Àngel Planells i Cruañas

La dona impúdica

http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Àngel_Planells_i_Cruañas

2 de desembre de 1901 - 23 de juliol de 1989

• Àngel Planells i Cruañas era un pintor surrealista català que coneixia a molts artistes com Eliseu Meifrèn, Joan Roig i Soler i Salvador Dalí. El 1918 va viatjar a Barcelona per estudiar pintura, però va tornar a casa per als problemes econòmics.
• La seva primera exposició individual va tenir lloc el 1930, a les Galeries Dalmau.
• El 1936, Planells va formar part del grup de Logicofobista amb artistes com Artur Carbonell i Carbonell i Àngel Ferrant. La primera Exposició Logicofobista va tenir lloc a Barcelona, el 1936.
• Després de la Guerra Civil espanyola, Planells va pintar paisatges, i el 1974 va tornar al surrealisme.

Christina :]

Antoni Pitxot

Antoni Pitxot is a catalan artist born in Figueres in 1934. He started studying art and drawing in his teenage years and went on to exibit his works all over Spain in his twenties and thirties, winning many prized for his work. During the 1960s he began experimenting with surrealism, and a lot of his most famous work is from this era. He used to build sculptures using slate and stones and then paint them im oils.

His family was already acquainted with Salvador Dali before his birth, through his uncle Ramon who was also a painter, and the two became good friends. Pixtot co-designed the Dali-Theatre Museum with Dali, and became its' Director after Dali died. He is also a life patron and Vice-President of the Gala-Salvador Dali foundation.

Emma xx

(ps, i have more pictures of his work to upload but i dont know how to get them all in a line and its annoying me!!)

Josep Guinovart

Josep Guinovart va neixer el 20 de març 1927 a Barcelona. És famós per el seu estil informal, resum i expressionist.

Va anar a la Escuela de Artes y Oficios de la Llotja fins a 1946. Federico Gracía Lorca era la seva inspiració i el 1951, va produir algunes peces d’art que es diu ‘Homentage a Federico García Lorca’.

Va visitar a Bèlgica, Holanda i Alemanya després de estudiar a París per 9 mes. Li agradava Matisse i Picasso.

El 1957, Josep va tornar a Barcelona i va iniciar a treballar amb l’art abstracte, utilizant materials diferents i un poc estranys com closca d’ou, terra i palla.

Hi ha un museu a Agramunt, on la seva mare va neixer, que és dedicado al seu nom.
Va morir 12 desembre 2007 a l’edat de 80.

Hi ha més informació aquí:
http://nuamed.blogspot.com/2008/09/renovar-guinovart.html

Chiara

Antoni Tàpies

[http://static.picassomio.com/images/art/pm-46500-large.jpg]

Antoni Tàpies és un dels artistes més famosos de l'expressionisme europeu. Tàpies va neixer 13 de desembre 1923. Actualment viu a Barcelona.

Després d'estudiar dret durant 3 anys, es va dedicar des de 1943 en endavant només a la seva pintura. Ell és potser el més conegut artista català a sorgir en el període transcorregut des de la Segona Guerra Mundial.

Fundació Tàpies a Barcelona és un museu dedicat a la seva vida i treball.

Hi ha mes informacio aqui. http://www.fundaciotapies.org/site/spip.php?rubrique280

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoni_T%C3%A0pies]

Sian

x

Joan Miró

Joan Miró i Ferrà va néixer 20 d'abril 1893 a Barcelona i va morir el dia de Nadal 1983 a Palma de Mallorca.



Miró és un artista català famós i té el seu museu, La Fundació Miró és ubicat sobre Montjuïc a Barcelona. Hi ha molts creaciós per Miró com La carícia d'un ocell (una escultura) i Dona i Ocell (una altre escultura, tots dos a Barcelona). Però la seva obra que trobo la més interessant és Home i dona davant d'un munt d'excrements (1953). Hi ha més informació aquí.





Becky x

Manel en concert a Manchester

Com us vaig informar aquesta setmana, dia 17 de febrer Manel faran un concert a Manchester. Aquí podeu veure un vídeo d'ells (la música no comença fins al segon 15). Si no podeu venir-hi, almenys podeu gaudir de la seva música que, personalment, considero genial. Emma, em sap greu, però no s'assembla gens a la "makina" que a tu t'agrada!

Salut!

Laia

Cava

As students it is commonly known that we all like a bit of a tipple every now and then ;]

So I thought that I would take a look at the most famous of the alcoholic drinks that the Catalonian region produces - Cava.

Cava is both a white and pink sparkling wine, produced in different areas of Catalonia, Navarra, Rioja, Andalucia, Valencia and Extremadura but mainly in the Penedès (or in Catalan - Alt Penedès) region in Catalonia, 40km south-east of Barcelona.

This Spanish sparkling wine was first made as early as 1851, although the true roots of the Cava can be traced back to Josep Raventos' travels through Europe in the 1860s, where he was promoting the still wines of his Codorníu winery. His visits to the Champagne region in France sparked an interest in the potential of a Spanish version of the sparkling wine, using the same production methods. After seeing the success of the Champagne region, Raventós decided to create the dry sparkling wine that has become the reason for the region's continued success.

The producers wanted to distinguish this sparkling wine from the very popular Champagne, and so they adopted the name Cava after the Catalan word for cave, where the wines were traditionally stored.

The wine had originally been know as xampany or Spanish Champagne, but this is no longer allowed under EU Laws.

Cava is produced in varying levels of dryness of the wine which are: brut nature, brut (extra dry), seco (dry), semiseco (medium) and dulce (sweet).

The production of Cava uses selection of the grapes including Macabeo, Parellada Xarel·lo, Chardonnay, Pinot Noie and Subirat. The rosé style of Cava is also produced by adding still red wines from Cabernet Sauvignon, Garnacha or Monastrell to the wine.

Under Spanish Denominacion de Origen laws, Cava can be produced in six wine regions (such as Aranda de Duero, Navarra and Rioja, however 95% is produced in the Penedès region). The wine must be made according to the Traditional Method with a second fermentation in the bottle.

I have to say, it is a lovely sparkling wine and it is no surprise that Cava has definitely become deeply ingrained in Catalonian culture. Cava has become tremendously popular and vast amounts, over two hundred million bottles, are now made for both domestic consumption and export. Today Cava has become integrated with Spanish family traditions and is often consumed at baptism celebrations where the newborn gets a taste of his/her dummy dipped in the wine!

Christina x.

I was just looking at some videos and pictures one of my friends from home had posted on facebook and I think I might have found something that actually interests me that I can contirbute to the blog!

The friend in question is an MC and does all that crazy chavvy rave/new monkey type stuff (its very popular in the north-east if you havent heard of new monkey) and he labelled some of his stuff "Makina" I'd never heard this of this genre before so I put it in youtube, and surprise surprise a lot of the videos that came up were Spanish and there were even some Catalan videos.

So next I did the obvious thing and checked Wikipedia :P apparently Makina developed in the late 90s after electronic music became popular in the 80s, synth pop, acid house etc, in the Valencia/Catalonia region. The word Makina comes from "maquina" which means machine. One of the biggest Makina record companies is based in Catalonia, called "Xque". It basically sounds like a happy hardcore dance track with someone MCing over the top of it, and it uses loops and samples just like most other genres of dance music. Ive asked a few people and it's quite popular in County Durham where I'm from, and the north-east in general, so I'd be interested to know how popular it is in Catalonia! Apparently the regional governments tried to ban it, or at least tried to stop people attending raves because of the stereotypical connection with drugs that this kind of music has.

Anyway, I just thought it was quite interesting that a kind of music that a lot of my friends listen to originated in Catalonia and they (and I) had no idea!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A1kina
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A1kina


Emma

Catalan Traditions - Pubilla's

I thought I’d research a little more into Catalan fashion, but from a more traditional view. But then I found a picture of a woman wearing a headdress and the word ‘Pubilla’ written underneath. I thought the headdress was called ‘Pubilla’, but it actually means ‘heiress’ and it has a lot of history behind it. Many years ago, a woman was branded the name ‘Pubilla’ if there were no males in a Catalan family in order to preserve the family name.

Now, in present Catalunia, Pubilla’s are kept purely just for tradition and cultural reasons. Each town elects their own ‘Pubilla’ once a year and this is accompanied by a big ceremony and a festa.

Each Pubilla wears expensive and elaborate dresses, usually made of very intricate lace. They also wear fishnet gloves and a hairnet.

I couldn’t find much on Pubilla’s which was a shame, but if you type it into google and look at the images, you can get an idea of the type of clothes they wore. Their amazing clothes show the importance of the event when a Pubilla gets elected, and how significant it is to the people of Catalunia that they still carry on their tradition.

Below are pictures of the first ever Pubilla and also a picture of a current Pubilla.

Chiara