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| The Grandma arrives to Palau Robert exposition |
Today, Claire Fontaine and The Grandma have gone to Palau Robert in Barcelona to visit an unforgettable and wonderful exposition Maria del Mar Bonet als ulls de Toni Catany / Maria del Mar Bonet in the eyes of Toni Catany.
This expo talks about the friendship between Maria del Mar Bonet, the greatest singer in Catalan language and Toni Catany the prestigious and well-known photographer. Both of them were born in Mallorca Island and they travelled to Barcelona to follow their studies and start their professional paths. Lives of Bonet and Catany are connected as friends but also as professionals and this exposition is a good look over their lives, their connections and the great influence of these artists between them and over the Catalan and the world cultures.
The Grandma and Claire Fontaine love Bonet's music and as a good photographer and designer, Claire also admires Catany's works deeply. This exposition has been a good chance to discover more things about these magnificent artists and friends. It is a must that you have to visit.
Before going to the exposition, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Ms. Excel course.
17. Dynamic Tables (I) (Spanish Version)
Palau Robert is a building on Barcelona's Passeig de Gràcia 107, the former private residence of Robert Robert i Surís, an influential aristocrat, politician and businessman at the turn of the 20th century. It's now a government-run institution that hosts an exhibition centre with three halls, a concert hall, and gardens as well as the Information Centre for Catalonia, including the city's tourism bureau.
In the 1936-1939 period, it was the site of the Generalitat de Catalunya's Ministry of Culture. After the Spanish Civil War, Robert's family regained the Palau, until its second purchase by the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Catalan government, in 1981, when it became a public building.
An example of late neoclassical style, made of stone from Montgrí, the Palau Robert was finished in 1903 under the direction of architects Henry Grandpierre and Joan Martorell i Montells. The garden was designed by Ramon Oliva, who also designed Plaça Catalunya. Its palm trees were brought during the 1888 Barcelona Universal Exposition.
More information: Palau Robert (Catalan Version)
Toni Catany (Llucmajor, August 15, 1942-Barcelona, October 14, 2013) was a Mallorcan photographer with self-taught training.
Toni Catany resided in Barcelona since 1960, a city where he studied chemistry. Self-taught photographer, he began his profession as a free-lance (self-employed) in 1966, conducting travel reports.
In 1968, he published his first reports on Israel-Palestine and Egypt in the magazine Destino and on the Balearic Islands in La Vanguardia. But he would soon opt for lands other than those of press photography.
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| Toni Catany & Maria del Mar Bonet |
Dead natures of study, landscapes and Mediterranean architecture, with a special interest in crossbreeding, portraits and male knots treated with singular poetry are some of the great issues that Catany addressed in his work. A work that, technically, began with the imitation of ancient techniques, such as daguerreotype and calotype, and more recently in transported polaroids. Always with the combination of procedures of the past, tradition and experimentation, with great influence on painting, and with alternation of black and white and color, although it also incorporated as a means of expression digital photography in its latest years. He is the author of a monograph about Mallorcan photographer Tomàs Monserrat (1873-1944).
He exhibited in Spain, France, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Italy, United States, Tunisia, Germany and Japan, among other countries. His work is located at the National Library of Paris, at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, at the Niepce Museum (Chalons-sur-Saone, France), at the University of Parma (Italy), at the International Polaroid Collection (USA ), and at the Museum of Mallorca.
He was also a great traveler, very interested in Mexico and Venezuela, as well as Iran, India and Bangladesh, where he shared many places with the writer and traveler Ana María Briongos.
More information: Fotografia a Catalunya
The Fundació Toni Catany is a private cultural foundation, created on July 10, 2014 in Llucmajor, Mallorca, which has the following aims:
-Catalogate, preserve, study, defend, reward and disseminate the artistic and photographic legacy of Toni Catany.
-Colaborate with the public institutions in the creation and management of an international photography center, based in Llucmajor, with the aim of becoming an active organization with a local and global projection for the promotion of photographic culture and for the knowledge and dissemination of the work of Toni Catany.
-Customize the general public the work of Toni Catany, for which the Foundation manages the copyright generated by the work of Toni Catany, and makes available copies of this work that is susceptible of marketing.
-Colaborate with public institutions and private entities to promote the photographic culture and to promote the Balearic Islands as a meeting place for any artistic or cultural expression.
More information: Fundació Toni Catany (Catalan Version)
The Palau Robert adds to the 50th anniversary of Maria del Mar Bonet's musical career with an exhibition that brings together the best photos that Toni Catany, the National Plastic Arts Award and the National Photography Prize made to him, and gives him know the friendship and the creative evolution of the two artists.
An exhibition dedicated to two friends, to the fecund creative exchange of two cultural references of the Catalan identity that grew together as artists and that reflects the decisive role of the Mallorcan photographer in the shaping of the public image of Maria del Mar Bonet.
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| The Grandma visits the exposition, Palau Robert |
From the photographs of Toni Catany, the exhibition explains the struggle of two committed people, of extraordinary creativity, both advocates of identity, language and the Mediterranean and shows a common trajectory, which began when the singer started his musical career at the Setze Jutges in Barcelona. Together they dive in the cultural Barcelona of the 70, in different fields but always maintaining close collaboration. Literature, especially poetry, music and art, united the two friends, who exchanged suggestions, preferences and readings.
The discography of Maria del Mart Bonet is the conductor of the show that presents 180 works (discs, posters, photographs). Catany was the author of more than 60% of the covers of his albums, posters and photographs. The exhibition is structured in the following areas: A look in love, In the eyes of the friend, Salmaia, Portraits and overseas, 2017.
Miquel Bezares, President of the Fundació Toni Catany says about this exposition:
In the 1960s Toni Catany arrived in Barcelona and settled down there to start an extraordinary photographic work. He soon became a privileged witness of many cultural events and historical events. Between these events, there was also the start of an artistic career, which was also exceptional, the career of Maria del Mar Bonet, with whom our photographer started a close friendship, which, like many friendships, had to go through all the colours of affection, from the first and uncertain love to the intensely fraternal bond.
Since the start of this unconditional bond, there is a Maria del Mar Bonet that was created by the eyes of Toni Catany. It exists because he looked at her and taught her how to look at herself. To see herself through the eyes of a friend. Because if we usually say 'the camera loves you' to point out that someone is photogenic, in the case of Bonet we have the certainty that it was not just the device that the photographer was holding in his hands what loved her, but, and above all -above her strict beauty and the mechanical fidelity of the lens- that it was the friend himself, who put all his love into it. His loving look.
In 2017 it has been 50 years since the beginning of Maria del Mar's career, and so, the Fundació Toni Catany wanted to join the commemoration by organizing this exhibition dedicated to the two friends and their creative exchanges. We owed it to Catany and we owed it to Bonet.
More information: Maria del Mar Bonet
Una mirada enamorada / A look full of love
Barcelona. Last years of the 60's. They are young. Very young. They are just finding out what they want to be. And the first look of Catany, no doubt fascinated by the beauty of Bonet, was a clear and loving look.
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| Maria del Mar Bonet |
Maria del Mar Bonet said about Toni Catany:
One day he came to my house, in Palma, and took a picture of me. I had my hair on a braid and had a kitten. We started talking and I told him that I wanted to go study pottery in Barcelona, and he was already there because he was studying a specialisation course. He did that to make his family happy, he did not like it at all, while he slowly started taking photographs, shaping his vocation. He suggested that I contacted him when I arrived in Barcelona, and I did it. When I first started singing, I took him towards the world of the song.
Als ulls de l'amic / In the eyes of a friend
It would be fair to say that the professional and artistic image of Maria del Mar Bonet was created by Toni Catany. Bonet answers to the eyes of her friend with a look that is as loving as his and that becomes, over time, the singular process means to learn to see herself, to discover and recognise herself physically, guided by the advice and suggestions of Catany, or oriented by his aesthetic opinions.
Catany also takes part in the graphic design of the albums and promotional posters of Bonet. Whether the album has a portrait made by the photographer or another design, the look and the opinion of the friend operate in the construction of the image. Or it is the product of the always fertile joint work and artistic exchange between both of them.
Si véns prest, 1969
Barcelona is the setting of the beginning of a long-lasting and artistically fruitful friendship. The young Catany and Bonet share their days in the city and also on the island. She poses for the camera for him, and some of the photographs are included in the private and personal archive of the photographer, witness of a time of discoveries, smiles and complicity. Some of these photographs are kept hidden from her, his friend, in the same way that one would hide a feeling or a treasure.
Salmaia
The water of the fountain has become salmaia when it becomes salty. The adjective was nominalised by Maria del Mar Bonet to give name to the album of the same title, published in 1995, which she defined as a mixture of fresh water and salt water, or the mixture of Italian, Greek and Turkish songs that were in the album. In the same way, salmaia could be understood as the meeting point of the river and the sea that were, for many years, the photographer and the singer. A space for artistic exchange in which music, words, the scenes, the themes, and the looks blend, suddenly come together, or result in subtle correspondences. Some expressions of this fertile exchange are shown in this exhibition as the central theme.
The singer came in contact with the poetry of Bartomeu Rosselló-Porcel through Salvador Espriu and Toni Catany and he sang some poems that have become essential issues in the Maria del Mar discography.
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| Maria del Mar Bonet & Mercè Verdaguer, her mother |
Salvador Espriu, who was companion of the late Mallorcan poet, received in his home the two friends on February 22, 1968. Bonet went there to sing some of her songs to him (Catany, who went with her, wrote in his diary that the poet especially appreciated Què volen aquesta gent?, El majoral and Sa núvia d'Aljandar). Literature, especially poetry, music and art connect from the beginning the two friends, who exchange discoveries, preferences and readings.
Salvador Espriu said about Bonet in 1974:
Maria del Mar Bonet has interpreted like no one else the poetic world of Bartomeu Rosselló-Pòrcel. Because she understands and loves it, she interprets it like no one else and gets to its core, to its penetrating ardour. [...] Toni Catany and the other collaborators, the names of which I do not know, have also executed their respective duties with a diligent success.
A l' Olympia, 1975
Unveil photos of the recital of Bonet, who shared the stage with Toti Soler and Ovidi Montllor, in the Olympia concert hall in Paris. The Valencian poet Vicent Andrés Estellés attended the concert. The concert was recorded and published as an album in November of the same year.
Saba de terrer, 1979
From Paris to Llucmajor. At the Olympia. Maria del Mar had sung Mallorcan folk songs among other kinds of songs. In the expression of popular culture and art of the Catalan Countries there is another connection between the photographer and the singer, who share the idea of national building based on the local things, and who enjoy to go through and to recognise the accents and the colours of the Mediterraneanism.
From Llucmajor to the world. The poetry of Maria Antònia Salvà, the photographs of Tomàs Montserrat or a florera become, then, essential elements of the incessant and enriching exchange that the friends have from the common passion.
Cançons de la Mediterrània, 1982
The photographer and the singer opt for the culture and art of the Catalan Countries, for the idea of national construction from what is local and are recognized in the accents and colors of mediterranean origin.
Jardí tancat, 1981
For the pictures of this album, dedicated to poets and poems of the Mallorcan school such as Maria Antònia Salvà, Toni Catany photographed his friend in a highly symbolic place that both of them particularly appreciated: Raixa. It was there where he took one of the most emblematic and iconic photographs of our artist.
Bon viatge faci la cadernera
The world of stories is very present in Bonet i Catany since its infancy. These popular stories have been used for songs by Maria del Mar and for a photographic series like the one presented in the exhibition.
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| Claire Fontaine visits the exposition, Palau Robert |
Salmaia, 1995
The Mediterranean, Raixa, the sanctuary of Gràcia, Cadaqués and Cap de Creus, another of the legendary scenarios for our artists. The places of meeting and return. The places of the salmaia.
Cavall de foc, 1999
We have seen that the artistic will is intense, both in Catany and Bonet, and sometimes it leads them to explore other ways of excange to try out various kinds of expression that are not strictly their own. The synergies can be, at times, surprising or certainly wonderful. Bonet shows his pictorial facet on the cover of this disc and sometimes approaches the language of the photographer friend, discovering new forms of expression beyond the song.
Portraits and overseas, 2017
Selection of twenty-two portraits of the singer of great beauty, unpublished and other best known, made with different techniques such as calotypes, transported polaroids and colored originals.
The exhibition tour ends at the Ultramar scope, 2017. This is Bonet's latest recording so far. Catany contributed to the search for Cuban music and tones. Unfortunately, he left us before the album came out.
There is, finally, the music, that connects the two friends. The exchange of musical discoveries and recommendations was constant. Listening to songs next to each other became, over the years, a daily and stimulating ritual. They had talked about the album Ultramar, the last one of Bonet up until now, but Catany did not get to hear it. The text of the song Amorosa Guajira, which the singer found by chance in the songbook of Pare Ginard and that ended up being a posthumous tribute to her friend from Llucmajor, became one of those magical coincidences that only the power of art and the force of an unconditional friendship can cause.
Maria del Mar Bonet says about Toni Catany:
The photographs were
taken at the house of the designer Francesc Guitart and Montserrat
Xicola, in Barcelona.That was the first time that Toni made me pose like
that, sitting. Francesc Guitart and he had the idea of the photographs,
one above the other. It was a cover that had a lot of impact. That
image was not common at all, it was something else, with that green
tone... he took some more pictures of me that ended up in his
exhibitions, including one in which I had my hair in a bun. For many
years I did not like the portraits that other photographers made me.
Only his.
The exhibition presents the audiovisual of Eva Vilamala Toni Catany in voice of Maria del Mar Bonet that gathers the influences between the two artists, the shared tastes and sensibilities that will give fruit in the work of both.
More information: @mmarbonet
I have no secret or magic formula to take my photos.
Toni Catany
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