Sunday, September 28, 2008

La visión de Gustav Klimt



En una pintura de mitología y alegoría, que es en un estilo decorativo y simbólico, aparece La Muerte por la izquierda, totalmente alargada y siniestra. Está cubierta en matices de azules fríos y está agarrando un garrote en sus manos, mirando sus víctimas potenciales con alegría. En otro lado tiene una aglomeración de humanos – que viven, respiran y aman la vida en pleno sentido.

Ellas son mujeres inocentes, todas abrazan la vida, el calor y el vigor de un hombre fuerte y musculoso en el centro. Él parece totalmente inconsciente de la inminente amenaza.

Surge una pregunta. ¿Por qué el hombre, que estaba en el centro de la masa de las inocentes, era curiosamente vulnerable en su ignorancia del peligro de la muerte?

Arriba del hombre aparece la vida en toda su gloria, representada por un bebé varón, abrazado a su propia madre, hermana y, quizás, su abuela que muestra un rostro de sabiduría y melancolía.

Las figuras están semi-desnudas en su vulnerabilidad. El resto de sus cuerpos están cubiertos en alegres, coloridas telas con estampados geométricos que muestran sencillez, algo ordenado y de buen sentido.

La Muerte, al contrario, está cubierta en las señales de las cruces (cruz) y refleja una actitud de gran rebelión. Su visión del futuro es cruel y sombrío, su cuerpo, sinuoso y fluido, como su pensamiento y deseos. ¨El contemporáneo de Freud ... quisiera recorrer esos nuevos territorios que son el sueño y el inconsciente.¨ También, ¨sus visiones de una mujer... están hechas de carne y de quimera.¨

Alphonse´s Seduction


He moved the world in hypnotic ways, treating his art with love and sensual affection.Sharing his vision of women, full-blooded and captivating, in myriad ways.
Alphonse Mucha was as much a pioneer of modernism as he was of graphic design, inspiring countless imitators of his realistically ephemeral world.
He worked on diverse projects such as the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle, and later on commercial projects in the United States and elsewhere in Europe including the then new state of Czechoslovakia (founded in 1918), designing posters, bank notes and stamps.
From 19 September 2008 till 4 January 2009, CaixaForum Barcelona holds an exhibition of Alphonse´s works under themes of Theatre, Beauty, Mystery and Modernity.
http://obrasocial.lacaixa.es/centros/infoserveiscfbcn_es.html
´´Mucha executed many advertisements, his works were used on packaging for sweets and perfumes (anticipating contemporary product presentation),and a Mucha soap was even produced, prefiguring modern merchandising. Luxury, hedonism, eroticism and fantasy are the basic elements of an advertising discourse that seeks to persuade viewers based on the splendour of its forms, an elaborate style and inventive typography.´´

Thanksgiving II (Acción de gracias II)


There´s no room for pity, but plenty for compassion. Don´t these children put adults to shame with their eagerness to learn? Amid the odds, amid the unforgiving cold.
And why are they standing? Simply because they have no classroom to call their own. So teacher and students in threadbare clothes and worn out shoes stand or huddle in a corner of a compound to absorb the lesson of the day, no doubt more substantial than what they would have eaten, or dreamt to have eaten for breakfast.
No hay lugar para la lástima, pero sí para la compasión. ¿No provocan vergüenza estos niños en los adultos con su entusiasmo por el aprendizaje? En medio de las probabilidades, en medio del implacable frío.
¿Por qué están de pie? Simplemente porque ellos no tienen su propia aula. Así que la profesora y los estudiantes en ropas raídas y zapatos gastados se quedan de pie en un rincón de un recinto para absorber la lección del día, sin duda más substanciosa que algo que hayan comido, o hubieran soñado comer para desayunar.

Thanksgiving

There´s always time for thanksgiving when we slow down to savour the little moments of timelessness. Yes, time is personal, it sways and ebbs, pulls and pushes you to action or inaction as the case may be.



If by Rudyard Kipling
...

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings — nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And which is more; you'll be a Man, my son!

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Honest Barcelona


If it´s good honest food you´re looking for in Barcelona, try out these gems:

Restaurante Can Maño -- freshest seafood in Barceloneta

It´s a no-fuss coffeeshop-style restaurant good for spying on locals (and more on what they´re eating). Don´t miss the grilled mackerel called barat in Catalan, grilled squid and baby squid called chipirones. In short, head for the seafood and give the meat dishes a miss and down it all with Free Damm, the local beer with or without alcohol. Top it of with a cortado, espresso with a little milk, and save some bread to dip into the rich coffee. Closed Saturday evenings and Sundays.


Taktika Berri -- best Basque tapas in town

It opens at 8.30pm, but get ready to queue at 8.15pm. Worth standing up if you can´t get seats at the counter. The trick is to wait for the hot stuff which comes out of the kitchen around 8.45pm. There is however a good choice of cold tapas. Go easy and wait for the best to come. Chicken satay, blood sausage with rice, hake omelet, cod croquettes, battered anchovies and more do a bold debut each night (save Saturday evenings, Sundays closed), tempting eyes and palates.

Seal your encounter with sidra (cider), chacoli (young wine) or mosto (grape juice).


Shanghai 1930

Here´s a place for home-cooked favourites and cuisine with a Mediterranean touch. Roast duck, steamed fish and tofu pair well with their rice and noodle dishes. For the diehard Spaniard, there´s jamón to savour. Ask for cili padi, chilli muy picante, if you´re Malaysian.


Any suggestions on Catalan cuisine? I´m at a lost here.

Vicky, Cristina, Enough!


Please Woody,

If you want to mock someone, do it. Just don´t take it out on a city you´ve made a caricature of. Barcelona, poor soul, has more to it than Gaudi, Las Ramblas and cavernous homes with glorious gardens.

Don´t get me started on that very un-Catalan name of Juan Antonio which Mr Bardem plays with gusto. Bedroom eyes employed to such degree as to induce blind adoration for ´´one of Spain´s national treasures´´. Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona disappoints in more ways than one that I came out of the cinema thinking what a mockery Woody Allen has made of the Spanish, and Barcelona in particular.

Funny thing is, we all seem to have forgotten some Catalan displeasure over public footing of the partial bill for the film. What a response they got! At least it´ll do some good for tourism in this sunny part of Spain.

Read on:

Truly nuts


No, it´s not about a feline´s bollocks. Rather, Tiger nuts, better known in Spanish as chufa, makes a beautifully refreshing milky drink called horchata. The Chinese have their staple soy milk and tofu made from the humble soy bean, which pales in comparison to the scrumptious Tiger nut.


Come to Barcelona (or Catalunya in general) and Valencia (the city and the region) and search for this traditional summer drink in good horchata shops. Look for Orxateria la Valenciana, in calle Aribau between Gran Via and Diputació in Barcelona. It´s the standard for all things good.


Read on: