Three Works by Hans-Peter Feldmann, or a Feldmann Triptych to Collecting?

As much as I love an exhibition title that expands on a thought, or gives a further piece of information to unlock hidden secrets in the work, there’s also something to be said for a more direct, no-frills approach. Tres Obres de Hans-Peter Feldmann (Three Works by Hans-Peter Feldmann) is one such title, but is the directness somewhat deceiving? Trios and trilogies, after all, have long held a mythic or holy position in society (the three graces, The Father, The Son and the Holy Ghost, the original Star Wars trilogy). Or, could it be that the exhibition really is just three works by Hans-Peter Feldmann, without the weight of meaning of three, the magic number?

Feldmann’s practice is generally built on collecting, ordering, and re-presenting. These three works, whether you see them singularly or as a collection among themselves, are no exception to that generality. To start with the triptych within the trio, Seated women in paintings uses the classic triptych form, but resembles more the pin-board of an obsessive than the usual alter pieces for which the form is usually reserved – once again, a case of threes falling in the realm of the holy and mythical. It begs the question, however, if collecting raises its objects to the status of the holy. If you’ve ever known an avid collector, or spent enough time on Ebay, that question might be easier to answer.

Rounding out the trio of works in the exhibition are Bookshelves, a large scale 5-panel photograph of the artists’ own bookshelves, and Amateur photos held by hand, a series of 28 photographs of the artist holding pieces of his collection of found photographs. Here our pleasure as the viewer is not in appreciating the collection, but in the peering into the life and mind of who collected it; they serve as two voyeuristic side-panels to the centerpiece of Seated women in paintings in a greater triptych alter piece to collecting itself.

The exhibition is running at Barcelona’s Projecte SD until the 10th of September. While you’re collecting memories, and maybe some souvenirs, be sure to check out White Line Hotels edit Hotel Omm. More than just a name, here you’ll have all peace to you need to meditate on life’s greater questions, or just chill out by the rooftop pool.

Photos: www.projectesd.com

Barcelona: Download, Remix, Copy, Share

Copyright in the digital age is tricky business. When is it legal to use a great picture you found on Flickr? Can you do a public screening of a film from Daily Motion? Luckily, for artists and their audiences Creative Commons gives a bit of flexibility to the old “All Rights Reserved” standard. CC allows artists to decide which rights they reserve, and which they’re more flexible on, letting other artists to remix and share the work they started. Known as “Some Rights Reserved” the movement has helped build a rich domain of intellectual property.

BccN, the first film festival celebrating Creative Commons will be held this week in Barcelona. With over 10 million registered works, Spain is the leader in creative commons licenses. The film festival will present over 800 minutes of international film in 3 venues under the motto of “copy this festival”. That’s right you can download, remix, redistribute, and project the works at the festival anywhere in the world, for free.

Some of the international entries include the premiere of “Die Beauty” from Stina Bergman. The much raved about film is the feverish story of five redheaded girls living in a small village, exploring friendship, alienation and family ties. “iCopiad malditos” (Copy, Damn!), was the first work in CC financed by Spanish public television and explores the problems of copyright in filmmaking. Also premiering is Vincent Moon’s emotionally potent “An Island,” a documentary about the Danish band Efterklang.

A focus on the local during the “Made in Barcelona” short film competition will promote Barcelona-based filmmakers, with the winner being chosen by the audience. The projects presented at the festival demonstrate pioneering technologies, heralding the author’s rights to ownership and distribution.

Although there are 3 venues taking part in the festival the Institut Français of Barcelona will be screening the films. It’s just a few minutes walk down the Avenue Diagonal from White Line Hotels edit Hotel Omm. The hotel combines a cosy atmosphere with creative design, achieving a light and airy space to combat the heated pulse of the city.

Ruins Revisited in Barcelona

Before photography really took off, before we were all carrying around digital cameras in our pockets, and long before the creation of live streaming everything from weather to puppies, an intrepid French archaeologist and explorer set out to capture the Mayan ruins on film. For four years, between 1857 and 1861 Claude-Joseph Désiré Charnay collected relics and photographed ruins throughout South America resulting in a mostly forgotten report in Eugene Viollet-le-Ducs’ Cités et ruines américaines.

The beauty of mostly forgotten reports such as Désiré Charnay’s, is when someone, somewhere, finds them and sees how magical they are. Mexican artist José Luis Bravo’s current exhibition, Paysages avec Ruines, at Barcelona’s H20 Gallery has taken the original works by Désiré Charnay and recreated the original journey through Mexico as well as turning his eye towards Roman ruins in France, effectively reversing the original exploration. The 1857 photographs were taken with a camera obscura. In Bravo’s Désiré Charnay-inspired expedition, he used a camera that takes digital images in the same style as the originals.

The exploration is one of memory and the reconstruction of a world that no longer exists. Fundamental to an understanding of the photographs is the path that is used to travel back and forth between the two countries, the same path that was likely used during the last century of colonialism. You can expect an exhibition that triggers memories of the types ruins that lay in every country and the early journeys that were taken to document them, as well as the Western worlds never ending fascination with cultures and practices that lay outside our comfort zone.

The exhibition runs through the 28^th of May.

In your explorations of Barcelona, you’re going to need a base. Somewhere you can escape the excitement for a siesta, or perhaps an afternoon dip in the rooftop terrace pool. Sound tempting? Then White Line Hotels edit Hotel Omm is what you’re looking for. Take the day off with a tan and a swim, and get a jump on the evening by starting it at the Roca Brother’s guided Moo Restaurant.

Congratulations to Joan, Josep and Jordi Roca!

You know you’ve teamed up with the right people when they make a “Best in the World” list. That’s why we’d like to join White Line Hotels edit Hotel Omm in congratulating their consulting chefs: Joan, Josep, and Jordi Roca on their recent honour of the Celler de Can Roca being named 2^nd Best Restaurant in the World!

The three brothers are the consulting chefs for Hotel Omm’s acclaimed Moo Restaurant. Their own space, El Celler de Can Rosa, serves up ‘emotional cuisine’ in dishes that evoke childhood memories or transport the diner to a time and place. The focus on the palate’s association with memories and a disregard for traditional culinary techniques has propelled the modest and honest cuisine of the restaurant into the spotlight.

The relationship between Omm and the brothers has been beneficial all around. It’s also fostered a woring relationship between Sandra Taruella, interior designer of the Omm and the Grupo Tragaluz. Taruella was asked to design El Celler when it was still in development phase and the atmosphere she’s created is a welcoming and evocative as the food.

The award was given by Restaurant Magazine. A regional panel of food critics, chefs, restaurateurs, and ‘gastronomes’ chose the restaurants. What makes the award so special is that it’s purely based on food and atmosphere, and every restaurant in the world is eligible.

Congratulations Joan, Josep, and Jordi! We’ll see you soon!

All about El Celler de Can Roca: www.cellercanroca.com

Inspiration from Sandra Tarruella: www.sandratarruella.com

—

Categories: Barcelona, Food

Contributing writer: Alicia Reuter

Barcelona through the Artist’s Eye

When we travel our impressions are generally formed based on a city’s great monuments, fashion, design, or museums. One could argue that to truly know a city intimately, the art created by the artists who live and love the city is an insightful reflection of the day to day.

Photographs of a city can tell a story we can’t experience through monuments, stories of moments we often wouldn’t be able to see unless someone captured and presented them to us as photographs. In Barcelona’s Kowasa Gallery the  current exhibition of Marino Zuzunaga’s photography, moments captured over the last four decades have been culled and curated into one provocative exhibition.

“A Select Offering” from the Peruvian artist, musician, professor, theoretician and author will show Zuzunaga’s vintage prints from the early 1970’s in Peru to more recent works shot in Barcelona, which he now calls home. The exhibition reveals the deep thought the artist invests into his work. In “The Photographer and Photography” from 2008 the artist mused:

“As a kind of a primal philosopher, the photographer dedicates himself to something he is probably bound to ignore absolutely and forever. His photographs show a life of fragments, which he intents to bring together without knowing exactly how. His ignorance, as all ignorance, does not delimit him. The knowledge he obtains through photography is often limited in reminding him just that.”

The exhibition at Kowasa takes place parallel to a group show curated by Zuzunaga at the Galería Esther Montoriol. The “Circular” exhibition places recent work by Zuzunaga in a dialogue with other works from a selection of artists. Many major art institutions have bought works by Zuzunaga, this is your chance to see them in a more intimate setting.

“A Select Offering” takes place in the Kowasa Gallery, run by the photography bookstore of the same name. The gallery is located on the second floor of a beautiful old building Barcelona’s main photography books store and well worth a visit of it’s own. The exhibition runs through June 4^th.

The location of the gallery is sublime – in thick of it all. Just like White Line Hotels edit Hotel Omm. Now that spring seems to have arrived, wouldn’t you like to be spending it on their rooftop terrace overlooking Barcelona?

Kowasa Gallery: www.kowasa.com

Galería Esther Montoriol: www.montoriol.com

—

Categories: Barcelona, Art, Culture, Exhibitions, Photography

Contributing writer: Alicia Reuter