“picasso He was in love with the underground, the gypsy and freedom. Flemish. And flamenco won’t give in, no matter how many laws they want to impose on it. Pablo knew this, he grew up with some gypsies”. One of Jondo’s biggest supporters and journalist, teacher and writer Francis Mármol, who spent years busy with overworked projects, says: no, Picasso didn’t paint Spanish guitars. Luckily, he shared his French friends and acquaintances with Iberian guitars. Nor did he organize flamenco parties at Francis to entertain with his exoticism.Mármol presents Monday at La Térmica ‘And Picasso remembered flamenco’, A book Between fiction and historical research, poetry and accounts of archivistsIt documents, justifies, and supports his passion for the genius jondo from La Merced and how it blends seamlessly into his artistic corpus.
When Pablo Picasso was born Malaga it was an imposing Flemish venue, “as many as twelve singing cafes that work and the stars of the moment run through them all”. One of his “regular consumers” was artist José Ruiz y Blasco, the painter’s father, who, according to Mármol, “had to come home for more than a day saying something soft for a party.” And it was engraved on little Pablito’s skin. In addition to the experiences he had with the gypsies in Mundo Nuevo, which is very close to the Plaza de la Merced, where the boy lived; the region where the legendary Piyayo imposed the teaching of jondo. Meanwhile, the singer and guitarist from Málaga leads to the phrase ‘Picasso remembered flamenco’: “When a group of famous painters from Málaga, who went to see him in a minibus in Cannes in 1957, asks him about his memories, the first thing that comes to mind is Picasso humming a song from Piyayo to them. A letter he kept for sixty years probably”.
Mármol points out that for Pablo Picasso, flamenco and bullfights would be “the nostalgic factor of childhood, typical of a foreigner in exile.” But not only that: “I’m sure the painter recognized the different cultural factor of both arts, quite original if we compare them with those in the rest of the world. And I think Picasso will have to give in to the desire to be a good curator, which is now said”.
guitars
add yours Numerous pictures of Spanish guitars (“Perhaps the most reproducing painter in his paintings,” says the author, who also highlights how he hired Paco Jurado, a guitarist from Malaga, to teach the instrument to his muse and second wife, Jacqueline Roque); Add in their “happy encounters on birthdays and other celebrations” with flamencos like Antonio El Bailarín, Gades, Manitas de Plata, Pepito Vargas and you’ll definitely have the most jondo painter. While it hasn’t been recognized as such until now: “The problem is that there are complexes in this city starting from Culture supporters who continue to discredit Málaga’s flamenco past. due to ignorance or outright prejudice because Picasso is associated with all that exists and less than the music that feeds him and that he is crazy about listening to,” justifies Francis Mármol.
Evidence? Today, the Malaga of twelve singing cafes is just a memory and El Chinitas, a witness of an era and a culture, has disappeared in favor of tourist apartments and nascent businesses. What would Don Pablo think? Mármol is clear on this: “What do we think of all this large minority who have some sensitivity to cultural heritage: it is a real shame that El Chinitas has not been preserved inside in their original form, because perhaps the city’s most important cultural venue With the Teatro Cervantes, with that letter from Lorca, with that movie… But few people care about that”.
And Picasso remembered that flamenco is a work that floats against this current and trends. The adventure actually started last year with an exhibition by Argentine artist Emmanuel Lafont, who lived in Malaga, where he illustrated some texts from Mármol’s book: Gypsy girls dancing in front of Surrealist gramophones, minotaurs in labyrinths, jondos. Universe embedded in the fascinating microcosm of Málaga cantaora. In the book that is out now, of course, the visual parts appear with the full texts.