Si el termino "humanista" puede aplicarse al Siglo XIX John Ruskin sería uno de los principales representantes europeos. Crítico de arte, patrón, artista, pensador y filántropo, Ruskin es conocido entre otras publicaciones por Las siete lámparas de la arquitectura o Las piedras de Venecia. Su teoría arquitectónica consideraba la restauración como la mayor causa de destrucción que un edificio podía sufrir. Consideraba la arquitectura como un ser vivo más que debía morir. Las ruinas eran por lo tanto el último estadio de la arquitectura.
Here we have the interview with Ruth Ander, who kindly granted us some of her time in order to discover both her work and thoughts. A clever and fascinating artist that will no doubt surprise you all. Just thank her for taking part in AmalgamArtes.
We
have spoken with Andrés Castrillo Ferrer, Valencia based engineer and artist
due to his first UK exhibition. The Grant Bradley Gallery, Bristol, offered the
“Selected Wall” to his work. This image magician has many things to tell and
many more to show. Let us carry on the session.
Andrés Castrillo Ferrer. Berlin Symmetries and Asymmetries 1.
Everybody loves lists. “Worst 5 movies of the
year”, “Best first date puddings”, “10 reasons to drink tequila”, etc... Quick,
funny, and they last as long as your microwave noodles take to be cooked.
On behalf of this so post-modern invention
I made this superb list of art stuff. Among dozens of possibilities I will
choose true facts and curiosities known by connoisseurs and fascinating for
sympathizers. I hope it was delightful for everyone and the first of many.
During the last weekend, bristolians (wherever their
origin) were able to enjoy The Southbank Bristol Arts Trail. A free exhibitions
weekend throughout the neighbourhood: houses, coffees, social centres,
etc...Every year the trail is specialized about a specific theme. This time it
was the robot trend. It doesn't matter you cannot participate if don't present
robot-like shows, so every artist was invited to show their artworks (either to
sale or not to sale), but robots ruled this year. By twist of fate, this
weekend has been lovely regarding to weather and the one who writes this post
wandered the city to bring here some images of what went on out there.
You pop in any house saying Hi! and walk around their
living room and elsewhere glancing pictures, sculptures, pottery, prints, jewellery
and more art and craft and afterwards you wave your hand respectfully because
you were at art's home.
“Concepts of Modern Art” is a great book edited
by Nikos Stangos. Every chapter is brilliantly described by an expert of that
subject such a Vorticism or Fauvism. There are many beautiful and helpful
explanations of origin, evolution and death of each movement but today I want
to point out that of Dada and Surrealism. These two paragraphs are revealing
and shocking due to its resemblance with activities carried out in
pre-Columbian cultures, for instance. But it basically explains what Dada and
Surrealism were, their intentions and their ends. I recommend its wholly
lecture but anyway, here, the extract I underline.
Perdiendo un poco el tiempo en Youtube he
descubierto unos documentales de la BBC dirigidos por el historiador de arte
Alastair Sooke. Aunque ha realizado diferentes series de momento sólo he visto
completamente la dedicada a Egipto. “Treasures of Ancient Egypt” es su título y
aunque está en inglés es bastante entendible. Son 3 capítulos de apenas una
hora de duración cada uno pero es más que un generoso recorrido por el arte
egipcio desde las manifestaciones predinásticas hasta la conquista romana en el
siglo primero a.C. Los documentales derrochan una calidad apabullante (tan
apabullante como cara su realización, seguro).
More than a month ago we performed
our book launch in our Peter Pan’s discovered oasis. It sounds as a lie, Doesn’t
it? I don’t know how you feel it but for me it was like a thousand years ago.
Actually, what was a thousand year ago is the first text I sent you and started
shaping what would be our book. Our Book! Be Calm, I’m not writing you to ask
for anything else, I’m gonna leave you alone, as alone as kilometers there are between us. This that
you are reading is just a excuse to thank you and remind you none word had been
born without your photographies, that the final result took from my texts as much
effort as your images coming out.
“Invasión al hogar” nace con la
intención de presentar una serie de entrevistas marcadas por lo espontáneo.
Nada de preguntas pactadas, nada de atuendos pomposos, el panadero tocando el
claxon, perritos ladrando y alpargatas de cuadros. La intención es ser sinceros,
acercarnos a los artistas y personalidades entrevistadas ofreciéndoles un
pequeño espacio dónde puedan decir lo que quieran, presentar sus últimos
trabajos o saludar a sus primos del pueblo.
Con dos Eps en la calle: A la fuerza no es natural y Canciones de sol amigo, Brío Afín se
encuentra en pleno proceso de crecimiento. Nuevos componentes, nuevas ideas y
muchas ganas de difundir su palabra por los cuatro costaos.
Dibujo de Pablo Fajardo, batería del grupo.
Pablo Fajardo's drawing. Group's drummer.
"Home invasion" has
been created with the intention of presenting a series of interviews marked by
spontaneity. No questions agreed, no pompous outfits, the baker beeping
his horn, dogs barking and checkered sandals. The intention is to be honest,
get closer to artists and personalities interviewed by offering a small space
where they can say what they want, their last ideas or greeting their town
cousins.
Fran Ocete and Chesco Ruíz, members
of grenadian group Brío Afín, let us in inaugurating the section. After two
demos running: A la fuerza no es natural
y Canciones de sol amigo, they are
working thoroughly for creating. New components, new ideas and keen of spread
their word everywhere.
Gracias a Fran y Chesco por participar con AmalgamArtes.
Thanks Fran and Chesco for participating in AmalgamArtes.
Generally the posts of this blog are thought out and its subject is chosen carefully among hundreds of things that swarm the writer's mind . Such was the shock that caused me this short film I have just seen that I have not thought twice to include it in order to expand its distribution and reach as many people as possible.
Athens, 450 B.C. After
the battle of Plataea, the definitive expulsion of Persians and the
"Peace of Callias" a process of building
and embellishment of the city is carrying out driven by Pericles. Crowning
the Acropolis, the Parthenon works begin
at 447-446 B.C. It is dedicated to
Athena Parthenos (the Virgin). Apart from religion reasons, the
building is a demonstration
of civic pride and commemorates achievements of
Athens under the patronage of Athena. The sculptural program is run
by Phidias that together with an army of stonecutters and
apprentices of all skill levels, giving life to metopes,
frieze, akroteria and a spectacular pediment, the
most crowded of greek art.
Recently I have been asked in
different circles about the origin and meaning of
the Eiffel Tower. We may not deny the interest in such
a iron colossus dominating the Champ-de-Mars by the River
Seine. Quintessential symbol of Paris and a source of both
artistic and architectural discussions. What now
I expose is my humble opinion and therefore you
can accept it or not. Truth be told.
At mid-nineteenth
century a number of personalities begin to focus on the
architecture that looks to the future turning away the
reigning historicism in the Western world. We
could describe it as "Architecture of
Engineers" and among its favorite items would
be the use of iron as constructive
element. Previously The Industrial Revolution of the late Eighteenth Century and the early Nineteenth Century transforms the use of building
materials. New technologies allow the emergence
of a new aesthetic and typologies in
architecture.
Regarding the iron, metallurgical
industry develops such that this metal is obteined in large amounts and higher
quality and it allows its extensive use as in construction of bridges:
Taking a look at a National Gallery of London guide
I ran into the oil painting "The Ambassadors" by Hans Holbein and remembered
my shock when in class (a century ago, more or less) Antonio Calvo Castellón revealed a hidden surprise in this double portrait:
If you go through Gran Via of
Granada and you possess some curiosity, you will discover
that at 33 something is being cooked underground. If you go into that doorway you will
find the Punto Rojo Art Gallery. With this
cold that threatens us the visit almost becomes mandatory and
you will enjoy the works of some of the latest contemporary
artists. You will behold the Granadian bustle from
a rather than comfortable position. Today we talk with Clara Lorca,
an artist who has exhibited at the gallery and has agreed to collaborate
with Amalgamartes. Angela Hinojosa, thank you very
much for making this interview possible:
Big man, with your palm on her marked cheek with your saliva in her hair because of your scream when she kneels. Big man, you go out smiling, your blood circulates never lost. Big man, you splash your hate on that who swore to love you. You shake your arm to warn of what is coming, you break her bones by your glances and you rot yourself by your own poison. Big Man, one day they will dance, cutting the cords that you drive and you will lose your power. Use your hands that day to cover your face in shame, because the world will be better without you, breathing peacefully before your debris. Big man, little man, you scared everybody and now just the pity. Our life is a gift and yours a sentence. Puppet Master's wife
Short film performed by Venancio Galán and Títali Páez supporting the fight against gender-based violence.
“A longlife interest” is a book that contains the interview
performed by the french philosopher Didier Eribon to the great Ernst Gombrich
from 1991 to 1992 in his residence at London. Art and Science are interlaced by
gombrich’s words, as a Twentieth Century Leonardo, who doesn't find any
trouble bringing one into line with another. Gombrich used to make reference to others writers and thinkers in
order to strenghten his thoughts and is here where I have found one of the more
significant texts I have read these months. These words have come to us from “Orator”
by Cicero, roman writer, politician and great rethoric from 1st century. His
ideas about “Taste”, are suitable nowadays and this makes one to think how little
can be written about Aesthetic these days. This paragraph is about artistic “Taste”
and you are not going to find here any important conclusión but simple thoughts
about “Taste” and art perception we hold nowadays. The words here:
A few weeks ago we were
wandering by Weymouth Quay and suddenly we saw a massive building, on whose
façade one may read “Brewers Quay”. That building was an old distillery reused
for art and craft shops. Dozens of little shops occupied both floors, offering
a motley route where there were machinery, products and workers before. You
could find Victorian style furniture, 1980’s football cards, jewelry, books or
clothes. Then we might say, a sale and purchase warehouse, so it was a good place
to rescue hidden treasures.
Before becoming other emigrant, I
used to live in Granada, Spain. Specifically in a town called Ogíjares. I grew
up there, and there I met some of the stuff that define me. Maybe, the first or
second church in which I came in was the Church of Saint Anne, in the low
neighbourhood. I want to dedicate this post to it because there is a curious
episode in it. It doesn’t mean that there are not another interesting things
and stories in Ogíjares, but now we just have time for this.
This story goes back four hundred
years, when it was decided to build a new church over the remains of a first
church built on the same place that the primitive mosque. This new church was
dedicated to Saint Anne, the mother of the Virgin. The style was that which
spread on the most of the parishes those years, Mudejar. Under elaborated
traceries and muqarnas it was built a altarpiece dedicated to Saint Anne dated
in 1567. The panels in the centre division were made by Diego de Pesquera. But,
if we stare carefully at it, we would notice that something is missing, exactly
on the first floor, a panel has vanished and a little wooden figure of
Christ-Child has taken its place.
I am far from being a good art historian, I am even far from
being a intelligent person. I am ignorant of many, many important things
concerning art. But also, I am getting bored with reading wise people showing
off their art skills, telling to everyone that they are connaisseurs of the whole art world. Last example has been a
supposed discovery of a chinese artist, Chan Hwee Chong. “Art with Capital Letters” “unsurpassable”
“He had to be asian”. He is a completely unknown artist for me and I do not want
to underrate either his background or his work but it’s time to shut some
mouths (and keyboards) up. Everybody knows what is Faber-Castell. You and me have ever
had a pen of this trademark. In order to show their pen’s quality, they made a
deal with Chan Hwee Chong by which he had to use those pens for making a
specific portraits. These specific portraits are: Girl with a Pearl Earing (Vermeer), Self-Portrait (Van Gogh) and Mona
Lisa (Leonardo da Vinci) through a tremendous technique. It all begins in a
central dot, a unique spiralling line starts growing up building the picture. Certain
diversions and pressure make shadows, shapes, and spatial depths through which
the original portrait is re-designed. See below some pictures of it:
During my
last travel to Scotland I visited one of those warehouses concealed among bumpy
roads and forests. Walking through racks filled up by antiquities, a pair of
objects caught my attention. They were two pieces of pottery: a mug and a
little plate, with a pale-cobalt blue tonality and matt finishing. I wouldn’t
realize them if they hadn’t held those great classical reliefs.
