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There were once some hanging houses...
The city of Cuenca is high. Very high. At more than 900 metres above ground level, its profile is a block that rises above the ground. Marked by incredible buildings that had the old city declared a World Heritage Site in 1996, among all of the buildings the hanging houses stand out for their originality and mystery as structures built on a cliff that make one feel dizzy by just looking at them. Although it is said that in times past much of the cliff was full of this type of construction, now only three survivors still defy gravity every day. With an uncertain origin in the centuries of the Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula, it is not known whether they are Arab or Christian but i -
Adhoc, Vigo art
At number 9 of rúa Joaquín Loriga de Vigo, there is a space consisting of a ground floor and a basement. The decor changes every three months, mutating from painting the walls to strangers videos projected on white canvas, through paintings, sculptures and what they call 'performances'. For at the number 9 of Joaquín Loriga de Vigo there is Ad Hoc Gallery, with over 20 years behind it loaded with works of art. Inés Ramiro, its directress since 2000, explains that "the way to find artists from Vigo is the same as in other places." Albeit with dossiers sent by Internet or taken by hand by the gallery; by visiting fairs and participating in -
A small district of alternative culture
It is said that the Basques are very exaggerated, so much so that they have a peninsula inside Bilbao. This bilbainada is known as Zorrozaurre, a name which refers to its location: Zorroza, the district on the other side of the estuary and aurre, opposite, as it is limited by the Deusto Canal and the Bilbao estuary. The peninsula was developed amidst the industrial expansion after the opening of the Deusto canal. In the 1950s there were large factories with more than 500 workers each, restaurants for the workers and traffic jams. Some years later, many of the companies went to other parts of the province, leaving an industrial area practically orphan and abandoned. In -
The Miró of Majorca
"Mallorca is really a beautiful country; in places it still has the freshness of the early days of creation, which is not found in the Parisian environments we visited." Joan Miró, 1948. The phrase is signed by one of the Spanish avant-garde artists most famous abroad. There is certainly no denying the popularity of what the Germans call the seventeenth Lander (State): Majorca. But it also turns out that the two had a very special relationship. From a Majorcan family, Miró spent his summers on the island after the age of seven. Even back then, the genius drew landscapes and historic buildings of the environment. In these years Miró established chil -
Barrantes, the most famous no name red wine
Dinner among friends. A sharp movement and a little of the deep red Barrantes wine stains the white tablecloth. One of the diners, the ‘galaicocostumbrist’ painter Abel Barandela, has an idea. Using a rolled up serviette as a brush, he starts to draw with the dark wine. Fascinated by the discovery, Barandela decides to replace his habitual palette in one of his series of paintings with a little orthodox traditional ceramic pot of wine. Barrantes is known as ‘Manchamorros’ [the mouth stainer] for the dark colour it leaves on your lips when you drink it. With a low alcohol graduation thanks to its sugar level and its uncommon fruity flavour, it is unusual to see -
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The other side of museums: Alhóndiga Bilbao
Culture finds different ways of showing its essence. It does so majestically in large museums which for centuries have seen faces passing in front of the canvases, or from the day-to-day activity of places such as AlhóndigaBilbao. This is a cultural and leisure centre that considers its relationship with people from a closer, more enjoyable standpoint, and above all one that is highly innovative and sustainable. The building is a former wine, liquor and oil store that was refurbished by the French designer Philippe Starck and reopened in May 2010. Around the motto of Mens Sana in Corpore Sano, AlhóndigaBilbao has divided its space between three buildings that present -
Spanish Mona Lisa
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Skirts with wheels and flying glasses
Time and space suddenly go on standby for Blanca, a nine-year-old girl visiting the Barcelona Contemporary Art Museum with mum and dad. A sign says that the moving metal structure that has caught the girl’s attention is a work called Remote Control II, created by the Czech artist Jana Sterbak in 1989 and brought into the museum's collection in 1996. But Blanca has not stopped to read this, she already knows what it is: “Mummy look! It is a long skirt with wheels that you can get on”, she concludes after studying the find a second time. “It's missing the cloth of cover your legs, but if you put it on you don't have to walk. And you are taller. Do they se -
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A line of sticky tape
The evolution of Spanish society from the end of the military dictatorship that governed it until the death of its caudillo, Francisco Franco, in 1975, is present in all changes to the security systems that have protected Guernica, the painting by Picasso on the Spanish Civil War, since the MoMA in New York returned it to Spain in 1981. Even on the day of this report, a girl with headphones over her ears walks straight up to the painting and a watchman in the room stops her. —Careful! The girl looks startled and steps back. On the floor, 3 m from the Guernica painting, there are five strips of grey adhesive tape stuck to the tiles weakly marking -
Cool Spaniards of the 19th century
As happens in other large cities, in Madrid there is a district where the young practice youth as a trade, going out to the fashionable bars each weekend, accepting hangovers as an occupational risk, taking care to be street wise. A district where the counterculture is an organised system: here a small art gallery that breaks with traditional schemes, there a six square metre pizzeria with electronic music, in the following street to the left there are two boys holding hands. The curious thing about this district, which is called Malasaña, is that the coolest residents have been dead for two centuries. These occupy number 13 of calle de San Mateo: The Museum of Roman -
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Le musée Reine Sofia à Madrid
Passer à côté du musée Reine Sofia en étant à Madrid serait pis qu’une erreur, un crime ! Ouvert en 1986 dans les locaux de l’ancien hôpital de Madrid, il est devenu le musée d’art contemporain de la capitale et présente les œuvres des plus grands artistes espagnols de 1900 à aujourd’hui. On ne peut faire l’impasse sur "Guernica", le célèbre tableau de Picasso. Emouvant, fulgurant. Pour en savoir un peu plus sur le bombardement qui détruisit la ville le lundi 26 avril 1937, des films sont diffusés dans des salles adjacentes. Outre Picasso, Dali, Mar -
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