Claude Cahun at La Virreina Centre de la Imatge

Lucy Schwob used the pseudonym Claude Cahun during her multidisciplinary artistic career. She was a writer, a woman of theatre and a photographer, and for years unjustly forgotten about until the 1980s when two exhibitions on her were held in France.

This exhibition has organized by Jeu de Paume, París, and coproduced with La Virreina Centre de la Imatge, Barcelona, and The Art Institute of Chicago. The purpose for the exhibition Claude Cahun is to bring the image of this artist up to date and highlight her continued validity with regard to contemporary practices and discourses.

Nonetheless, this exercise is based, not only on pointing to contemporary works, artists or discourses that invite one to think of Cahun as a precedent, but also on exploring the successive ways in which the critical frames through which “her” work has been studied have been updated themselves. These revivals and evaluations of Cahun from different perspectives have thrown light on and complemented the many different facets of the artist’s creative practice.

La Virreina Centre de la Imatge -> la Rambla, 99 – Ciutat Vella
Dates: From 28/10/2011 to 05/02/2012 | Free entrance

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 Photographer Photography Tours

Barcelona Photographer is organised to ensure that our photographers demonstrate their finest qualities to our clients who wish to discover an alternative Barcelona to that portrayed in the tourist guides.
We offer you a tailor-made photography tour which is a short version of our intensive weekend course.

This 4hrs tour leads you through Barcelona’s old town, a destination rich in luscious visuals, picking out photogenic locations that are ideal for demonstrating and practicing various photographic techniques. You will discover the Gothic charm of Barcelona’s Cathedral, the hidden plazas and tranquil narrow lanes deep in the heart of the Barri Gòtic (Gothic district), the contrasting bustle and life of Las Ramblas and much more.

At the moment we are offering Barcelona by day tours which we normally start at 9 o’clock in the morning or well at 4pm. This is a personalized tour and can be done at your convenience. You are free to choose another time to start the tour.

You will discover Barcelona through the eyes of a professional photographer, and receive personalized instruction on how to take fantastic photographs, with Barcelona Photographer’s professional photography guides. The itinerary is designed by Director of Photography, Katherin Wermke (English,Spanish and German). She has worked for a number of different fashion magazines and publishing groups and is a constant lecturer at Institut d’ Estudis Fotogràfics de Catalunya (IEFC), the Catalan Photography Institute.

To get a better idea about our photo tours, please visit the documentary about the tour on our home page: www.barcelonaphotographer.com

Desbordamiento de Val de Omar exhibition at La Virreina

The moving picture as an educational tool. Far removed from big screen superproductions devoid of content, La Virreina Centre de la Imatge is rethinking cinema through the lens of popular education in six projects that are set to be exhibited between July and October.

These four “in-house” productions include one organised in conjunction with the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and a project on the Cinématheque de Tànger. Using photography and experimental cinema they look at various types of culture that make up civil society.

The Pedagogical Missions of the Republic, which the photographs of José Val del Omar record in the exhibition Desbordamiento de Val de Omar (Val de Omar Overflow) are shown as the first initiative to favour cultural exchange during the time of the Second Republic.

La Virreina is showing one of his main film creations, Tríptic Elemental d’Espanya (Elemental Triptych of Spain), three shorts that merge the reality of Granada, Castile and Galicia with the artist’s poetic imagery.

Works like this, which are more hypnotic than narrative, reflect the technical evolution of this unknown artist, who went from recording missions to experimenting with new photographic and cinematographic equipment.

Palau de la Virreina -> La Rambla 99
www.virreina.bcn.cat

Discover Barcelona during the 60′s

Barcelona’s Photographic Archives, in collaboration with the Municipal Archives System Deparment, is presenting a selection of pictures in the exhibition Eugeni Forcano: My Barcelona. The exhibition features over 130 black-and-white, large format photographs and is being held at two separate venues, the Sala Ciutat and the Arxiu Fotogràfic de Barcelona.

Eugeni Forcano, a self-taught artist, fascinated by the power of the image and how to capture it. He started very young, producing photoreports about local life in his hometown Canet de Mar, where he set up his first photographic laboratory. During the 60′s, Forcano worked for the weekly magazine Destino, and is one of the most awarded photographers of Spain.

Where: Sala Ciutat – Ajuntament de Barcelona. Ciutat, 2. <M> Jaume I
Where: Arxiu Fotogràfic de Barcelona. Pons i Clerch, 2. <M> Arc de Triomf
When: Until January 2011.
More inf@: Free entrance. Detailed opening times can be found here.

Secret Guide to the Rambla at Palau Virreina

The project entitled Secret Guide to the Rambla (Guia Secreta de la Rambla) invites people to examine its photographic, artistic and other visual representations of the area. The Rambla is most certainly one of Barcelona’s most iconic and universal spaces, for that reason we recommend to discover one of the Rambla’s jewel, the Hotel 1898 in Las Ramblas!

The exhibition, entitled Instantànies de carrer (Street Snapshots), displays a century’s worth of history in the form of 267 photographs of various kinds, from street photos taken at the start of the 20th century to critical photocreations with the current “postcardisation” of the Rambla. The Ocaña 1973-1983 exhibition focuses on the role of this artist, Ocaña, a pioneer of the gay movement and an entire period, within the underground and alternative cultural movements during the 1970s and until he died 1983.

To this end, “Secret Guide to La Rambla” places photographs by Frederic Ballell, Gabriel Casas, Josep Maria Sagarra, Brassaï, Dora Maar, Ramon Masats, Colita, Xavier Miserachs, Josep Cunties and Manel Armengol alongside images by Eva Serats, Red Caballo, Àngels Margarit, OriolVilanova, Peter Downsbrough, Jaume Pitarch, Beat Streuli and Frank Berger, amongst many others.
 
Secret Guide to La Rambla – > From 25 March to 24 May 2010 – Free admission
Palau de la Virreina – La Virreina Lab 
Address: la Rambla, 99 – Ciutat Vella | tuesday-sunday: 12-20 h – mondays closed, except holidays

Winners of the Photo Contest

Yesterday, February 1st, finished the voting in facebook and we have 2 winners for our Photo Contest.

 The contest has been a major success, we received more than 140 pictures. Thank you all for joining us and taking part.

Winners are:

• 1st PRIZE: Eva Fortuño, who will enjoy a 2-nights stay at wonderful U232 Hotel in Barcelona. Congratulations !!!
• 2nd PRIZE: Mandreja Marrón, who has a booking for two at Restaurant H1898. Enjoy your meal !!!

All the pictures will remain on exhibit at our facebook profile, on the album Fan Photos.

Stay tuned, as this was our first contest, but will not be the last…

Photo contest: Post in facebook and win !

Hurry up! You still have time to participate in our Photo Contest in facebook. Deadline is on January 29th.

Become fan of NN Hotels in facebook and post your Barcelona picture onto our wall. The 2 most voted photos will be the winners. Make sure all your facebook friends also vote for you!

Winning a free stay in Barcelona has never been so easy!

You can read more about the contest and the complete guideline at our website.

BAC! 09 – The Barcelona Contemporary Art Festival

The Barcelona Contemporary Art Festival BAC! 09 opens Pandora’s box. At least, this year’s date with international creation is subtitled “Pandora’s Boxes“. An ironic title, as we won’t find all humanity’s ills there, rather an assertion of feminine art, but without any of the clichés normally associated with it.

Neither social criticism nor discourses on gender discrimination; the sixty-or-so female artists whose works are on display in BAC!’s main exhibition at the CCCB, free of charge, prefer humour, irony and a fresher perspective.

This is what we find in Ariadna Arnés’s photos, in Hanamaro Chaki’s illustrations and Bárbara Sánchez Barroso’s embroidery. You can be sure to find installations and videoart there too, such as those by Marta Jiménez Salcedo and Ms Woolman.

One of the highlights of this tenth BAC! is the section entitled “BAC! CAM“. This will feature one of the fullest retrospectives on women’s videoart.

To be more specific, the programme called “Indomitable Women” reviews female videoart over the last forty years, from the field’s pioneers like Maya Deren, celebrity names like Yoko Ono and Joan Jonas, up to more recent creators like Dora García, among others.

X Festival Internacional Barcelona Art Contemporani – BAC Pandora’s Boxes  – website Festival
From01/12/2009 to 03/01/2010
Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB): C/Montalegre, 5

NN Hotels: www.nnhotels.com

FotoPres 2009 at CaixaForum Barcelona

The 135 photographs corresponding to the six projects awarded prizes and grants are now being shown at CaixaForum until February 2010 to prompt visitors to think deeply about living conditions in countries in conflict.

The competition, which came about thanks to a determination to recognise the then little-valued work of photojournalists, has this year awarded the winning prize to Spaniard Emilio Morenatti for his project ‘Gender violence in Pakistan’.

The selection tells the stories of ten Pakistani women based on their faces, disfigured because of family disputes or by rejected suitors. Just through these faces the photographer succeeds in portraying the cruelty of gender violence and the tragedies faced by these women for the rest of their lives.

Keeping to the subject of violence, second-prize winner Walter Astrada and his report ‘Post-electoral violence in Kenya’, made in that African country during the months of January and February 2008.

Distancing himself from the other prize winners, third-prize winner Alfonso Moral portrays Lebanon’s social reality in ‘Lebanon, between sea and fire‘ from two opposing angles: the tranquility of the sea and the changes brought by the conflict.

Besides the three winners, La Caixa awarded six grants to produce documentary projects, the results of which can be seen in the exhibition. It includes works by Lurdes R. Basolí, Fosi Vegue, Marta Ramoneda, Aleix Plademunt, Mikel Aristregi and José Luis Expósito.

This year 316 works were entered for the competition, the highest level of participation in the FotoPres Awards since it was first held in 2003.

FotoPres’09 Exhibition | From 30/10/2009 to 21/02/2010
CaixaForum Centre Social i Cultural -> Av Marquès de Comillas, 6 Sants-Montjuïc

NN Hotels: www.nnhotels.com

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