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.

Carlos Kleiber

Some conductors leave their personal imprint on whatever they touch. Karajan is always Karajan, whether playing Mozart, Beethoven or Stravinsky. There is always a certain sense of solemnity - of  depth and weight. The only time I saw him conduct - the Berlin Philarmonic - I was struck by the way the bows of the violin section rose and fell exactly in unison. The orchestra behaved like an army, moving inexorably in perfect sync. Another conductor with an inimitable style was Furtwangler. But he was just the opposite of Karajan. For him music was all poetry and lyricism, nuance and fantasy. Carlos Kleiber belongs to a different school. When he conducts he seems to get inside the score. The music sounds as if it was meant to sound exactly the way he plays it. In his hand, everything becomes  fresh and spontaneous. There never is an undue emphasis, all the parts are phrased exactly right, everything becomes clear, sparkling, sharply delineated.  

Isaac Bashevis Singer

Almost inadvertently, I plunged into another novel by Isaac Bashevis Singer - "The Manor and The Estate". Beware if you pick up one of his books. Singer has that rarest of gifts in a novelist - the ability to hook you from the very first sentence. "After the unsuccessful rebellion of 1863, many Polish noblemen were hanged; others - Count Wladislaw Jampolski among them - were banished to Siberia. The Czar's soldiers led the Count in chains through the streets of Jampol, the town which bore his name." This is how "The Manor and The Estate" begins. Immediately, we are in the thick of it. Singer wastes no words. His narrative is fast paced, but he is capable, in one or two simple brushstrokes, to describe action, character and atmosphere. The novel is set in the vanished world of the Hasidim in pre-WWII Europe. It deals with Singer's familiar concerns: jews and gentiles, orthodoxy and heresy, poverty and money and always men and women and their complicated love affairs. Narrow concerns, provincial settings? In Singer's hands, stories of universal interest, gripping, moving, tellling and wise.

Cildo Meireles

I saw a great show at Macba by Brasilian artist Cildo Meireles. Landscapes, open cages, small objects conjure a vastly evocative personal universe. Meireles gives installations a good name. Here is a photo of one his great pieces, a tower of Babel made of radios. But the picture does not by any means convey the majesty of the sculpture, its towering presence in a dark room, with blinking lights and dissonant symphony of sound.

Kraftwerk

There is a new DVD with a fascinating documentary about the birth of german electronic pop music, called "Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution". It shows how in different german cities, beginning in the late 60's, weird experiments conducted under the influence of Stockhausen and psychedelic drugs coalesced into a cluster of great bands, some of which well known, like Can or Tangerine Dream, others much less so, like Ash Ra Tempel. It then shows how Kraftwerk, working in Dusseldorf, fitted or did not fit into that scene and how they progressively hit upon their style, creating some of the most sumptuous pop music ever recorded. And finally it shows the tremendous influence they had, first of all on David Bowie who, in 1976, went to Berlin with Brian Eno to record their great masterpiece, "Low", and then on disco, british electronic pop and techno. "From station to station to Dusseldorf city, meet Iggy Pop and David Bowie" sings Ralf Florian in Trans Europe Express. The record came out in 1977, when punk rock was raging. In New York City, cool black kids in sneakers were the first to take it up. I remember hearing Trans Europe Express for the first time in Central Park throbbing out of a ghetto blaster. Check out here Showroom Dummies  from that famed masterpiece album.

Cool Milan

Milan feels cool and, at the same time, oddly menacing. The massive presence of the Sforza castle in the middle of the city hints at sinister scenes within walls. The typical Italian swagger - tight pants, shiny sneakers, the shirt hanging out of the mauve sweater, overdone sunglasses - makes one feel about to be swindled. When the lights go out at night, the city has dark corners suddenly illuminated by speeding sports cars. If you ask someone a question in the street you are likely to get a brusque answer, or no answer at all. You are reminded of the decadent charms of Visconti and the perverse brilliancy of Pasolini.