Beatbox star Dani Pulmón for BCN VA

Looking for new protagonists for the BCN VA project, I went to a remote spot in Collserola to portray Dani Pulmón.

Dani defines himself as a performing artist, because - he tells me - he is not just a musician, or a recognised and award-winning beatboxer, or an actor. He is all of these mixed together. Or, as a mutual friend says, a juggler, capable of making the audience laugh, or dance with only his voice and his small sound system.

Dani Lleonart, known as Dani Pulmón, is one of the greatest exponents of national beatboxing. Always with beatboxing as his cornerstone, Dani is professionally involved in live music, music production, theatre and teaching.

Dani Pulmón website

Luci Gutiérrez, another great illustrator for BCN VA.

Luci tells me that she always appears out of focus in the photos. I smile, trusting my tripod and my camera settings. But back in the studio I discover that in many photos her face does indeed appear slightly out of focus. Luckily there are a few good ones, but I'm still intrigued by that strange power Luci has.
During the photo session she keeps a sweet and calm look, only interrupted by her hands playing endlessly with her glasses. Her drawings reflect this fragile tranquillity; they are clean, concise and funny, with a touch of an almost unsettling naivety.

Luci Gutiérrez studied illustration at the Escola Massana in Barcelona and has worked in advertising, press and books. In 2007 she lived for a while in New York in the hope of learning English well. She did not do so, but she was comforted by drawing people, places and moments of that great city, which later gave life to the book English Is Not Easy, a manual to learn English with joy. She regularly publishes in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and she is a leading illustrator of The New Yorker. She has illustrated campaigns for companies such as Apple or the Barcelona City Council. In 2019, she published her second book, Manual de autodefensa, to make it clear that life, like English, is not an easy matter.
She has received several awards, such as the Communication Arts Award, the Society of Illustrators of New York and the Gràffica prize. But her greatest prize is to sleep many hours a day.

Luci Gutiérrez website

new portrait: Arnal Ballester, a great illustrator for BCN VA.

Arnal transmits sympathy and humour. Just like his drawings, which are wise, ironic and beautiful.

He welcomes me at his house in the Gracia district and we do the photo sessions in his studio, crowded with books and drawings, a universe of references. Looking at his work, one can guess the years of experience in the profession, the care that he puts into each drawing, his demand for the quality of the editions and prints and a rich personal discourse.

Arnal Ballester was born in Barcelona in 1955.  Since 1989 he has been teaching Visual Narrative at the Escola Massana d’Art i Disseny in Barcelona. His field of work is quite diverse and includes books, editorial, advertisement, design and animation. He is the author of 80 illustrated books; doing regular contributions for Spanish and foreign newspapers and cultural magazines; animations for TV, foundations and film festivals.
He has been awarded several prizes, such as the Nacional Illustration Award, Spanish Government Ministry of Culture (2008), Gráffica Awards (2015), or the Premi Junceda d’Honor (2020), among others.

Arnal Ballester website.

Pla-Narbona, a reference point for graphic design in Spain, dies at the age of 92

I had the privilege of meeting Pla-Narbona, a rare artist: graphic designer, painter, draftsman, sculptor, a man with an admirable vitality and creative spirit. I made a portrait of him in 2006, and a few years later I was lucky enough to work with him to design the image for the centenary of La Floresta and also to design his book, which we published in multistudioBOOKS.

We will miss him.

Pla-Narbona and myself working on his book Axiomagrafies (2019).

Art historian Anna Pou van den Bossche, for BCN VA.

I photograph Anna in her work space, at her flat of the Eixample district, in Barcelona. Anna is extremely friendly and outgoing. As a media communicator she feels comfortable in front of the camera. At the same time she projects tranquillity and a special balance that can also be breathed in her luminous studio, with a minimalist, almost Zen-like, decoration and a meditation corner presided by a small Buddha.

Anna Pou van den Bossche has a degree in Art History, a Master's degree in Contemporary Art and a postgraduate degree in Management and Direction of Cultural Platforms. She founded Ágora Servicios Culturales in 2000 and taught at the Instituto Cervantes in Munich until 2014 while collaborating with the Bayerischestaatsammlung and providing teacher training at the universities of Augsburg and Nuremberg-Erlangen as well as at the Colegio de Doctores y Licenciados en Filosofía y Letras de Cataluña, the Universitat de Girona and the Rosa Sensat School. She has carried out educational projects for the Barcelona Provincial Council, the Arranz-Bravo Foundation, the Vila Casas Foundation, Pueblo Español and Roca Barcelona Gallery, among others. She has written books and articles about art education and the figure of Goya in particular. She currently creates content and presents television shows on art (TV3 and BTV), teaches at the Barcelona School of Art History and is a curator at IDEAL Centre for Digital Arts in Barcelona.

New portrait for BCN VA: Joan Chamorro.

"The jazz community worldwide is gonna thank you one day, I’m telling you. What you’ve done is a great service to this music". This is how saxophonist Jesse Davis spoke to an emotional Joan Chamorro in the film A Film About Kids and Music. And he was right, because Chamorro has created a group of excellent young jazz musicians, unique in our country. While we were preparing the photo session at his jazz house in the San Andreu neighbourhood, I asked him what he considered to be his most personal work, the Sant Andreu Jazz Band or the groups where he plays with other professional musicians. He tells me that it's all the same work, because his youngsters, at the head of a time, are already so good that he can play with them at any level.

He talks passionately about how his students learn, how they fall in love with jazz, and how they then fly solo. And about the secret of it all: listening and studying a lot.

Joan Chamoro studied saxophone at the Barcelona Municipal Conservatory and graduated from the Taller de Músics de Barcelona.

He has given master classes in schools and conservatories all over the country and also in Colombia, USA, Mexico, Poland, France, Sweden, Switzerland and Italy, presenting his San Andreu Jazz Band project (a different way of learning music).

He is a member of the Taller de músics Big Band and collaborates with Bellaterra's Big Band, John Dubuclet's Big Band, Jazz Terrassa Big Band, Eladio Reinon-Tete Montoliu's Supercombo, the Orquesta de Radiotelevisión Española, Manhattan Transfer and Stevie Wonder among others. He has played with great jazz figures such as Slide Hampton, Tete Montoliu, Frank Foster, Teddy Edwards, Frank Wess, Bebo Valdés, Randy Brecker, Gary Smulyan, Dick Oatts, Jesse Davis, Dennis Rowland, Carmen Lundy, John Mosca, David Allen, Bobby Shew and Judy Niemack.

In 2006, Chamorro founded the Sant Andreu Jazz Band, where he teaches young musicians (7 to 21 years old). He is the producer of the Joan Chamorro Presenta collection, which includes some of the members of the Sant Andreu Jazz Band, such as Andrea Motis, Eva Férnandez, Rita Payés, Elia Bastida and Alba Armengou, among others.

He has recorded some eighty albums and has received various awards such as the Arco, Altaveu, Jaç and Enderrock prizes.