Leonard Cohen live in Lisbon

Masterful, superb... it's easy to run out of superlatives to describe Leonard Cohen's concert yesterday at Pavilhão Atlântico. For close to three hours, his catalogue of classic songs was delivered with deep subdued feeling and insuperable precision.  The band was perfect - is there any other word? - and Cohen himself, his voice intact, his body lean, presided over the show with majestic serenity like the high priest of song he is.  Time flied, the audience roared and a beatific smile of elation and gratitude came over me.

Globalization

In the 1930's, two Swedish economists formulated a simple law of economics which goes a long way towards explaining some of the dynamics of globalization. The Hecksher Ohlin theorem states that a country will tend  to specialize  in sectors which use the factor of production it possesses in relative abundance. Thus, countries with abundant labour, like China or India, will tend to produce labour intensive goods whilst countries rich in capital, like the US or Germany, will tend to specialize in capital intensive goods. This apparently self evident law has a corollary: as world trade expands and the global economy becomes increasingly integrated, the cost of these two factors of production will tend towards equality across countries. Thus, the cost of labour will tend to fall where it is high, like in Europe, whereas the remuneration of capital will tend to rise, because capital is scarce in less developed countries with high demographic growth rates. As the cost of the factors of production become more similar across countries, so do their social structures. Hence the rise of inequalities in the developed world, where salaries are increasingly compressed - just ask any regular "mileurista" - and an increasingly smaller part of the population - those who have capital - get richer and richer. If you want to go more in depth into this, read the work of the brilliant French social scientist, Emmanuel Todd. If not, just stay with Leonard Cohen's age old wisdom: "the poor stay poor and the rich get richer ... as everybody knows".

A country made for walking

From pictures and novels, everybody has in mind a familiar image of the english countryside: lush greens, rolling hills, white cliffs, a strong sea wind, boys dressed in white playing cricket, horseriding in country lanes, elaborate picnics, classic convertibles in narrow country roads with old gentlemen and young ladies. Well, after a recent weekend in Sussex and Kent, I can confirm nothing has changed. Globalization is still kept at bay in these counties. Life remains much as it was and as it should be. 

Victor Pimstein

Blue is the dominant colour in Victor Pimstein's new show at Joan Pratts, in Barcelona. The line in the horizon, abstracted landscapes, chinese ceramics are distilled into pure evocative images  at once familiar and exotic. We are in a realm of rarefied imagery. The gloss of the painted image, the steady glow and perfect finish of these works only  add to their mystery. 

Celebrity culture

Yesterday, 45 000 people went to Real Madrid's stadium to greet Kaka, the new brasilian star acquired by the club for 60 million euros. They cheered wildly the short speech by the club's president, the real estate magnate Florentino Perez, and the even shorter speech by the star, who appeared fully clad in white, like an angel, with Real's trademark equipment. Real Madrid, who is expecting even more fans to greet Cristiano Ronaldo, who was purchased for 92 million euros, feels sure that these are great investments, not because of the goals they are expected to score but because of the financial returns in publicity and merchandising. This is celebrity culture gone awry. Politicians are hounded by the press and seen as little better than criminals; except in Italy, if they have entertainment value like Berlusconi. Now that ideals have vacated the realm of politics, they seem to be fully invested in football. Great players are no longer merely stars, they are heroes. 

Pina Bausch in memoriam

She was a very great artist. Like Wagner, she invented a new form of total art, turning ballet into a metaphysical and narrative genre. I had often heard great things about Pina Bausch but nothing prepared me for the overwhelming beauty and emotion of Agua, the first show of hers that I saw (CCB, Lisbon 2003). Since that first experience, never ever did I miss an opportunity to catch up on all her works that I had criminally overlooked in the years before. I managed to see Cravos and Ten Chi (Teatro de São Luiz, Lisboa 2005) , the great Cafe Muller — with herself performing — and The Rite of Spring, (Liceo, Barcelona 2008). I wish I had seen all of them.

The artist as icon

And now for something completely different. Taschen has just published a fabulous book retracing the entire career of Jeff Koons. It is impossible to look at his work without smiling. Koons himself is always smiling, as if inviting the viewer to share in the enjoyment of his work. It's schmaltzy, crunchy, shiny and glossy. His pieces are instant, cheerful, icons of popular culture. With the exception of the "Made in Heaven" series, which seem strangely literal, self indulgent and cold and whose shock value comes more from its sheer bad taste than from its explicit sexual content, Koons manages to combine wit, warmth, technical perfection and a complex simplicity in his multiple cross references to consumer culture, pop art, infantile imagery and sexual tease.  

The painter as hero

Julian Schnabel is a man of bold gestures. He is grand, immodest and generous. He built himself a palazzo on the Hudson river, when he decided to change medium he bypassed video and went directly to commercial filmmaking and, meanwhile, made a name for himself as a decorator, eschewing modern design for rich colours and deep textures. He is also squarely out of fashion. No respectable museum will touch his work. Is this perhaps unfair? The other day I stumbled upon a book published by Skira retracing his career and, much to my surprise, felt a strong compulsion to buy it. All of a sudden, his famous broken crockery paintings, which had always seemed to me slightly repellent, appeared full of energy and depth. His newer material, bold strokes of paint on found images, seemed beautiful and poetic. It seemed quite refreshing to find art that is openly emotional done by a painterly painter, as opposed to the dessicated, intellectual pieces  that fill so many museums and galleries these days... 

Museum night at MACBA

Performance art at the chapel: german/spanish rock by Monsters and Miracles. Kids, skaters and immigrants at the MACBA plaza. Art objects (Matt Mulligan, Rita McBride) and Manel and Victor having a good time inside the museum. The museum director chatting at the door. End

Dylan at 68

Bob Dylan's new album, "Together Through Life", may be even better than his last ones, which all in all were amazingly good for a rock star who is now 68 years old.  The first thing to say about this record is that it sounds great, thanks to an inspired band which includes an accordionist and a trumpet player. The music is not infused with nostalgia... It is just straight rhythm n' blues, and it rocks. The songs are good too, maybe even great, only time will tell. Dylan still sounds genuine, not like a caricature of himself. To justify the outrageous price of the CD, it comes with a DVD with the demo track of Blowing in the Wind, recorded in 1962 - Bob Dylan looks like he is barely out of school but already sounds like a wise old man -  and an extra CD of the radio program he now hosts, The Theme Time Radio Hour. Here we have Bob Dylan as the literate historian and witty connoisseur of american popular music. I say: let him record more records, but also let him write more books. I read Chronicles I when it came out and I have been waiting impatiently for the next installment of his autobiography. A sacred monster, still alive and kicking. 

Tapas in Barcelona

Mini squids "en su tinta", "arroz negro", peppers "padrone" with lots of sea salt, "pan con tomate", a  bewildering variety of mushrooms, "esqueixada" of vegetables, smelly cheeses from the Pyrenees, "jamon de bellota", naturally, tuna every which way, plus the odd plate of lentils, and the fried artichokes, and not to forget "la tortilla" (called "truita" in catalan), and the "patatas bravas" and all sorts of "pescaditos" - with a dry white wine from the Penedes and, to top it off, some salty chocolate or a "crema catalana" and, feeling lightheaded, you are off to a delightful shopping afternoon on Paseo de Gracia or Rambla de Catalunya. Names and addresses for the best tapas in Barcelona provided on request.

Video art

Minimum-Maximum, the double DVD recording of Kraftwerk's world tour in 2004 is a perfect piece of video art. The stunning graphics accompanying the songs look even better on video than live (I saw the show at the Coliseu dos Recreios, in Lisbon). Kraftwerk always aimed for perfection. No loose ends, no accidents, no superfluous moves. Their hieratic show runs through their entire career, from Autobahn to Tour de France, with a perfect blend of wit and majesty. The visual counterpoint brings to life all their classic songs - from Man Machine to Elektro Kardiogramm. Hypnotic.