Author Archives: Fundación Loewe

Anthea Hamilton: The Squash

The Squash, an immersive installation by artist Anthea Hamilton, is the latest in a series of contemporary commissions for Tate Britain’s Duveen Galleries which address the heritage of the space as a sculpture gallery . Hamilton has transformed the heart of Tate Britain into an elaborate stage inhabited by a single character who will perform in the space for six months. Over 7,000 white tiles have been laid to span the length of the Duveen and encase a series of structures that serve as plinths for a number of works of art from Tate’s collection.

Anthea Hamilton –renowned for her bold and humorous works that often include references from the worlds of art, fashion, design and popular culture- has designed seven costumes in collaboration with Jonathan Anderson, LOEWE’s Creative Director, that incorporate the colours and the shapes of different varieties of squash or pumpkin; many of the silhouettes of the costumes, made with materials such as hand-painted leather or painted silk crepon, were inspired in designs from the 1970s. Each day, performers will select a costume that will inform and reflect their individual presentation of the character as they move around the space.

Anthea Hamilton Commision Press View

Alex Farquharson, Director of Tate Britain, said that Andrea Hamilton ‘has made a unique contribution to British and International Art with her visually playful works that both provoke and delight. This compelling commission demonstrates her ability to seamlessly weave together captivating images and narratives, creating rich and innovative environments in which to encounter works of art.’

Tate Britain Commission 2018: Anthea Hamilton is curated by Linsey Young (Curator of Contemporary British Art, Tate) and Sofia Karamani (Assistant Curator of Contemporary British Art, Tate).

From 22nd March to 7th October 2018. Open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. More information at www.tate.org or follow us on @Tate #AntheaHamilton. Sponsored by Sothebys.

Photo Captions: Tate (Seraphina Neville) 2018. Fibreglass head covered in green stretch fabric with ruffles and gold sequins. Jersey gauze tracksuit with ruban in gold sequin. Reconstructed leather braided cord cod piece.

POESÍA eres tú

The 30th Loewe Foundation International Poetry Prize celebrations continue on with the literary arts as the main protagonist. On the occasion of the three decades since the creation of the Prize, this past 21st March, on International Poetry Day, the documentary Poesía eres tú – a Dadá Films & Entertainment production that was directed by Charlie Arnaiz and Alberto Ortega, and that can streamed on LOEWE’s website– was presented. The previous evening, Madrid’s historic Cine Doré hosted a first viewing of the documentary, followed by a short poetry reading by Ben Clark and Luciana Reif, winners of Prize’s latest edition.

In just over a half hour, POESÍA eres tú features the members of the jury and the outstanding list of historic LOEWE Prize winners, with their individual and distinct literary and aesthetic sensibilities. We also see poets from both sides of the Atlantic as well as young talents who represent today’s most contemporary poetry and who are taking off from new literary platforms, thus offering a diverse and contemporary perspective of Spanish poetry, shown here as a literary genre in constant evolution.

The voices of Enrique Loewe Lynch –Honorary President of the Foundation–, Sheila Loewe –President of the Foundation–, publisher Chus Visor, and of other literary figures who had enormous influence over Spanish Poetry in general and over the LOEWE Prize in particular –Víctor García de la Concha, Piedad Bonnett, José Manuel Caballero Bonald or Jaime Siles, among others– build an eloquent multitalented crucible around a literary genre –poetry- that the LOEWE Foundation took an interest in over three decades ago, and which is still one of the most celebrated within the fields of culture and literary arts.

Also, to mark the LOEWE Prize anniversary, poet and Jury member Luis Antonio de Villena has curated an anthology of poems from the Prize’s thirty winning books, published by Visor under the title of Mareas del mar. In the book’s prologue, “XXX años del Premio LOEWE: Modernidad, tradición y avance”, Villena has also included a number of anecdotes and memories from the Prize’s three decades as well as interesting details of each of the winners. The volume’s front cover shows The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, by Katsushika Hokusai: a metaphor for the diversity of the sea’s waves that, like the LOEWE Prize, reach the shore periodically.

Click here to see the documentary POESÍA eres tú.

Photo Captions: Viewing of Poesía eres tú at Cine Doré © Alvaro Tomé for the LOEWE FOUNDATION, 2018. Front cover of Mareas del mar © Editorial Visor, 2018. Image: The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, by Katsushika Hokusai.

LOEWE celebrate three decades of poetry

The 30th LOEWE FOUNDATION International Poetry Prizes were just presented at the traditional meal held in Madrid’s Westin Palace Hotel, with numerous well-known representatives from the fields of culture, literature and design in attendance. In her welcome, the Foundation’s Director Sheila Loewe made special mention of Chus Visor for accompanying the Foundation during this three-decade journey by publishing the winning books of poems and including them in her poetry collection.

On such a special day, Sheila Loewe made a point of thanking all LOEWE employees as well as “the small, but incredible LOEWE FOUNDATION team responsible for making this and many other beautiful things possible”. This year, in commemoration of the Prize’s 30th edition, the Foundation has commissioned Luis Antonio de Villena to curate a new poetry anthology of the winning books and, as the Director explained, on 21st March –which is International Poetry Day – the documentary titled Poesía eres tú will be presented “featuring some of the most important moments in the history of the Prize, as well as some of the most important voices in Spanish poetry discussing how they see the future of poetry”. Enrique Loewe, Honorary President of the LOEWE FOUNDATION –who was “visibly moved and satisfied” with the evolution of the Prize– admitted that he “had always dreamt of a day like today”. He also explained that poetry “has changed and benefited me, but it has also changed my company; it has given it a certain sensibility, perspective, vision, rigour, refinement, special search”. He was also deeply grateful for the fact that out of his 55 years at LOEWE “30 of them were spent enjoying and working on this project”. Enrique Loewe also remembered poets Pablo García Baena and Antonio Cabrera.

Author and translator Elvira Sastre, when presenting the book that won the Loewe Young Poet’s Award –Un hogar fuera de mí by Luciana Leif– defined it as a book of poems “that one doesn’t find by chance, but rather, a book that is strategically placed on a table for you to discover”. Sastre, who did not know the Argentinian poet, feels “that she has discovered a necessary author” and recalled how she read the book shortly after the mass march that took place this past 8th of March on International Women’s Day, a demonstration she ventured is “crucial for the development of our world”. When talking about the author, Elvira Sastre explained that “she is a sociologist, a feminist who believes in the power of poetry as a means of social denunciation. Her writing is strong and she demands to be heard”. Luciana Reif, upon collecting her Award, declared that “one never writes alone, and a book shows and hides, as all objects do, the fetish of the conditions that make its own existence possible”. She thanked her family for educating her to be “free and rebellious”, her studies in Sociology for teaching her that “the world is much more complicated than it seems”, the “feminist movement and the women fighting for their rights”, her partner for teaching her “that we must love more than ourselves”, and poetry because, “more than anything else, it teaches us a lot about all this”.

Journalist and author Ignacio Elguero, when presenting La poesía celeste –the winner of the 30th Loewe Prize– pointed out that its author, poet Ben Clark, is barely three years older than the Prize: “If thirty years give a prize maturity, then poetic maturity is what stands out in this book”. He also underscored the book’s originality and revealed that the inspiration for the title came from a meeting of astronomers looking for a lost planet at the beginning of the 19th century in northern Germany, a meeting around which some of the book’s poems were written. “The process of poetic creation and the process of human creation both beat throughout” the work, added Elguero. As such, “a poetic body emerges with various themes, out of which two stand out: father and son relationships, with poems of great emotional intensity, and existential reflection, which explores the human concerns we all share”. The poet uses “large spaces and astronomy in particular; hence the title”. The result, as Elguero points out, are poems “of great expressive power, with very suggestive images” that are sometimes inspired by “anecdotal occurrences or everyday events”, which the poet then uses to “reveal emotions”. For Elguero, that is the book’s greatest achievement: its ability to stir up the reader’s emotions. When picking up his Prize, Ben Clark quoted scientist Stephen Hawking –who had died that same day– saying that we should “look up at the stars and not down at our feet”. “In an increasingly impatient world”, Clark said, “I have tried, with this book, to momentarily divert our attention away from screens, from everyday life… so that we may once again rise towards the stars and the eternal themes of poetry: time, death, and the only cure that exists: love”.

On Tuesday, 20th March at 7:30 p.m., the authors will read excerpts from their prize-winning books in Madrid’s Casa de América. Luis Antonio de Villena will host.

Photo Captions: The winners of the 30th LOEWE FOUNDATION International Poetry Prize, Luciana Leif and Ben Clark with Enrique Loewe and Sheila Loewe © Álvaro Tomé for the LOEWE FOUNDATION, 2018.

William Morris, an Arts & Crafts Inspiration

This Christmas, LOEWE presents a collection inspired by the work of legendary British textile designer, artist, and writer William Morris (1834 – 1896). LOEWE obtained special access to the Morris & Co archives from which Creative Director Jonathan Anderson selected original prints featured on a wide range of menswear and womenswear pieces

Strawberry Thief, Forest, Acanthus and Honeysuckle, four striking prints conceived between 1874 and 1883 for wallpaper or fabrics, were selected by Anderson and placed by LOEWE’s creative team on jackets, T-shirts and suits as well as on some of the firm’s most popular accessories: the Puzzle and Hammock bags. Other pieces featuring the prints are scarves, brooches and backpacks.

Morris is considered one of the main contributors of the Arts & Crafts movement, which emerged in response to the concern of a group of architects, designers and artists over the precariousness of traditional British craftsmanship when faced with the unstoppable industrialisation of society. His defence of handmade pieces over those that were mechanically produced, was due to aesthetic as well as ideological reasons.

‘William Morris fundamentally changed the way we look at applied craft, making him one of the most important designers of the last 200 years,’ Anderson explains. This capsule collection reinterprets classic 19th century prints inspired by nature in combination with surprising and irreverent elements used in punk aesthetics. This can be seen in the recurring bright orange details and in the bleached denim pieces whose abstract pattern references the classic vocabulary Morris used, but in an innovative and contemporary way.

Photo Captions: Acanthus, William Morris. Capsule Collection Autumn Winter 2017, photographed at Standen House, West Sussex, England. Strawberry Thief, William Morris.

 

Art Basel Miami: Chance Encounters III

The LOEWE FOUNDATION presents the third exhibition in its Chance Encounters series, bringing together artists from various disciplines in order to explore unexpected conversations. This year, Sara Flynn, Richard Smith and Lionel Wendt present their works at the LOEWE Miami District store, which was designed around a monumental 18th century granary. “Art and craft are at the centre of my creative process and these exhibitions are an exciting way of exploring artists that are important to me”, says Jonathan Anderson, LOEWE’s Creative Director.

For this edition, Irish ceramist Sara Flynn has been commissioned to produce a new body of ceramic work inspired by the space and materiality of the granary, which was brought over from Portugal and rebuilt stone by stone. Despite using a wheel to throw her pots, her subsequent interventions result in complex and irregular shapes that challenge our reading of the vessels, bringing them into closer dialogue with the language of sculpture. Flynn was one of the 26 finalists of the first LOEWE Craft Prize.

Richard Smith was one of the most original artists of his generation. He emerged in the late 1950s and became known for works that challenged the accepted traditions of painting. His 1975 work Shuttle will be exhibited soaring above the LOEWE store granary. Specially commissioned for the Tate that same year, the installation is comprised of a series of coloured canvases stretched across aluminium rods reminiscent of tent structures. Smith’s work ‘Both Halves (A)’ was acquired by LOEWE in 2016 and is currently displayed in the firm’s Madrid flagship store.

The renowned photographer Lionel Wendt, who was originally trained as a concert pianist, took up photography later in life after studying in the UK. He created a ground-breaking body of work documenting life in his home country of Ceylon as well as homoerotic portraits that were considered radical at the time. After his premature death in 1944, most of his negatives were destroyed. However, his prints were rediscovered in the 1990s and he is now considered one of the key proponents of modernist photography. His work was presented as part of the setting for the LOEWE Fall 2017 collection at the Unesco building in Paris.

Chance Encounters III. From 4th December 2017 to 4th February 2018.
 LOEWE Miami Design District, 110NE 39th Street, Suite #102. Miami, Florida (USA).

Photo Captions: Chance Encounters III © Naho Kubota

Spain’s Compañia Nacional de Danza widens its horizons

Spain’s Compañía Nacional de Danza (CND) that José Carlos Martínez directs is immersed in a season full of national and international performances. The anniversaries of Madrid’s Plaza Mayor and Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum or the Marius Petipa Tribute that the CND premiered at the Niemeyer Centre Auditorium in Avilés are some of the most recent company productions to have seen the stage.

After visiting the French cities of Blagnac and La Rochelle, the CND travelled to South Korea with a version of Carmen that Johan Inger expressly choreographed for the company. Gyeongnam, Daejeon and Seoul hung the “sold out” sign for this CND production featuring the excellent interpretation by South Korean dancer YaeGee Park of one of the ballet´s main characters, drawing the attention of local media representatives.

This upcoming Christmas season, the CND, which has the support of the LOEWE FOUNDATION, will travel first to Murcia’s Victor Villegas Auditorium and then to Sevilla’s Maestranza Theatre to perform the Jose Carlos Martinez version of Don Quijote. 2018 will commence with a number of challenges for the CND: at the end of January, the Company will return to Madrid’s Pavón Theatre with La CND a la carta 2, to satisfy an ever growing and faithful audience.

Photo Captions: Ana Pérez Nievas in Madrid´s Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum © Mayte Botejara for the CND; 2017. YaeGee Park as The Boy in Carmen ©  Jong-Duk Woo for the CND, 2017.

Tokyo’s 21_21 Design Sight welcomes the LOEWE Craft Prize

The LOEWE FOUNDATION continues to demonstrate its international commitment to artistic craftsmanship with the traveling exhibition of the 26 LOEWE Craft Prize finalist works, whose next stop is Tokyo´s 21_21 Design Sight. The building designed by architect Tadao Ando will house the exhibit until 30th November.

Among the more than 3,900 participants, the Experts Panel selected these works that include ceramics, textiles, paper, jewellery, furniture and glass. A collection that shows an innovative reinterpretation of traditional techniques through the personal and unique work of each artist.

LOEWE Craft Prize. Until 30th November in 21_21 Design Sight, Tokyo (Japan). Midtown Garden, Tokyo Midtown, 9-7-6 Akasaka, Minato-ku (Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Photos: Loewe Foundation Craft Prize, 21_21 Design Sight Tokyo (Japan).

Ben Clark and Luciana Reif, winners of the 30th LOEWE FOUNDATION International Poetry Prize

La policía celeste, by Ben Clark (Ibiza, Spain, 1984), has been awarded the 30th LOEWE FOUNDATION International Poetry Prize. The jury, presided by Víctor García de la Concha and made up of members Piedad Bonnett, Francisco Brines, José Manuel Caballero Bonald, Antonio Colinas, Soledad Puértolas, José Ramón Ripoll, Jaime Siles and Luis Antonio de Villena, highlighted the simplicity and transparency of the book; a book of poems that the jury considered to be “full of anecdotes; and not black and white anecdotes, but rather, ones that the author transcends and enriches”. On the other hand, Un hogar fuera de mí by Luciana Reif (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1990) won the Young Poets Prize for authors under 30 years of age; the Jury has underscored the book’s feminine view of reality, which broaches a wide range of themes including “militant feminism and the criticism of social sexism.” Moreover, it has underlined the “enquiring and fresh Argentinian colloquialism” it incorporates.

During the press conference that took place on 31st October in Madrid’s Gran Vía LOEWE store, Sheila Loewe, President of the LOEWE FOUNDATION, offered all attendees a warm welcome and remembered the path the Prize has travelled. Víctor García de la Concha read the minutes of the Jury’s decision after, after evoking the three decades of history that the Prize now has, and highlighting the importance and relevance of each of the 30 winning books.

Luis Antonio de Villena, who presented Un hogar fuera de mí, described it as a “simple yet complex” book of poems and praised the voice of the Argentinian who defends “her condition as a free woman without making it a war cry”. Using a “colloquial but polished language”, Un hogar fuera de mí has what Villena calls a “measured style” featuring a very structured colloquial approach that is not based on the simple repetition of current forms, but rather achieves “the language of art”.

HOMBRES COMO MI PADRE

Hombres como mi padre,
mi abuelo,
mis novios,
mis hermanos,
vi sus cabezas llenas de grandes ideas
como un plato de comida que rebalsa,
lustré desde chica esos cráneos,
soy el placebo de tranquilidad
con el que después brillan fuera de casa.

¿Para eso caí en este mundo?

Luciana Reif
LOEWE Young Poets Prize 2017
Un hogar fuera de mí

When it came time for poet Jaime Siles to present the winning book –La policía celeste– he did so rather shyly because “it’s a very intimate book. It’s a book about love, about a love that is fundamentally filial”. Siles praised the hidden allusions to Virgil’s Aeneid, to existentialism, to Vallejo, and to astronomers, as well as the musical references and the books avoidance of historicity despite the fact that is clearly set within a specific timeframe. He pointed out that Clark’s book is “very well constructed from a rhythmic-syntactic point of view and manages enjambments beautifully”. A book written “from within” and, in sum, “guided by its love for poetry”. Siles explained that La policía celeste “is rhythmically perfect because the rhythm that brings it together and articulates it is not metric rhythm, but rather the rhythm of emotions, of consciousness, of the heart”.

CAFÉ MACHADO

En cada error existe una verdad.
El corazón enfermo de mi padre
no debe estimularse con café.
Pero no se resigna.
Su vida nunca fue descafeinada
ni sin alcohol. Un poco es algo,
dice, y por eso pide
siempre café Machado. Es manchado,
corrijo. Un café manchado, dice.
Y de pronto me siento un asesino.

Ben Clark
LOEWE Prize 2017
La policía celeste

The LOEWE FOUNDATION International Poetry Prize, which is awarded annually, aims to promote poetic creativity and creation in Spanish. The main prize is awarded to a previously unpublished book of poems of at least 300 verses and the Young Poets Prize to an author under the age of 30 if the winner of the main prize is older than that. The winning books are also published by Colección Visor de Poesía. This year’s edition had 29 finalists chosen among the 706 manuscripts that were sent from more than 32 countries. A total of 19% of entries from Latin-American countries, with the largest number hailing from Mexico, Argentina and Colombia, while Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona, and Seville were at the top of the list of provinces for Spanish entries.

The presentation of the books and the award ceremony will take place in March of 2018.

Photos: Luis Antonio de Villena, Víctor García de la Concha, Jaime Siles and Sheila Loewe © Álvaro Tomé for the LOEWE Foundation, 2017. Luciana Reif. Ben Clark © Vicent Marí. Antonio Colinas, Jaime Siles, Chus Visor, Sheila Loewe, Enrique Loewe, Soledad Puértolas, José Ramón Ripoll, José Manuel Caballero Bonald, Luis Antonio de Villena, Piedad Bonnett, Víctor García de la Concha and Francisco Brines © Álvaro Tomé for the LOEWE Foundation, 2017

One more year of dance at Madrid’s Teatro Real and Barcelona’s Liceu

Dance returns to the Teatro Real in Madrid and the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona for a season that will have the public enjoying the performances of some of the world’s most prestigious dance companies. Thanks to the support of the LOEWE FOUNDATION, Spain’s National Ballet, London’s Royal Ballet and the Ballet at the Great Theatre of Geneva will be performing in these two cities.

In November, the Teatro Real will be hosting the National Ballet of Spain that Antonio Najarro directs with Sorolla, a choreography rooted in Spain’s folklore and inspired by Visión de España, the famous collection of works by this renowned Spanish painter that the Hispanic Society commissioned; a most colourful piece during which the company’s corps de ballet assumes the spotlight. In April, it will be the Dresden-Frankfurt Dance Company that Jacopo Godani directs that will be visiting Spain’s capital. Four pieces created by Godani himself that showcase the personal and demanding language of his choreographies; MetamorphersEchoes from a Restless Soul, Postgenoma and Moto Perpetuo feature a Godani who is not only a choreographer but also a stage and costume designer as well as a lighting master. Finally, in July, London’s Royal Ballet will present its new Swan Lake. Based on Marius Petipa’s and Lev Ivanoc timeless masterpiece with score by Piotr I. Tchaikovksy, the choreographers Frederick Ashton first and Liam Scarlett later, have incorporated some additional dance sections throughout the piece.

Another well-known piece opens up the Dance Season of Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu: Roméo & Juliette will be performed by the ballet of Le Grand Théâtre de Genève in its Joëlle Bouvier version, which transforms Prokofiev’s celebrated music into a contemporary piece. The Orquesta Sinfónica del Liceu, under the direction of Manuel Coves, will accompany the dance. In December, the Eifmann Ballet will be staging Anna Karenina, a piece by Boris Eifmann -one of the most acclaimed choreographers in Russia today- who, using Tchaikovsky’s and Tolstoi’s work as his starting point, has created what many consider his masterpiece; Conrad van Alphen will direct the Teatre’s resident orchestra. To end the season, Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo will return in May to Barcelona with Le Songe, a choreography by the company’s director Jean-Christophe Maillot based on William Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, whose score is a musical collage by various composers.

More information at, teatro-real.com and liceubarcelona.cat

Photo Captions: Sorolla by the National Ballet of Spain © Stanislav Belyaevsky, Dresden-Frankfurt Dance Company © Paolo Porto. Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo in Le Songe © Alice Blangero.

Sergio García Zamora, condemned to be talented

“I was in my home town, a place called Esperanza, which in English means Hope. I was at my mom’s and I had just finished reading her a poem; a poem I had dedicated to her, or rather to her solitude; a poem that is included in El frío de vivir. And then they called. I laughed and she cried. Then we had coffee. My mom forgot to add sugar, but I found it sweet. Everything became alarmingly sweet.”

That is how poet Sergio García Zamora remembers the moment he found out that his book of poems El frío de vivir had won the 29th edition of the LOEWE FOUNDATION Young Poets Award.

Born in Cuba in 1986, García Zamora has a B.A. in Spanish language, has published over a dozen books, and has received numerous prizes, including the Rubén Darío International Poetry Prize and the Gaceta de Cuba Prize. “I submitted my application because the LOEWE Poetry Prize has everything: a prestige that its organisers have never betrayed; a very generous prize disbursement (even the Cid Campeador needed money); beautiful books; an unquestionable jury that has allowed us to believe in literary justice once again. An honourable prize, even if not everyone remembers the value of that adjective.” He explains that his relationship with the jury is distant. “The truth is, I only know them because I’ve read their books, which are magnificent. It’s like having siblings you haven’t met. I have lived without ever hearing them speak; but every day I rehearse possible conversations because I trust that one day we will sit at the same table.”

A Jury that highlighted, among other qualities, the expressive resources of a book that even its own author describes using a competitive metaphor: “If I were a chess player (what author isn’t one), I would declare El frío de vivir the first move of the middle game, when one cannot afford to make the mistakes of the opening rounds, call them my previous books, if we are to beat eternity at its game.”

García Zamora says this prize has changed his life “in an enchantingly horrible way: it has condemned me to be talented. I had hoped to live out my days as a poet, as a simple shepherd; however, the time to kill giants has arrived.”

Photo captions: Sergio García Zamora at the award ceremony of the LOEWE FOUNDATION International Poetry Prize in its 29th edition ©Álvaro Tomé for the LOEWE FOUNDATION, 2016.