As the rift between Madrid and Barcelona deepens, Catalonia’s art institutions are caught between a rock and a hard place — and largely silent on political issues.
Spain
Posted inBooks
Plumage of the Saints: Aztec Feather Art in the Age of Colonialism
In a 16th-century triptych of the crucifixion at the Musée National de la Renaissance, north of Paris, Christ has wings. In fact the whole piece is made of feathers.
Posted inIn Brief
13,800-Year-Old Engraving May Be First Depiction of a Man-Made Landscape
Seven crude semicircles scratched into the surface of an ancient stone slab may not make much of an impression on modern-day viewers.
Posted inIn Brief
Spain’s Art-for-Taxes Program Only Works When the Art’s Good
If taxes sound taxing to you, consider this alternative: move to Spain, purchase valuable and culturally significant artworks, and donate them to the Spanish government in lieu of tax. Just make sure they’re really significant artworks.
Posted inIn Brief
Spain Arrests Three Alleged Art Forgers
Three suspected members of an art forgery ring were arrested in the Spanish cities of Zaragoza and Tarragona, El Pais reported.
Posted inOpinion
Has Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia Grown Out of Touch?
You might say that Antoni Gaudí was an architect of the cloth. From 1883 until his death in 1926, the Catalonian master oversaw the construction of the Roman Catholic basilica Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain.
Posted inArt
Spanish Collective Protests Corruption With Monument to Laundering
The Madrid art collective Luzinterruptus has crafted a satirical public sculpture to protest the corrupt allocation of 3.96 million Euros ($5.3 million) to shift a Christopher Columbus statue a few meters in a public square.
Posted inOpinion
Earliest Known Paintings Discovered in Spain
While we once believed that art was the exclusive domain of the more evolved Homo Sapiens Sapiens but the latest find suggests that the earliest known painting was created by Homo Neanderthalensis. So, maybe you should think twice before calling someone a Neanderthal.
Posted inOpinion
World’s Largest Wooden Structure Built in Spain
The city of Seville might be best known in art circles as the birthplace of famed Spanish painter Diego Velazquez, but now the city has another claim to fame — it is now the home of the world’s largest wooden structure, a 5,000 square meter canopy over the central Plaza de la Encarnacion.
Posted inNews
New 25,000 Year Old Cave Paintings Discovered in Spain
Cave paintings are so in right now! From Werner Herzog’s documentary to the recent discovery of new cave paintings in Spain, primitive art is totally in fashion. These newly uncovered 25,000 year-old paintings are thin line drawings of horses and human hands, rendered in a deep red.
Posted inOpinion
Madrid’s (Holy) Version of the Watts Towers
In LA, the Watts Towers are a homemade monument by Simon Rodia, pointed cylinders of steel decorated with found objects that stretch over 99 feet tall. In Madrid, Benedictine monk Justo Martinez has constructed his own cathedral of a scale and complexity to rival Baroque architecture. Built over the past five years and rising over 131 feet, the cathedral is an enormous monument to perseverance.
Posted inNews
Major Art Exchange Between Prado and Hermitage
Two European museum powerhouses, the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, have signed an agreement to temporarily swap 236 art masterpieces in what it is an unprecedented exchange between two major art institutions.