Polanski; 'Nymphomaniac: Vol. I and Vol. II', written and directed by Lars von Trier; and, the Spanish 'La isla mínima', directed by Alberto Rodríguez. The award ceremony will take place in Barcelona at the end of January. The nominations were selected by a committee appointed by the Board of the Catalan Film Academy.

Juan Goytisolo (born 1931 in Barcelona) is the latest winner of the Cervantes Prize, which is considered to be the Nobel Prize for literature in Spanish. On Monday at noon, the jury’s verdict was read by Spain’s Minister for Culture, José Ignacio Wert, and it emphasised the author’s "ability to delve into language", his "complex stylistic proposals" and "his desire to bring together" different cultures. Goytisolo, who currently resides in Marrakech (Morocco), will receive the award at a ceremony to be held on April 23 in Alcalá de Henares, in Madrid's region. The Cervantes Prize is awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Culture and is worth €125,000. Goytisolo's works have been translated into English, French, German, Polish, Slovak and Romanian, among others.

On Friday, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival opens in Yorkshire, England, and once again the line-up features many Catalan musicians and composers. This is thanks to an agreement with the Ramon Llull Institute (IRL); the public body promoting Catalan culture abroad. The festival is internationally renowned in the fields of contemporary and experimental music, and aims to create exchanges between artists from different countries. Running until November 30, the festival will also have a presence in Barcelona, through cooperation with the British Council and Barcelona’s L’Auditori concert hall. Carlos Casas, Ferran Fages and Hèctor Parra (who was Huddersfield’s resident composer last year) are some of the Catalan artists that are in this year’s line-up. The festival will begin on Friday with Carlos Casas’ ‘Avalanche’, a track that was released at Barcelona’s music festival Sonar in 2010, and has now hit the UK.

'On the Table. Ai Weiwei' opened this November at the Virreina Image Centre in Barcelona and will run until 1 February 2015. The exhibition shows the trajectory of the artist’s life through forty pieces, including photographs, videos and installations, some of which were created specially for the gallery in Barcelona. Through various routes, visitors can address the fundamental issues of the work of the controversial Chinese artist and political activist, including multidisciplinary themes, and those of non-conformity, dissent and the condition of media. The exhibition will take place in the Virreina Image Centre, an art centre on the famous Les Rambles walkway, and entry will be free of charge.

21^st edition of the independent film festival l’Alternativa will run from 17 to 23 November in Barcelona. It will show 159 independent films from 45 countries, covering topics such as immigration, identity and collective memory. The festival will be divided into the Official section and the Parallel one. The Official section will feature titles from Romania, Chile, Brazil, Germany, France and Spain, with shorts and feature length films of fiction, non-fiction, animation and experimental styles. While l’Alternativa Parallel this year will be subdivided into five sub-sections: Partly Fiction,Panorama, Small Experiments, and those according to directors Djibril Diop Mambéty/Mati Diop and Anne-Marie Miéville. Within the l’Alternativa Hall, viewers will be able to see screenings, of a range of experimental styles, free of charge. There will also be training and debate in filmmaking. The festival will take place in the CCCB, the Filmoteca de Catalunya, and the French Institute in Barcelona.

Photographer Colita has rejected the National Photography Prize awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Culture because of "the pitiful, shameful and painful" situation of the cultural sector in Spain. Colita, who was one of the main photographers portraying Barcelona's bohemian life of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, did so after another Catalan artist, the world-famous musician Jordi Savall, did the same last week for similar reasons. In both cases, the two artists highlighted that their reasons for rejecting the award were linked to the Spanish Government's cultural policies and had nothing to do with its blocking attitude towards Catalonia's self-determination process. Colita ironically stated that she "does not know where [the Spanish Ministry of Culture] is located, neither if it exists".

The 20^th edition of the Manga Fair is taking place between Thursday 30^th October and Sunday 2^nd November at the Fira de Barcelona's Montjuic exhibition space. The Manga Fair is an annual event that celebrates the popular Japanese anime, bringing together fans from all around the world, through a series of exhibitions and activities in Barcelona. This year, the space has increased to 50,000m², and the opening times will be extended. There will be a variety of special guests attending, including the author Kengo Hanazawa, artist Takeshi Obata from Japan, and Ken Niimura, a Spanish author of Japanese descent. There will also be a number of musicians participating, such as the Japanese pop group Loverin Tamburin. The programme features various exhibitions on Japanese authors and illustrators. On the catering side, the event will feature Michelin-star chefs including Ricardo Sanz and Jordi Roca.

The internationally-recognised Early Music expert, Catalan Jordi Savall, rejected on Thursday Spain’s National Music Prize, which is awarded by the Spanish Government each year. Savall has not accepted the Prize, which was announced on Wednesday and comes with €30,000, because he wants to show his rejection of the Spanish Government’s cultural policies, particularly that towards musicians. Savall is probably the world’s top interpreter of viola da gamba and the main expert in Early and Renaissance music. In 2012 he received the Leonie Sonning Music Foundation Prize, considered to be the ‘Nobel Prize of Music’. In a letter addressed to the Spanish Culture Minister, José Ignacio Wert, Savall blames the Spanish Government for “the dramatic lack of interest and the great incompetence in defending and promoting arts and its creators”. Furthermore he “deplores the Spanish Government’s downplaying policy towards the vast majority of musicians”. Besides, Savall has been publicly advocating for Catalonia’s right to self-determination in the last few months.

Catalan author Jaume Cabré’s latest novel 'Jo confesso' has been translated into English and is finally hitting bookstores in the Anglophone world for the first time since its original publication in 2011. It was translated by Mara Faye Letham and published by Arcadia books. The novel, which this year won the Courrier International Prize for 'Best foreign novel', as well as several Catalan literature awards, has already been translated into Spanish, German, Italian and Chinese, among others. This is another success for Catalan literature, after the publication in English of 'Quadern gris' ('The Grey Notebook') by Josep Pla and the Joan Sales classic 'Incerta Glòria' ('Uncertain Glory'). Catalan literature is blossoming among English readers, thanks to the recent translations of several other classics.

On Wednesday evening, at an award ceremony in Barcelona, the Mexican author won the prestigious literary award the Planeta Prize, with his novel 'Milena o el fémur más bello del mundo' ('Milena, or the most beautiful femur in the world'). The Planeta Prize, now in its 63^rd edition, is an award bestowed on unpublished books in Spanish that are submitted under pseudonyms, and with false titles, in theory to avoid judges being biased by author’s reputations. In the case of the winner, the work was presented under the pseudonym Eduardo Nevado, with the fake title 'Los crímenes del cromosoma XY ('XY chromosome crimes­'). A finalist to the prize, was Barcelona journalist Pilar Eyre, who submitted her work 'Mi color favorito es verte' ('Seeing you is my favourite colour'), under the alias Coral Teide and title 'Se llamaba Sébastien' ('His name was Sébastien').

The 17^th Mediterranean Trade Fair, specialised in folk and world music, will take place from Thursday to Sunday, expected to attract 100,000 people to the city of Manresa, in central Catalonia. The most international fair of its history, it will feature over 300 art activities, host 107 companies and show 35 exhibitions. Highlights of the programme include the popular Portuguese singer Dulce Pontes and the musical duo Toumani Diabaté -the world famous African harpist-and his son Sidiki. Pluralism and the question of "what is popular culture today" will be the defining themes of this year’s event, which will host over 1,000 professionals, including 30 speakers and 180 cultural projects. The Fair will also be a tribute to the late musician Peret, the ‘father’ of Catalan rumba who sadly passed away in August.

Film buffs and festival fans will be flocking to Sitges these next 10 days, as the 47^th Sitges International Film Festival opens this Friday, a long-awaited event after the success of previous years. Catalan filmmaker Jaume Balagueró will open the festival, with the latest in his popular REC series, ‘REC 4: Apocalypse’. The festival, which already sold nearly 32,000 tickets early this week, has a budget of €1.7 million, 2.5% more than last year. The event is anticipated to have a “wider programme than ever” according to the Festival’s Director, Ángel Sala. While under the umbrella of all things sinister and fantastic, the line-up will include everything from the latest gems to classics of the genre and a wide selection of fictional feature films, shorts and documentaries.