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C
U L T U R A |
Havana.
October 1, 2009 |
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Arts in the
World
REVEALING LOOKS IN PARIS
IN the land of Henri Cartier-Bresson, two Cuban
masters of photography, Liborio Noval and Roberto
Salas, admit that they "were lucky" in being able to
seize the perfect moment to capture the historic
images currently being exhibited in Paris.
Revealing looks, 50 years of the Cuban Revolution
is the title of the exhibition inaugurated in the
gallery of the Brownstone Foundation. "This is what
we could call a limited exhibition, because it is an
attempt to collect the most significant of a number
of Cuban photographs. We are trying to provide a
synthesis of moments that marked the initial period
of the Revolution," Salas explained. A tour that
includes images of Fidel Castro, Raúl Castro,
Ernesto Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos, the literacy
campaign, the sugarcane harvest and mass rallies in
the Plaza de la the Revolución. Along with the work
of Liborio Noval and Roberto Salas, it includes
photos by Alberto Díaz Gutiérrez (Korda), José
(Pepe) Agraz, Raúl Corrales, Ernesto Fernández,
Perfecto Romero and Oswaldo Salas.
EROTIC ENGRAVINGS BY PICASSO
• Barcelona’s museums will hold their galas this
coming fall, the first of them on Picasso, with an
exhibition of the artist’s erotic engravings (from
1964 to 1970), and their ties to Japanese shunga
illustrations from the 19th century. It is known
that Picasso appropriated anything that served his
expressive purposes, transforming them into a unique
synthesis, as can appreciated in the upcoming
exhibition, in which his engravings dialogue
magnificently with the Japanese ones, in a network
of communicating vessels. According to the
exhibition’s curators, the similarities are
perceptible in his application of composition
solutions, formal treatment of the feminine nude,
the exploration of masculine desire and the act of
love, but the result is always typically Picasso.
ALMODOVAR IN A MUSICAL
• The conflicts of Pedro Almodóvar’s Women on
the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown are about to be
revived in a musical currently being rehearsed in
New York, as an experiment. In the film, the star
was Spaniard Carmen Maura, but in the New York
version, the actress has not yet appeared to play
Pepa, a woman on the verge of desperation due to
sentimental problems. Her crisis, with nuances of
humor, is typical of Almodóvar’s melodramas. A star
is being sought for the musical, whose script is in
the hands of Jeffrey Lane, a playwright and the
scriptwriter of several TV series, including Mad
about You, which was popular in the 1990s and
starred Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser.
LA COLMENITA HAS BASE IN PANAMA
• A permanent venue for the Cuban children’s
theater company La Colmenita has begun to
function for socially-disadvantaged children aged 5
to 14 in Panama. Carlos Alberto Cremata, director of
the group, explained that they are to have a second
plaza in the city of David, 486 kilometers west of
the capital, and that later the project will be
extended to other cities. The opening gala included
participation by members of the Cuban La Colmenita
and children from poor neighborhoods in Panama, such
as El Chorillo, Santa Ana, Curundú and San Felipe,
who starred in the musical La cucarachita
mandinga. More than 60 artists were onstage at
the National Theater, which has a seating capacity
of about 800, and they got the audience to sing and
dance. Founded almost 20 years ago, La Colmenita now
has affiliates in Venezuela, Mexico and Spain.
CHIJONA TO MAKE FILM IN CUBA ABOUT AIDS
• Cuban filmmaker Gerardo Chijona began filming
on September 19 for Boletos al paraíso (Tickets
to Paradise), a film whose original idea is based on
the book Confesiones de un medico (Confessions
of a Doctor), which brings together testimony from
AIDS patients and HIV-positive individuals. The
script, co-written by the director, Francisco García
and Maykel Rodríguez, is based on the text by
scientist Jorge Pérez during his time as director of
the sanitarium where those cases were treated.
Produced by the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC),
Programa Ibermedia and the Spanish film production
company Malas Compañías SL, the film’s crew includes
the experienced Raúl Pérez Ureta as photography
director, and Lorenzo Urbistondo as artistic
director. Filming is expected to conclude in early
November.
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