I’ve just published a new proposal of sharing my photography: SILENCI is a limited edition of eight boxes, numbered and signed, each containing ten photographs printed with pigment inks on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gr paper.
SILENCI talks about silence, about understanding the moment where silence invites all other presences.
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I discovered Juan Gamero's work with his magnificent documentary Los Karamazoff, and I have been following him until his latest production, which covers the hundred years of La Floresta, the neighborhood where he lives. Gamero works the whole process, from script to post-production, with exquisite precision and with the security and expertise that comes from his long experience in the audiovisual sector. In his own words: "my passion is to film reality with a photographer's eye and try to make the images speak for themselves on a big screen, if possible".
Juan Gamero is a director, screenwriter, photographer, cameraman, editor and independent producer. He has received, among other awards, the Ondas Internacional and his work has been exhibited at the film festivals of Berlin, San Sebastian, INPUT, Expo Sevilla92 and the Pompidou Center in Paris. He started as an assistant film director and collaborated with the magazine Ajoblanco. Producer in TVE-Catalunya, among others, of Metrópolis, Documentos TV, Dos en Raya, Pinnic and Redes; with documentaries on Jaume Plensa, Mariscal, Sisa, or Los niños del 36. Also joint works with Gelabert&Azzopardi, Zotal, Marceline&Sylvestre, Marcelo Tas, Arnau Vilardebó or Jordi Rocosa. Director-screenwriter of the series Prisma (1990/91), Vivir la utopía (1997, ARTE/TVE), and Carme Riera, Escenarios para la felicidad, (2001, series Esta se mí Tierra). Author of the documentary concluding the Olympic Games Barcelona 92; in 1999 he set up Paradocs with Carmen Rodríguez, to produce his own projects, some of them shot in Bali, Ecuador or Mali. He has co-directed, written, filmed and edited the award-winning documentaries En busca del primer europeo (2011, Turkana films) and The Karamazoffs (A walk where the SoHo years)" (2016, Paradocs/La Quimera/TV3 Televisión de Cataluña). His most recent work has consisted of recounting the first 100 years of his neighborhood: La Floresta, 100 years of stories, a 4 and a half hour macro-documentary.
You can't finish Francesc Pla. He is an endless source of all kinds of miscellaneous information on architecture, urban planning, sustainability or any other topic of interest. He spices his explanations with an intelligent and contagious humor. I photograph him in his co-working space in La Floresta and while he moves the chair to sit down, he explains to me the life and miracles of the Eames couple, who designed it, or how he left Bopbaa, his old architecture office, when the dimension of his work became too impersonal, and set up Leve Projects with his partner Eva Serrats, where they deal with architecture from a closer approach.
Francesc Pla is an architect by the ETSAB since 1998. Since the beginning he has collaborated with different offices and relevant figures such as Enric Miralles, Bohigas-Mackay-Martorell, Zenghelis-Gigantes, Ábalos-Herreros, Dani Freixas, the urban ecologist Salvador Rueda or the filmmakers Bigas Luna and Isabel Coixet.
Until 2015 he was part of Bopbaa, with Josep Bohigas and Iñaki Baquero. Since 2014 he works associated with Eva Serrats within the multidisciplinary team Leve Projects developing competitions and projects on "homelessness". He combines the work in the studio with classes at the Vallès School of Architecture and collaborating in the Environmental Sustainability Plan of the AMB.
When you talk to Dani Freixes you know that he will always surprise you, he will comment on something that no one has ever thought of before, or turn any idea around, improving it. He's a guy who doesn't motor; he definitely sails, to use an expression of himself, which divides the world between those who sail and those who motor. Dani exudes imagination all around and canalizes it with intelligence, and wise humor.
Dani Freixes was born in Barcelona in 1946 and graduated in architecture in 1971. He has developed almost all of his professional activity in the architectural firm Varis Arquitectes where he works with Vicente Miranda, Eulàlia González and Vicenç Bou. Throughout his career he has received important awards and recognitions as an architect, designer and interior designer. Among others, the FAD Architecture and Interior Design Awards, which he has received in different categories: the FAD Opinion Award in Architecture, for the Vintró single-family house, the FAD Award for Ephemeral Interventions and the FAD Opinion Award, for the renovation of the Miramiralls attraction at the Tibidabo amusement park. His work stands out for its imaginative capacity and his tireless search for a wide variety of architectural and scenographic resources.
Leslie and Guido, our friends from Brooklyn have spent a few days at home and I had the chance to take a portrait of each of them. Leslie and Guido are graphic designers and film and video makers in New York City.
Check their work at Cruz Dann Productions.
Making of picture by Leslie Dann. Thanks Leslie!
I ask each character to do the portraits in their usual work environment. And Diego tells me that his is in the forest. And he takes me to his favorite spots in Collserola, his refuge to read or meditate and where he takes his amazing macro-photographs of flowers and plants. Diego photographs petals and leaves and transforms them into delicate landscapes and strange textures that seem to emerge from a dream.
No doubt, his profession as a graphic designer and his discreet mystical side help him to achieve a beautiful, harmonic and serene work.
Diego Petrilli has been working for twenty-five years in corporate, editorial and cultural graphic communication. This last one being his great passion, accompanying artists of all disciplines at the moment of making their work known.
He has published Unísono, a collection of macro-photographs. His latest book, 36 vistes de Torre Collserola, (36 views of Collserola Tower) is a precious exercise of repetitive observation, almost Zen, which reveals the surprising play of light and atmospheric elements that envelop Foster's tower every day.
I discovered Marina Herlop on YouTube, in a recording from years ago where she explains, in tears, when she was a teenager, and after a failed piano audition: "music is not made for that, you know, music is not made for auditions, nor to get nervous, nor to feel shitty.... If I had known this, I wouldn't have done music".
Well, luckily she kept going, because Marina has managed to create a strong, original and surprising work, wrapped in a disturbing, delicate and beautiful aesthetic.
I photograph her on a torrid August afternoon, at her place in the Guinardó neighborhood, where she has her recording studio. While we were moving keyboards and chairs to make some space, two rabbits strolled quietly around the room, adding a surreal touch to the scene.
Marina Herlop has released two solo albums, Nanook and Babasha and she is the vocalist and keyboard player of the band Myōboku. She stands out for her style of fusion between classicism and avant-garde, and for using an invented language in the lyrics of her songs.
Herlop is part of the musical project Myōboku together with Oscar Garrobé. The group's style has been defined as unusual and unclassifiable, with influences ranging from space-funk to psychedelic jazz, avant-garde, art-pop or afro-beat.
On July 1st multistudio BOOKS presented in Barcelona its new collection 12 PRINTS. These are packages containing 12 DIN A6 reproductions in digital offset i a limited edition of 20.
The presentation was held at the Espai d'art Atelier Güell, with the presence of several of the authors who have contributed to the collection.
Toni Ricart participates in 12 PRINTS with 3 titles: Walk in a dream, Fragile and the illustrations pack la Floresta.
Arriving at Enrique Gracián's house, I ask him about a doubt that I had while reading Construir el mundo (Constructing the World), his latest book. I tell him that I understand that an animal or a plant acts to be able to eat or reproduce, and, speaking of elementary particles I can also understand that two atoms negotiate between them to form a compound, but the reason for this fact escapes me. He answers me that they do it because they can, and that it does not make much sense to ask the why of everything at these levels; we would be entering the realms of metaphysics.
He then makes the following reflection: "I make an analogy with humans. The inner world would be the core. The inner world is that part of our being to which only we (as individuals) have access and in order to establish relationships with the other we have to negotiate. No matter if it is a friendship, love or business relationship, there is always a negotiation.
In the world of physics nuclei only touch each other when a nuclear reaction takes place, be it in a reactor, in an atomic bomb or in stellar synthesis. This always results in the transformation of one element into a different one, as, for example, when hydrogen is transformed into helium.
At this point, analogies in the human sphere become mere fantasies. In the religious realm it is when the divine nature is reached (communion) and in more earthly terms, it would be the possibility of a sexual relationship in which the union of the inner worlds would take place in a kind of nuclear reaction that would give rise to the appearance of a new being. To me, this is a thought that is more amusing than interesting."
Gracián has the gift of transmitting his knowledge with simplicity and with a certain dose of humor and irony. Listening to him is always a pleasure, and you always learn new things, or, at least, seen from a new point of view.
Enrique Gracián, who holds a degree in mathematics from the University of Barcelona, has a long history as a teacher in various academic fields, an activity from which he derived a clear vocation for popular science, which he has demonstrated in collaborations in the science supplements of La Vanguardia and El País, as well as in other popular science publications. He was deputy director of the TVE program Redes. He is also the creator of the SANGAKOO method (an innovative system for the teaching of mathematics) and the BOURBAKI project (mathematical method for the treatment of information in business organizations). His publications include the biographies of Von Neumann and Hooke, as well as the mathematical popularization books El Infinito, un descubrimiento sin fin and Los números primos, el largo camino hacia el infinito, translated into more than fourteen languages.
Tere welcomes me at her home in the Gracia neighborhood. We look at some of her drawings, perfectly organized in folders. These are images that move from the delicacy of fine pen lines to more vigorous gouaches and watercolors. From delicate portraits of Bauhaus heroines to expressive ape faces, interpretations of erotic Japanese shunga prints, or simple kitchen objects drawn in an almost naive style. And everything very classified, clean and tidy, like the space where she works, like all the work she does as a graphic designer: neat, concise and effective.
Tere Guix has a degree in Biology and a PhD in Medicine. In 1990 she decided she needed a change and studied graphic design at the school of art and design Eina in Barcelona. She worked in the studios of Carme Vives and America Sanchez.
In 1994 she studied digital communication at ETC, Stockholm, and also the Swedish language. In 1998 she founded ETC in Barcelona and in 2004 she set up her own graphic design office, which still continues.
She is very interested in drawing and started to delve into it through the Club del Dibujo that she co-founded with 9 other art, design and photography professionals.
Over the years Tere has been teaching design at Eina, BAU and Escola de la Moda and drawing at the Cercle Artístic de Sant Lluc.