Por la carretera ~ Manu Chao and his concierto clandesti in El Hospitalet

José-Manuel Thomas Arthur Chao is a French-born artists of Spanish origin. He began his successfull career in the mid-1980s with his first group, the Hot Pants, but it is with Mano Negra, a "multiracial" band founded in 1987, that Manu Chao reached popularity. 

"Mano Negra started playing in a subway in Paris before the band started to be known and selling records. We started in a subway for a living. This is what made the musicians of Mano Negra. And so the people using the subway in Paris was very eclectic. There was people from a lot of different countries, different cultures. So we have to be able to play all kind of music to please all the people in a subway. So that was a perfect school to learn a lot of different style of music."

In fact, Manu Chao and his band are influenced by many different music genres, such as punk, rock, French chanson, Iberoamerican salsa, ska, reggae and Algerian raï, that create a unique music style appreciated in all the world. His songs and lyrics deal with immigration, love, social problems and often carry a left-wing message. Moreover Manu Chao sings in many different languages, such as Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, English, Galician and Arabic, even mixing them in the same song.

His experience with Mano Negra ended in 1995, and Manu Chao started his solo career in Madrid with a new group, the Radio Bemba Sound System. In this new phase José-Manuel wrote some of his most famous songs, like Clandestino (1998) or Me Gustas Tu (2001). 

He considers himself a citizen of the world, however he actually lives in Barcelona (even if he rarely stays in Spain), a city that perfectly matches with his way of living, full of live and energy. The people love him, and he loves his city, he even opened a bar in Barri Gotic, the Mariatchi, and he owns a disco in El Hospitalet where he often performs.

This weekend, in particular, he held two conciertos clandesti in his disco, the Salamandra. Why clandestine concerts? In Barcelona he often performs in secret concerts to avoid a huge request of tickets (and resulting disappointements), so only if you're a regular client of his bar, or if you are a true fan of him (if you are really lucky too!), you will found out about his shows. 

Yesterday, 5th of May, Manu Chao performed for more than two hours without any true break, more than 20 songs in his set list, and energy, really a lot of energy in every single song. This is, in fact, why Manu Chao is so appreciated by his fans, even at the age of 53 he seems a young, crazy boy on the stage, always singing and inciting the public that follows him singing every word and dancing at every song. Clandestino, El Viento, Desaparecido, all his best known songs, spaced out by Pinocchio and other crazy motifs, entertained a public of less than 1000 people in a quite familiar atmosphere. A lot of good music, but also social engagement characterized this concert, with a speech about the human rights crisis in Mexico, with the disappearence of 43 mexican people in mysterious circumstances: 

¡Vivos los llevaron, vivos los queremos! 

With his music kaleidoscope, you will feel lighter, happier, so if you are fishing in troubled waters, if you have some problems, and if you feel sad, just go to one of his concerts, and you will forget everything for the next three hours.

Pase lo que pase, sea lo que sea, próxima estación: Esperanza.

Fundació Joan Miró and Prophetia

Last Saturday, we interns at 1Global Translators decided not to dedicate our stay in Barcelona only to fiesta and Spanish food, so we visited Fundació Joan Miró, a modern art museum located on the top of Montjuic. 

The museum was founded by the Catalan painter and sculptor Joan Miró – born in Barcelona in 1893 and died in 1983 in Palma de Majorca – in order to encourage young artists on the path of contemporary art. Miró wanted to revitalize the Barcelonan artistic environment, supporting the birth of a new artistic generation. 

The collection was opened to the public on 10 June 1975, but its origins can be traced back to the Miró’s exhibition at Hospital de la Santa Creu in 1968. 

The building was ideated by Josep Lluís Sert, Miró’s close friend, and the city of Barcelona bore part of the cost. The style of the building is Mediterrean (low, white buildings with porches) and abstract, surrounded by the park.

Fundació Joan Miró

The Foundation comprises the majority of Joan Miró’s artworks; on the Foundation’s website are listed «14000 pieces: 217 paintings, 178 sculptures, 9 textiles, 4 ceramics, the almost complete graphic works and some 8,000 drawings». Most of the artworks were donated by the author himself to the Foundation.

Fundació Joan Miró: the collection

Moreover, the collection includes works of contemporary artists, representing a tribute to Joan Miró: there are artworks of Pierre Alechinsky, Balthus, Anthony Caro, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Julio González, Wifredo Lam, Fernand Léger, André Masson, Henry Moore, Robert Motherwell, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Antonio Saura, Yves Tanguy, Alexander Calder and Antoni Tàpies.

The Foundation hosts temporary exhibitions, too: when we visited the Foundation, we were able to see Prophetia’s one. It was dedicated to the foundation of the European Union and comprised works by 25 artists: they represent two aspects of being part of the UE, the initial sense of hope and enthusiasm and the actual uncertainty and disillusionment, due to the Economic Crisis of 2007 and to the Bundesbank monetary policies, especially towards the PIGs. 

Personally, there was a particular work I found particularly interesting: it was History Zero by the Greek artist Stefanos Tsivopoulos. On his website, he describes History Zero as a «film of three episodes alongside an archive of text and images. The film questions the value of money and the role money plays in the formation of human relationships by depicting the experiences of three very different individuals; an elderly art collector suffering from dementia, an immigrant trawling the streets for scrap metal, and an artist taking snapshots of the city […]

History Zero, specially commissioned for the Biennale, comes at a critical moment in contemporary Greek and European history. The artist views the culmination of the multi-layered crisis as an opportunity to interpret an alternative visualization of the future. History Zero implies not the end, but a point of departure, of recovery and growth: the beginning of something new. By approaching our relationship with money poetically, from a philosophical perspective, the artist proposes dynamic ways to reaffirm solidarity, cooperation and co-responsibility in response to the present crisis».

History Zero - episode 1

History Zero - episode 2

History Zero - episode 3

It captured me: rare dialogues, the strong prevalence of the photography and a heavy silence make it really expressive. You could observe as money are perceived by different point of views, at different ages and in opposite economic statuses. 

The exhibition Prophetia will be hosted until the 7th of June and, according to me, deserves a visit, especially if you are a young European citizen; moreover, if you appreciate abstract Surrealism, you will like Joan Miró’s collection, since it is the most complete in the world about him.

Carlotta Neueschwander