Pep Puig, Art worker. new portrait for BCN VA

I met Pep in the 90s when he was a pioneer in interactive production in Barcelona and he often commissioned me to create designs. A photograph of Miles Davis presided over his office. We immediately connected. Now we're neighbours and we spend a lot of time talking about art, music and life at his studio in La Floresta. Pep defines himself as an art worker, because the term "artist" makes him uncomfortable. It is a good definition, because his artistic restlessness has him constantly active: when he has not yet finished a project, he is already planning a couple more. His graphic work is therefore abundant, and in constant evolution. Behind every drawing, painting or printing, there is a demanding formal concern but also a rich discourse, often surprising. This coherence is, for me, the best of his work.

Pep Puig has worked as a designer, draftsman, layout artist, editor, photographer, director and video producer. He has collaborated with newspapers such as Mundo Diario, El Noticiero Universal, El Periódico, El Món and Diario de Barcelona. In 1984 he founded the video production company Clara Films and in 1989 Interacción, a pioneering company in the creation of interactive media. In 2003 he set up an industrial design studio and Bitenberg, a new interactive production company. In 2012 he collaborates in the creation of the art therapy centre Espai 21. He is currently working on his own artistic creations.

Pep Puig website

Mariona Berenguer, an exceptional artist for BCN VA.

On the second day of the year and a few hours before she returned to Berlin, I photographed Mariona Berenguer, an artist with a complex and powerful discourse. It seems that Mariona does not waste time on the superfluous and focuses her world on everything that moves her artistic performance. She has an attractive sweetness and at the same time a strong, determinant attitude.

This is how she defines her artistic approach: My artistic practice is fundamentally grounded in the exploration of conditions in which the possibility of opposites coexist, creating a unique tension between seemingly disparate positions that coalesce or combine into works which investigate a space “between”.

Mariona Berenguer studied at the Escola Massana in Barcelona, specializing in sculpture, and graduated at the University of Barcelona with a degree in Fine Arts.

She takes part in group exhibitions at LafuturA gallery (Barcelona), Fine Arts Academy (Sabadell), History Museum (Sant Feliu de Guíxols), TEDxBarcelonaWomen, San Salvador Monastery (Burgos), Maristany Art Centre and Es-Fiera 72 (Sant Cugat). In 2018, her work is selected for the XXI Biennial of Catalan Contemporary Art, where she presents Metástasi(s), an audiovisual installation with a performative extension in the company of the pianist Lucía Fumero. In 2019 she takes part in the Loop festival in Barcelona with an audiovisual installation in collaboration with the sound artist Juan Segura and a group exhibition in Kunsthaus Bethanien, the historical centre of art in Berlin. This last year she has been selected for the Felicia Fuster Foundation grants with the interactive installation About desire, a project with which she starts in the field of robotics and which she has exhibited in Monopol during this year's BerlinArtweek.

She lives and works between Barcelona and Berlin, where she combines her most personal work with the production of the German artist Michael Sailstorfer (König Gallery).

She is currently preparing a solo exhibition on production in art and at the same time she is developing the theme of desire, some of which will be shown at the GlogauAir art centre (Berlin) during the next year.

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.

Film director Carla Simón, a new portrait for the project "Barcelona valoRs afegits".

It has been a pleasure to portray Carla Simón, an author I have admired since I saw her film Estiu 1993. We talked about about her work process and her next film, which has been interrupted by the pandemic. During the photographic session, I recognize in her paused way of speaking and moving the very peculiar rhythm of Estiu 1993, where Carla knew how to recreate with mastery, the tempo of the days of that special summer seen with the eyes of a child.

Carla graduated in Audiovisual Communication from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 2009; she took the Master in Quality and Innovation TV organized by the Televisió de Catalunya in 2010 and the Master of Arts at the London Film School (postgraduate scholarship from Obra Social "la Caixa"). In London she directed the documentary Born Positive and the short fiction film Lipstick.
Estiu 1993 (Summer 1993), released in 2017, is Carla Simón's first feature film. It was shot in Catalan and according to the author it aims to respond to how death is explained to a minor and how to understand what is happening around her from the silences and gestures.
Estiu 1993 won the Best First Film Award and the Generation Kplus Grand Prix Jury Award at the Berlinale 2017 . It also won the Golden Biznaga at Málaga Film Festival, the Jury Mention at Istanbul Film Festival or the Best Direction at BAFICI, amongst others.

Carla Simón web site

Les ganyotes del vent

Sailing along the Costa Brava, I photographed the rocks, from Sant Feliu de Guixols to Cap de Creus, where erosion has sculpted shapes and colours for centuries. Hidden faces that watch the sailor: the grimaces of the wind.