Seeing is believing: Barcelona World Press Photo

For the 8th consecutive year, the Photographic Social Vision Foundation is organising the itinerant “World Press Photo” exhibition, which received more than 35,000 visitors last year. In this edition 5.691 photographers of 125 different nationalities participated in the award’s ten categories.

The CCCB presents the 170 winning photographs at this edition of the prestigious international photojournalism award, under the logo “Seeing is believing“.

The aim is to show the role of documentary photography in current affairs, as a finger on the pulse of world society.

The year’s winning photograph comes from the South African Jodi Bieber, who immortalised Bibi Aisha, an 18-year-old Afghan girl mutilated as punishment for running away from the house of her husband after suffering violence at the hands of her in-laws.

The Taliban went in search of her in revenge for the humiliation received and cut off her ears and nose. She was subsequently rescued and taken to a shelter run by the organisation Women for Afghan Women, which brought her over to the United States for medical treatment and facial reconstructive surgery.

Three Spanish photographs also received awards: Gustavo Cuevas, who won the second prize in the Sports category for his snapshot of the gored matador Julio Aparicio; Fernando Moleres, who received second prize in the Daily Life category for his photograph of child prisoners in Sierra Leone, and Guillem Valle, who won the third prize in the Portraits category, for his picture of a man from the Dinka tribe in southern Sudan, a group of farmer and cattle-raising nomads.

Barcelona Fashion Showcase

The city’s main fashion events coincide once again. The Brandery fashion show, which takes place from 13 to 15 July, features an area open to the general public among its new features. The 080 Barcelona Fashion catwalk, from 12 to 15 July, is being held at historical site of the Barcelona University, while the ModaFad parade and market will be on from 14 to 15 July.

While The Brandery, an urban fashion fair designed to show off the latest trends from the big brands, is organising a competition for new talent, the 080 Barcelona Fashion catwalk, an indie fashion platform, is letting in big names.

The Brandery is the new hotspot of urban fashion, a hub of trends, design, music, creativity and business. Exhibitions, catwalk shows, live music… all under the same roof which, for the first time this year, will have a new sector open to the general public: The Brandtown Fashion Xperience, which will coexist with the traditional The Brandery trade show.Such apparent contradictions share the same spirit, that of putting Barcelona on the fashion map, publicising successful businesses and introducing up-and-coming designers.

Creativity and innovation are the concepts that inspire 080 Barcelona Fashion, an initiative driven by the Catalan Government, as an open, plural multidisciplinary, international fashion platform.

This July at least sees these two events coinciding with the ModaFad events and activities once again to provide a highly unique fashion week. And B-Hotel features Fitting Room, an event where design, fashion and arts come together.

The ModaFAD activity consists of the international showing of emerging fashion designers to boost the interdisciplinary, drive the concept of the designer and promoted, and encourage the relationship between the design schools, the young designers, the specialized modes of communication, and the industry.

Detailed information can be found on each event website:

• The Brandery
• 080 Barcelona Fashion
• ModaFAD
• Fitting Room at B-Hotel

SonarKids: Creative Music & Experiences for children

After the success of the last two events, the 3rd SonarKids on Sunday 19 June isthe ideal finishing touch to Sónar 2011 to enjoy with all the family. SonarKids has a great deal of activities and creative experiences designed for parents and children to have fun and learn about different artistic disciplines by playing in a new and original way.

SonarKids presents a musical line-up fulll of top drawer shows, with performances by the Portuguese group Buraka Som Sistema, the renowned British dj and BBC Radio 1 presenter Gilles Peterson, the kiddie pop group Papa Topo, the indie pop group Polock, the stories sung by Barbara i Els Morenos, DJ Amarelo and the wizardry on the decks of the Pioneer Dj Kids.

The fun characters of Pintatelotu are the stars of the new SonarKids image. Pintatelotu offers children the opportunity to have fun and learn while they are playing and colouring in their gallery of characters. Are they monsters? aliens? animals?

More inf@: SonarKids website

New Exhibitions at Museums of Barcelona

The Picasso Museum is holding an exhibition on artists’ responses to the Franco dictatorship in Spain. It takes as its departure point a series of engravings made by the artist in 1937 entitled The Dream and Lie of Franco.

Montjuic offers explorations into the past: MNAC is giving an exhibition on the 19th-century French Realist painter, Gustave Courbet while the CaixaForum is presenting an archaeological exhibition on the ancient Mexican site of Teotihuacan, whose fame rests on its enormous step pyramids.

If you fancy a bit of thought-provoking photojournalism, then you mustn’t miss the exhibition on at the CCCB featuring photographs taken by Gervasio Sanchez and showing the parallels between forced disappearances under oppressive regimes in South America, the Middle East and Spain.

Gustave Courbet and Realism at MNAC Barcelona

The French Painter Gustave Courbet rocked the art world in the 19th century. Through his brush, reality entered painting: Realism was born.

With the aim of tracing his footsteps in our country, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC) is exhibiting, until July 10th, a selection of his most outstanding works, most of which are being shown in Spain for the first time. The exhibition reveals Courbet’s influence on Catalan painting in the period, most of all through the work of Ramon Martí Alsina, the man responsible for the renewal of painting and who introduced Realism to the Spanish art scene.

It is an ambitious exhibition, produced by the MNAC, that invites the public to gain greater in-depth knowledge of Realism and at the same time discover its precedents and its legacy, in a show that deliberately goes beyond the temporal limits of this movement:  from the Spanish Golden Age, with paintings by Murillo, Ribera and Velázquez, to contemporary art, through the work of Antoni Tàpies, one of the most universal Catalan artists.

U232 Hotel offers you an Art Weekend in Barcelona, a special package including accommodation at our 4 star hotel, with a welcome drink and breakfast, and the Barcelona Art Ticket which entitles to visit the 7 largest museums of Barcelona: MNAC, MACBA, Museu Picasso, Fundació Joan Miró, La Pedrera, Fundació Antoni Tàpies and CCCB.

Món Llibre 2011: Children’s Book Festival

The Món Llibre 2011, the children’s book festival this year being held on 9 and 10 April at the CCCB and Macba.

Among the over a hundred free activities and workshops being held, children will be able to share experiences with the Japanese illustrator Taro Gomi, the creator of Gargots: a book for drawing, painting and creating (Un llibre per dibuixar, pintar i crear).

What’s more, there will also be a series of merry-go-rounds through Japan, on which children will be able to take a tour in tribute to their Asian counterparts and listen to traditional Japanese stories.

The festival includes other disciplines, such as music, dance and theatre, which offer alternative ways to tell stories to young children.

The performer Sònia Gómez will be doing a dance version of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, while Joan Garriga, from La Troba Kung-Fú will be inviting children to live a pirate’s tale. There will also be puppets to suit all tastes, rappers like the Hipnotik Faktory.

Among the Book World areas that you really must visit is the Asterix: The Albert Uderzo’s Archives exhibition, with secret works by one of the two creators of this legendary Gaul.

Món Llibre – April 09 & 10, 2011 – Free Entrance
CCCB -> pl. de Joan Coromines & MACBA -> pl. dels Àngels

Zoomvi, Festival of VideoClips Artists

The Festival de Realitzadors de Videoclips de Catalunya, Zoomvi (Festival of Video Clips Artists), lands in Barcelona at the CCCB on 1 and 2 April to show the best productions created by audiovisual and music fans.

The festival is held simultaneously in Barcelona, Reus and Olot. The finalists in the 2010 competition will be screened, along with the documentary Bankrobber.doc , various video clip projects will be presented and there will also be a battle of video clips. Plus there will be concerts, with Le Petit Ramon and Myriads, for example, where video clip projections will be mixed with the live music.

Programme

- Screenings, Battle of the Video Clips, New Formats, Bankrobber.doc, Luís Cervero

- La Ciudad Sumergida (Dorian), I Love Ü (Murfila), Kenneth Russo, Atleta, Le petit Ramon/El Chico

A unique opportunity, then, for fans and producers to exchange practices and experiences.

Theatre CCCB, a new venue in Barcelona

Seventeen years after the inauguration of the Barcelona Centre for Contemporary Culture (CCCB), the venue is adding the finishing touches to its extension with the opening of the Teatre CCCB, a product of the revamped Antic Teatre de la Casa de la Caritat.

The new venue, which is connected to the current building by an underground corridor, has two multi-purpose rooms, the Sala Raval, on the first floor with seating capacity for 170 people, and the Sala Teatre, on the second floor, with room for 600 standing spectators and 450 seated spectators.

The rehabilitation work made the most of the remains of earlier buildings, the old theatre designed by Josep Goday in 1912, and the façade of a cloister in the old Casa de la Caritat. It is also equipped with escalators, one of the characteristic features of the CCCB’s main building.

It also has a new entrance, at Plaça Joan Coromines, where the new theatre, painted white, invites comparison with another white building, that of the MACBA.

The first activity it is to play host to will be the Kosmopolis literature fest, which starts on Thursday 24 March.

Theatre CCCB.

OVNI (Unidentified Video Observatory), audiovisual exhibition at CCCB Barcelona

The CCCB is holding the 13th “Unidentified Video Observatory” (OVNI), from 22 to 27 February. This year it will be reflecting on the concept of “disreality“. It will feature 45 items selected from the 190 acquired by the observatory’s archives this year.

Silvio Berlusconi‘s media model is reflected in his television which, among other things, draws a grotesque, vulgar and humiliating image of women. This is the reality portrayed in Lorella Zanardo’s documentary Il corpo delle donne.

Life 2.0, by Jason Spingarn-Koff, shows how Second Life has become an alter ego of reality. And Goldfarmers, by Ge Jin, reflects on the duality of secret workshops in China, where men spend hours playing multi-player games online to win virtual goods.

All these films reflect on reality. Or, rather, on “disreality“, which is the main theme of the audiovisual exhibition OVNI (Unidentified Video Observatory).

An archive that contains over 2.000 items of video art, independent documentaries and media archaeology, it aims to encourage criticism of contemporary politics, culture and society.

Festival audiovisual OVNI 2011 ‘desrealitat’
Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona -> C Montalegre, 5 | Ciutat Vella

Emergencia! 2011 – 3rd Independent Music Festival of Barcelona

From 6 pm in the afternoon until 12 at midnight for the two scenarios will center a selection of the most outstanding artists in the emergent music scene both national & international with proposals from the pop and rock as the experimental sounds.

For the third year running, Emergencia! becomes a showcase for upcoming sounds in independent music, going out on a limb for a series of new names. Fiera!, Ornamento y Delito, Caballo, Dotore, Me and the Bees, and Patrick Bower or Stranded Horse are all coming to the forefront, and Emergència! has chosen them to present to the public on the two stages at the CCCB.

19 February 2011 – Limited capacity
Admission fee: 7 €
Concessions for students, senior citizens and the unwaged: 5 €.
Free admission for Friends of the CCCB

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