Not even the height of summer stops the machinery of leisure and culture in the Spanish capital, thirsty for exhibitions and events even at 40 degrees. In fact, during this time museums become more useful, serving as the perfect climatic refuge in which one escapes the heat and approaches culture. An example is La Casa Encendida, which will keep the exhibition open until September A requiem for humanity in which he dissects the colonial strategy of dehumanizing the African people to facilitate plunder. On Saturday, July 27, there will be a jazz session at the Parque del Oeste bandstand with the quartet of Madrid-born Beatriz Zaragoza. At the same time, the Telefónica Foundation invites A journey through the history of communications in Spain; The House of Mexico opens a Exhibition of two of its most outstanding documentary photographers and Belgian Sawmill invites a bath of Japanese culture from the study of screens.
A requiem for humanity at the Casa Encendida
‘A requiem for humanity, dehumanizations, power and black futurisms’, is the exhibition that can be seen from this Friday, May 24 at La Casa Encendida 🏠, curated by Tania Adam @TaniaSafuraAdam pic.twitter.com/h2x777CAGT
— The House on Fire (@LaCasaEncendida) May 21, 2024
The dehumanization of one’s neighbor has been a more effective tool of colonialism than the sword itself. This is the hypothesis that A requiem for humanity, an exhibition that can be visited at La Casa Encendida until September 15. The exhibition is divided into two parts: dehumanization, which shows how “this construct of the anti-black world leads to a spiral of timeless and incessant violence, which persists in today’s societies”; and, the second part, rehumanization, which encourages us to imagine a humanity beyond man, by breaking “the distinctions between the human, the alien or the machine.”
The police station, Tania Safura Adamhas addressed “the scientific-cultural-religious production that caused the dehumanization of ‘the black subject’ and the consequent violence against him”, as well as the subsequent “utopias that allow us to imagine an emancipatory future”. Safura has asked to face the exhibition as “an invitation to reflect, in a moment of racial tension like the present”. The researcher, journalist and Founder of Radio Africa, a platform for the dissemination of black art and culture, attributes the current rise of far-right movements and anti-immigration discourse to “a clear defense of white supremacy.”
The Parque del Oeste vibrates to the sound of jazz
KEEP READING
The contagious rhythm of jazz will take over the Parque del Oeste from 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 27. The quartet of Madrid-born Beatriz Zaragoza will perform on the bandstand. The City Council defines Zaragoza on its website as “an artist of great sensitivity, with a very personal style and a voice that caresses the soul. Together with her musicians, they create a warm and subtle atmosphere where they delight us with intoxicating jazz.”
The concert is one of the events of the Summer cultural agenda of the Moncloa-Aravaca districtwhich also includes children’s shows, puppets and a photography exhibition. One day after the presentation of the quartet, it will be the turn of Fetén Fetén, a renowned Castilian duo connected to traditional music, which portrays the essence of the people and the traditional culture.
The fleeting eternity of a photograph
Two great exponents of Mexican photography share their work in Madrid within the framework of the current edition of PhotoEspaña (PHE). They are Rafael Doníz and Pedro Valtierra, documentary photographers whose snapshots are exhibited until September 8 at the Casa de México Foundation. On their artistic journey, Doníz and Valtierra have visited various corners of Mexico with a camera on their shoulders. Without thinking of sharing an exhibition, both have converged in certain places and have faced similar situations, although each has managed to portray them with his own style. “Their journeys coincide in time and space and, nevertheless, both portray two different Mexicos without failing to tell the truth,” details the synopsis of the event.
Whether in black and white or color, the photographs of both manage to convey the intimacy and folklore of the culture portrayed, whose protagonists move away from famous figures to elevate the common citizen. The exhibition is curated by Héctor Orozco, chief curator of the Televisa Foundation Collection and Archive and member of the panel of experts of PHE Discoveries.
Crossed looks
The Telefónica Foundation continues the celebration of its first century of creation with a new exhibition that can be visited on the fourth floor of the headquarters on Gran Vía, from June 11, 2024 to January 12, 2025. Five Spanish creators have participated in the exhibition, commissioned to create a set of installations based on the 85,000 pieces that make up Telefónica’s technological and audiovisual legacy, including telephones, distributors and cables, as well as photographs and films from different periods.
“The result is newly created artistic installations, approached from the different disciplines and approaches of their authors, which give value and new meaning to these funds,” says the company on its website, where it also reports on a sixth piece made in the seventies, which completes the exhibition with the aim of “connecting with the telephone as an instrument of human communication.” The theatre company La Fura dels Baus, the visual artist Daniel Canogar, the experimental sound collective Cabosanroque, the filmmaker Nuria Giménez, the multidisciplinary artist Eugènia Balcells and the conceptual artist Isidoro Valcárcel Medina are the artists who have given life to this project.
Historic Japanese furniture at the Belgian Sawmill
A collection of 10 screens and 16 Japanese fans from the 16th and 17th centuries has landed at the Serrería Belga exhibition centre so that Madrid residents can enjoy the best of the golden age of Japanese painting. The pieces revolve around the concepts of nature (Japanese art has a close relationship with the seasons and flowers), power (screens are symbolically linked to authority) and imagination (fans often have fantasy-related themes), according to the event’s organizers.
The exhibition has the collaboration of Hiroyuki Kano, a specialist in Edo period painting, and Daniel Sastre de la Vega, an expert in Japanese art from the Autonomous University of Madrid, who will make a couple of guided tours in which he will explain the history of Japanese screens and their peculiarity, as well as their different uses in history. These tours will be on Friday, July 26 and August 23, prior reservation on the websiteThe event is part of the Veranos de la Villa festival, which in this edition includes more than 270 activities in eight districts of the capital, with Japan as the guest country. At the Serrería Belga you can also visit another exhibition made up of 20 kimonos that narrate the origin and evolution of this ancestral garment.
Open-air theatre Saturdays
Santander Park, in the Chamberí district, It will become a space for the performing arts for a few weeks. The stage will be located on the volleyball court (Paseo de San Francisco de Sales, 39. Metro: Guzmán El Bueno L6 – L7). The next play to be performed will be Bowa’s Travelsby La Gata Japonesa, on Saturday 27th, at 20:30. In August all performances will be at 20:00.
They start on day 3 with In the coolby Ana Confetti; they follow on the 10th with the work Christopher Purchinelaby Alauda Teatro; on August 17th you can see it They are memoriesfrom Alodeyá; and on the 24th it will be the turn of Microconcert of storiesby Chica Charcos. Admission is free, subject to full capacity.
Subscribe here to our newsletter about Madrid, published every Tuesday and Friday.
