Following the presentation of PHotoESPAÑA 2023, La Vanguardia publishes a review of the program that can be enjoyed from May 31 to September 3. Writes Justo Barranco, 29.04.2023
Catalán
Castellano
Colita has been awarded with the Christa Leem Prize, which recognizes the career of the Catalan artist and her commitment to the city of Barcelona. The prize, which was presented to the photographer by the Minister of Culture and Sport, Miquel Iceta, has been awarded since 2003 to those whose careers demonstrate values related to progress or freedom, which are characteristic of Colita’s photography, especially the Antifèmina series. In previous editions, important figures of national culture have been honored, such as Núria Espert, Niño de Elche, Javier Pérez Andújar, Joan Manuel Serrat, Miguel Poveda, Carlos Jiménez Villarejo, Pilar Manjón, Ian Gibson, Patti Smith, Baltasar Garzón, Gonzalo Pérez de Olaguer, Marcos Ana, Salvador Allende (in memoriam) or Lilian Thuram.
Prensa:
The programme for the PHotoESPAÑA festival has been officially presented in the city of Madrid. The XXVI edition, which will take place from 31 May to 03 September 2023, will feature 7 artists represented by the RocioSantaCruz gallery.
In the official section, ORLAN will present the exhibition ORLAN: This is my story…. of art thanks to the collaboration of RocioSantaCruz. It will show the complete series of “Weeping women are angry“, which is currently on display at the gallery until 20 May 2023. Fina Miralles will also be present with La mujer árbol, la mujer agua, an exhibition organised by MACBA and PHotoESPAÑA in collaboration with RocioSantaCruz. Both exhibitions will be held in the Sala Picasso of the Círculo de Bellas Artes.
Gloria Oyarzabal presents her portraits of important women from the cultural scene in the group exhibition Una Visión Propia at the Museo Lazaro Galdiano, while Ouka Leele is part of the history of the “movida madrileña” in the exhibition Madrid: Crónica creativa de los 80 (Canal de Isabel II). Finally, Flowers for Franco, by Toni Amengual, will be included in the selection of The best photography books of the year, an exhibition at the Fernán Gómez Centro Cultural de la Villa.
The Guest Venues will host Ouka Leele’s solo exhibition entitled El Universo de una Estrella. In this exhibition, the Royal Photographic Society pays special tribute to the photographer by bringing together works, some of them little known, from throughout her professional career.
At the Santander venue of the PHotoESPAÑA festival, the Espacios, Memoria y Tiempo outdoor exhibition brings together the winners of the National Photography Prize, awarded by the Ministry of Culture and Sport. Pilar Aymerich, Ouka Leele and Montserrat Soto are part of the special tribute that brings together this new generation of key figures in the history of Spanish photography.
RocioSantaCruz Gallery would like to thank the team of PHotoESPAÑA and especially its director Claude Bussac.
Georgina’s Echoes is an exhibition curated by Nekane Aramburu for the Centro de Arte La Regenta (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria) that explores the interconnections of different actors of Western contemporary art: among them, the photographer Miguel Rio Branco. With more than 50 works comprised by the most contemporary languages, the figure of Canary Islands artist Georgina Houghton is highlighted on the basis of her Victorian roots. As the curator describes it, “it is a curatorial essay that tries to provoke her translation to a contemporary development of methodologies and concepts pointed out by her. The curatorial axes of this exhibition are linked to the possible existence of these parallel realities as incomprehensible invisible forces that have been and are treated in different ways in contemporary creation today. Experiences interwoven in loops of non-times, where what is relevant is the independence of working methods beyond trends or classifications. From a post-pandemic 21st century loaded with new ways of understanding what surrounds us, works created in the context of the art system are tuned in as resonances close to Georgiana. Resonances that are tangibly embodied in the exhibition spaces”.
The exhibition can be visited until June 24, 2023 at the Exhibition Hall of the Instituto Canarias Cabrera Pinto.
The photographer Gloria Oyarzabal has been nominated for the Photography Prize awarded by the Enaire Foundation, aimed at promoting photographic creation and encouraging the acquisition of works for the ENAIRE Collection. The three winning works will be included in that collection.
In the series La Blanche et la Noire (USUS FRUCTUS ABUSCUS) (2022), it is part of a postmodern discourse focused on the visibilization of racial otherness. With it, Oyarzabal problematizes the museum as a container and perpetuator of the colonial discourse, rereading the plundering of African cultures that has fed the spaces that make up the museum narrative in Europe from the 18th century to the present day.
From the gallery team we wish Gloria Oyarzabal the best of luck!
On the 27th of April, 2023, the photographer Toni Amengual will open the exhibition Perles de Mallorca at Casal Solleric in Palma. It is an exhibition that brings together the most recent production of Amengual, focusing on the portrait of the island of Mallorca, where he is originally from. In the author’s own words:
“Driving around the island, photographing the infrastructures that have been built for decades to accommodate a floating population that is 15 times larger than the permanent population. A population that from one day to the next seems to have stopped floating.
“Tourism requires that natural landscapes, ethnic groups or cities are organized, geographically and symbolically, according to the requirements of commercial exploitation (i.e. the “tourist park”). The scenarios are classified and divided into units suitable for integration into the commercial network of tour operators and travel agencies. The economic exploitation of nature and local cultures is achieved when these elements are transformed into objects of “contemplation” through an iconography saturated with meanings that can be sold in the tourist industry”. (E. Illouz. The consumption of the romantic utopia. 2009).
The pearl is the result of the irritation of the oyster” – Toni Amengual
Next April 28, until May 5, 2023, Andres Galeano opens the exhibition Cumulus, at the art center the Gimp in Berlin, together with the artist Friedrich Herz.
Under the title Después de la Niebla, primeras flores. Oriente y los orientalismos, del modernismo a la modernidad, the curator, Menene Gras Balaguer, brings together 24 contemporary artists who are linked by the theme of flowers, each of them working through their own creative discourse, format and medium. Marina Núñez, with her characteristic video art, completes the exhibition, which includes drawings, paintings, photographs and installations.
The curator of the exhibition, Menene Gras Balaguer, defines the project of the exhibition as “to bring together the representation of floral forms in relation to all the contemporary productions that have been grouped together, arousing a particular interest in the validity of floral representation in contemporary art; and on the other hand, starting from the floral theme shared by these artists, to highlight the links that can be outlined between the works on display, the history that precedes them and the links that accredit their interest, as manifestations highlighted by contemporary art historiography and criticism”.
26.04.2023 – 07.01.2024
Diogo Pimentao participates in the exhibition Descuradas. Obras da Coleção Norlinda e José Lima held at the Centro de Arte Oliva in São João da Madeira (Portugal). It is a group exhibition focused on showing works belonging to the Norlinda and José Lima Collection.
From 01.04.2023 to 17.09.2023, curated by Sara & André
From 18 March to 18 June 2023, the Cordoba Biennial of Photography dedicates the monographic exhibition “Barbara Forever” to Ouka Leele. This exhibition, held at the Pepe Espaliú Art Centre (Centro de Arte Pepe Espaliú), pays tribute to one of the most important photographers of the 20th century in Spain.
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