A CO-PRODUCTION OF
WITH THE COLLABORATION OF
AND SPONSORED BY
MEDIA SPONSORS
WITH THE SUPPORT OF
INDEX
1.- Exhibition credits ..................................................................... 3
2.- Presentation ............................................................................ 4
3.- Exhibition texts........................................................................ 7
4.- Artists in the exhibition ......................................................... 11
4.1.- Catalan artists ................................................................ 33
5.- Catalogue .............................................................................. 35
6.- Parallel activities ................................................................... 36
7.- CV of the curator ................................................................... 39
8.- General information ............................................................... 40
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1.- EXHIBITION CREDITS
“The Jazz Century” is a co-production of the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de
Barcelona (CCCB), the Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e
Rovereto (Mart), and the Musée du quai Branly in Paris. It will run at the CCCB
from 22 July to 18 October 2009.
CURATOR
Daniel Soutif
CURATOR’S ASSISTANT
Laura Maeran
COORDINATION
Miquel Nogués
DOCUMENTATION FOR THE BARCELONA EXHIBITION
Miquel Nogués, with the collaboration of Neus Moyano
DESIGN OF THE EXHIBITION MONTAGE
Bopbaa (Josep Bohigas, Francesc Pla, Iñaki Baquero) with François Bouju
and the collaboration of Elisabetta Masiero and Alejandro Padón
GRAPHIC DESIGN OF THE EXHIBITION
Estudi Canó
EXHIBITION MONTAGE
Màrmara Comunicació
Estudi Ferran Sendra
Arquiletra
MONTAGE LIGHTING AND COORDINATION
Production and Montage Unit of the CCCB
REGISTRATION
Registration and Conservation Unit of the CCCB / Clarenza Catullo
INSTALLATION OF ART WORKS
Registration and Conservation Unit of the CCCB and USQUAM
VIDEO MONTAGE
Marc Henry (Musée du quai Branly) / Cristina Brossa (CCCB)
MONTAGE OF AUDIOVISUAL INSTALLATIONS
Audiovisual and Multimedia Department of the CCCB and Lotema
TRANSPORT
TTI S.A.
GRAPHIC DESIGN OF PUBLICITY
Mariona García
MUSICAL COORDINATION
Eva Vila
With the collaboration of the Publicity and External Resources Service, the
administrative and general services, and the Documentation and Debate Centre of
the CCCB
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2.- PRESENTATION
The Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona presents the exhibition
“The Jazz Century”, curated by philosopher and art critic Daniel Soutif,
which will run from 22 July to 18 October 2009.
Along with the cinema and rock, jazz is one of the most important artistic
events of the 20th century. This musical hybrid that emerged in the early
years of the last century has run the century through, marking every aspect
of world culture with its sounds and rhythms.
“The Jazz Century” presents a chronological account of relations between
jazz and the arts throughout the 20th century. It shows us how the sound
of jazz has nuanced all the other arts, from painting to photography and
from the cinema to literature, not forgetting graphic design and cartoons.
The exhibition is organized chronologically along a timeline off which open
many smaller independent exhibitions that showcase relations between jazz
and other artistic disciplines, thereby explaining the history of the century
using music as a leading thread.
1. Before 1917
2. The jazz age in the US 1917-1930
3. Harlem Renaissance 1917-1936
4. Wild years in Europe 1917-1930
5. The swing era 1930-1939
6. Wartime 1939-1945
7. Bebop 1945-1960 (including a section devoted to Barcelona)
8. West Coast jazz 1953-1961
9. The free revolution 1960-1980
10. Contemporaries 1980-2002
The exhibition, occupying a surface area of 1200 m², presents over 1000
exhibits, including artworks (150), audiovisuals (80), photographs (100),
scores (100), album covers (200), and miscellaneous documentation,
including books, magazines, programmes, posters and objects.
To complement the exhibition, various musical activities have been
organized: an opening concert in La Pedrera on 28 July, with upcoming
musicians offering a reinterpretation of the history of jazz; a cycle of jam
sessions with musicians from different backgrounds and generations every
Thursday in September and October at the CCCB, and a jazz marathon on
19 September, also at the CCCB, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of
the Associació de Músics de Jazz i Música Moderna de Catalunya. The
CCCB’s cycle of cinema al fresco, Gandules’09, will be screening various
short films and two of the most memorable films to have dealt with jazz:
Let’s Get Lost by Bruce Weber and Thelonius Monk: Straight No Chaser, by
Charlotte Zwerin.
“The Jazz Century” is a co-production of the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de
Barcelona (CCCB), the Museo di Arte Moderna di Trento e Rovereto (MART) and the
Musée du Quai Branly in Paris.
4
The Jazz Century
Text by the exhibition curator, Daniel Soutif, included in the catalogue
We can reasonably assume that the 20th century was barely 13 years old
when the word “jazz” was printed for the first time. The search for its origin
or etymology will probably never end. What is certain, though, is that one
day in 1913, in the pages of the San Francisco Bulletin, a certain Ernest J.
Hopkins published a short article entitled “In Praise of ‘Jazz’, a Futurist
Word Has Just Joined the Language”. It is not insignificant that jazz should
have made its entry in this way—that is, as more of a linguistic than a
musical novelty. To highlight its lexical value, Hopkins’ text was
accompanied by a caricature showing the four letters of the word
precariously balanced on the tip of the nose of a friendly-looking chap. Yet
the article in question did not simply list suitable terms to delimit the
semantic field covered by the new word. As well as saying that “jazz” meant
something like “life, vigour, energy, effervescence of spirit, joy, pep,
magnetism, verve, virility, ebullience, courage, happiness”,1 the author
particularly underlined the sound rather than the meaning of the word,
which he called “remarkable and satisfactory-sounding”. Hopkins considered
the way it sounded so notable that he repeated himself several times: he
wrote that “‘Jazz’ is a nice word, easy on the tongue and pleasant to the
ears”, before stating that “the sheer quality of the word, that delightful
sound like the crackling of a brisk electric, commends it”, and reached the
following conclusion: “It belongs to the class of onomatopoeia. It was
important that this vacancy in our language should have been filled with a
word of proper sound, because ‘jaz’ [sic] is quite often in epic poetry, in
prize-fight stories or the meditative sonnet. It is a universal world, and
must appear well in all society.”
It was just four short years before that “futurist word” was printed not just
on the flimsy support of a newspaper, but under the small hole in the centre
of the label stuck to a heavy black disc, the grooves of which contained
recordings of excerpts of music that were to become historic: the white
musicians of the Original Dixieland “Jass” Band had the privilege—unjustly,
according to many—of being the first to go into a recording studio (on 26
February 1917, in Chicago) to commit to wax the first examples of this new
music that was so fashionable that, no one knows quite how or why, it had
appropriated the word of still changing spelling acclaimed by Hopkins when
it first emerged. Five years later, Francis Scott Fitzgerald in turn
appropriated it to refer not just to music, but to an entire age. Tales of the
Jazz Age was the title of one of the best-known short story collections of a
century that was not by chance to see, shortly before its end, the
appearance of another book, this time simply entitled Jazz, by Toni
Morrison, the only African American writer yet to have been awarded the
Nobel prize.
In the intervening years, a great many things happened, including jazz
itself—the jazz that refers, above all else, to a type of music. A musical
style with its own history, which can be told like any history of the arts:
with its heroes, minor masters, geniuses known and unknown, the damned,
Hopkins’ article was reproduced in Storyville, December 1973, and in J. Goldbot, The World of Jazz in
Printed Ephemera and Collectibles, Studio Editions, London, 1990, p. 27.
1
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triumphs both true and false, honest artisans and cheating imitators,
different movements, breakaways, primitives, classics, moderns, avantgardists and much more. A history that has been told in many books and
preserved on hundreds of thousands of records across the five continents to
the extent that the phenomenon rapidly became universal, despite its
purely (if a hybrid can be said to be pure) African American roots. A
splendidly musical music, happy and sad, ballad and blues, corporeal one
day, evanescent the next, triumphal or delicate, deafening or gentle, but
always with that particular rhythm—syncope, swing, tension/distension—
and, again, always with that other peculiarity that excludes neither thought
nor preparation: improvisation, in varying degrees, but ever present.
Recognisable to all, jazz is, then, real music. But it is not just music: proof
of this is the fact that, as if by magic, anything that is touched by these
sound objects that are so difficult to define precisely is contaminated, as
though, in this case, the music had the ability to introduce something else
into the other, the non-musical part. Painting, literature, photography, film,
design—all the fields of aesthetic production of the last century bear within,
more or less visible, more or less constant, more or less explicit, depending
on the moment, the imprint of the passing of jazz through their individual
territory. It is often said that the 20th century was the century of cinema,
and that is perfectly legitimate, but it is obvious that our representations of
the world and of ourselves have been and continue to be filtered
systematically by the seventh art. The presence of jazz throughout those
ten decades is not of the same nature. Despite the worldwide triumph of
musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Miles
Davis and John Coltrane, and singers such as Billie Holiday and Ella
Fitzgerald, despite times when its popularity has been momentarily huge,
jazz seems to have passed through that century as a sometimes famous,
sometimes discreet, sometimes undercover traveller, always mythical or
“cult” as we might say today, certainly disrespectful of convention and
above all capable of infiltrating the inspiration of almost every artist,
whatever the field, as an inexhaustible source of dynamic energy. It is
sufficient to look at any (or almost any) artistic process of the last century
to confirm the idea that the 20th century was not just the century of
cinema, but also of jazz.
It is now many years since I had the idea of putting this hypothesis to the
test in the form of a major multidisciplinary show run through by the
leading thread of the seed of “jazz” planted in the various artistic fields. As
chance would have it, one day in 2005, during a chat with Gabriella Belli,
director of the MART (Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e
Rovereto), I mentioned this idea. Her open mind prompted her to respond
immediately: though she herself did not know much about jazz, she thought
it was vital to bring this dream to life, and she wanted to produce it. And
that is what happened.
Three years later, during which Stéphane Martin, president of the Musée du
quai Branly, and Josep Ramoneda, director of the Centre de Cultura
Contemporània de Barcelona, decided to take part in the project with their
decisive support, I think the exhibition recorded in this catalogue, with all
its marvels, some famous and others awaiting discovery, despite all the
shortcomings that are inevitable in manifestations of this kind, shows that
the result is more than positive: the 20th century truly was “the jazz
century”.
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3.- EXHIBITION TEXTS
1. BEFORE 1917
It is impossible to put a date to the birth of jazz, though the year 1917 is
considered crucial due to the conjunction of two decisive events. In the
February, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, an orchestra of white
musicians, made the first record with the word “jazz” (or, to be precise,
“jass”) on the label. In the November, the US Army closed down Storyville,
the prostitution district of New Orleans, whose famous brothels had
employed many musicians; the vast majority then decided to move to the
north of the United States, specifically Chicago and New York. However, we
must not overlook the many earlier manifestations (minstrels, gospel, coon
songs, cakewalk, ragtime) that heralded the musical phenomenon that was
about to transform the century and which long before had inspired many
artists.
2. THE JAZZ AGE IN THE US 1917-1930
World War I was followed in the States by the surprising fashion of jazz
music, acclaimed in 1922 by Tales of the Jazz Age by Francis Scott
Fitzgerald. It was such an important fashion that the expression “the jazz
age” coined by the writer has been constantly used to refer not just to the
music that provided the soundtrack but also to an entire age and even a
“jazz generation”.
Testimonies to the jazz age included the fabulous illustrations decorating
the scores of the latest hits and various photographs by Man Ray
(specifically one entitled Jazz from 1919) and many other works by
American artists, such as James Blanding Sloan, and others who lived in
the States, such as Miguel Covarrubias and Jan Matulka.
3. HARLEM RENAISSANCE 1917-1936
While white America lived its jazz age, for the first time in history African
Americans experienced true cultural recognition with the movement that
would come to be known as the Harlem Renaissance. While the jazz of
Louis Armstrong or Duke Ellington was definitely one of the most
important aspects of this creative effervescence, music was not the only
field of creation. Behind foremost figures such as the writer Langston
Hughes and the painter Aaron Douglas, a host of artists produced a
prolific body of literary and visual masterpieces for which music was a
favourite theme. Although this was an essentially black movement, white
artists such as Winold Reiss and Carl van Vechten also played an
important part.
4. WILD YEARS IN EUROPE 1917-1930
During World War I, the Harlem Hellfighters, the regimental band of
James Reese Europe, had the privilege of introducing the new syncopated
rhythms into Europe. When hostilities ended, every aspect of culture in the
old continent was infected by the jazz virus. The arrival in Paris in 1925 of
La Revue Nègre, with Josephine Baker, marked the peak of the invasion
7
of this Tumulte noir, as it was christened by Paul Colin’s famous work.
From Jean Cocteau to Paul Morand, Michel Leiris and Georges
Bataille, countless writers were inspired in some way by this inexorable
tide. From Kees van Dongen to Pablo Picasso and George Grosz, the
phenomenon was just as keen in the field of the plastic arts.
5. THE SWING ERA 1930-1939
The jazz age was followed by the fashion of swing and big bands, whether
black, in the case of Duke Ellington and Count Basie, or white like those
conducted by Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller, who
made the masses dance in the explosive thirties.
When the talkies reached the cinema, a host of musical comedies reflected
this new craze and its seductive syncopated rhythm, which also inspired
many artists. In the US, despite their differences, modernist Stuart Davis
and regionalist Thomas Hart Benton shared an interest in the music. In
Europe, František Kupka produced various paintings devoted to the jazz
that specialists such as Charles Delaunay termed “hot” to differentiate it
from its more staid derivatives. The close of the decade was marked by an
event that was to determine the future: Alex Steinweiss, a young known
graphic designer, created the first album cover for Columbia...
6. WARTIME 1939-1945
World War II left a dramatic mark on Western culture. Thanks to the VDiscs produced for the US Military, music went with the soldiers into battle,
and hostilities did not undermine the influence of jazz on other artistic
fields. Piet Mondrian, who had just arrived in New York, discovered
boogie-woogie, which was key to his latter works. In the field of dance,
William H. Johnson introduced the jitterbug, the latest dance craze. At
the same time, in Paris, the Zazous, probably named after a song by Cab
Calloway, stood out for their eye-catching zoot suits, proof of their rather
daring opposition to the invaders. Jazz became very popular in France,
which explains Jean Dubuffet and Henri Matisse’s interest in it. The latter
took his scissors to coloured paper to make Jazz, his famous limited-edition
book.
7. BEBOP 1945-1960
The advent of bebop at the end of the war led to a modernization of jazz,
and in the field of painting abstract expressionism started to take off. Some
of its exponents, specifically Jackson Pollock, found a direct source of
inspiration in the jazz music they constantly listened to. With the
microgroove came a new artistic field: album covers. David Stone and
Andy Warhol, Josef Albers and Marvin Israel, Burt Goldblatt and Reid
Miles were among the dozens of graphic designers, some known, some
anonymous, trying to seduce music-lovers with a strict format: 30 x 30 cm.
Nor was the cinema ultimately immune to the contagion of modern jazz.
Just two examples of the dozens of films that used it are Ascenseur pour
l’échafaud [Lift to the Scaffold] by Louis Malle and La Notte [The Night] by
Michelangelo Antonioni.
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JAZZ-ART IN BARCELONA
Meanwhile, in the Barcelona of the early fifties, a revived Hot Club-Club 49 was
the focus for the most active artists of the time and one of the most interesting
outlets for this fusion of jazz and the arts. The “Jazz Salons” of those years
included works by Tàpies, Tharrats, Ponç and Guinovart, among many
others.
8. WEST COAST JAZZ 1953-1961
According to the jazz bible, bebop was New York black whereas the typical
West Coast style, close by the Hollywood studios, was white, refined and so
cool that many were quick to label it sugar-coated. In fact, despite a more
benign meteorology and its great subtlety, West Coast jazz had a strong
personality and a force of its own. Nonetheless, the typical graphic design of
the record labels clearly reflected the contrast between the two coasts of
America: big geometrical lettering and grainy portraits of black musicians in
the east, and sunny beaches with pretty blondes frolicking beside the sea in
the west... These sunny holiday images should not blind us to the fact that
the California of that time was also one of the foremost venues of the union
between jazz and the poetry of the Beat Generation.
9. THE FREE REVOLUTION 1960-1980
In 1960, Ornette Coleman recorded Free Jazz. This record, with its twofold meaning and a cover reproducing White Light by Jackson Pollock,
established a new set of rules: the modern period gave way to the free
avant-garde... This free revolution, contemporary with black liberation
movements (Black Power, Black Muslims, Black Panthers) was reflected in
the plastic arts by the works of artists both known and anonymous:
Romare Bearden, in his mature period, Bob Thomson, who died before
his time, and even, in Europe, Englishman Alan Davie. One of the
unforgettable marks of this radical change was Appunti per un’Orestiade
africana, a surprising film by Pier Paolo Pasolini in which he draws
together the free improvisations of Gato Barbieri with Aeschylus and
Africa.
10. CONTEMPORARIES 1980-2002
It may not always be evident, but the presence of jazz in the field of the
arts, which have ceased to be modern and are now contemporary, should
not be underestimated. Proof of it is provided by the works pervaded by
black music of Jean-Michel Basquiat and his predecessor, Robert
Colescott. Though different in form, the video work by Christian Marclay
and Lorna Simpson also confirms its presence, as does the marvellous
photograph by Canadian artist Jeff Wall, inspired by the prologue of
Invisible Man, the great novel by Ralph Ellison. Finally, the little blue train
created by the mythic Afro-American artist David Hammons, running
endlessly through a landscape of coal mountains and grand piano lids,
marks the end of the exhibition: if the 20th century, the Jazz Century, has
really ended, the train of the music that accompanied it continues to roll.
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4.- ARTISTS IN THE EXHIBITION
Valerio Adami (Bologna, 1935)
Italian painter. In 1951, he studied with Achille Funi at the Accademia di Brera in
Milan. He took part in Documenta in Kassel in 1964, and in the Venice Biennial in
1968 and 1986, and showed at the Centre Pompidou in 1985. He produces public
works for the Gare d’Austerlitz in Paris and City Bank in Madison.
Josef Albers (Bottrop, 1888-New Haven, 1976)
German artist. In 1920, he studied at the Bauhaus in Weimar, collaborated with
Gropius and, in 1923, gave classes with Moholy-Nagy. In 1929, he took part in the
Bauhaus exhibition. He emigrated to the US and gave classes at Yale University. In
1935, he started to work in abstract oils and, as of 1949, on the Homages to the
Square Series. He published poems and theoretical texts, including Interaction of
Color (1963) and Formulation: Articulation (1973). In 1971, the Metropolitan
Museum held its first retrospective devoted to a living artist to him. In 1983, the
Josef Albers Museum was opened in Bottrop.
Pierre Alechinsky (Brussels, 1927)
Belgian artist. He studied at La Cambre and worked with the CoBrA group. In 1951,
he studied techniques of engraving, printing and Japanese calligraphy in Paris. In
1960, he showed at the Venice Biennial. He illustrated texts by writer friends. In
1983, he became a lecturer at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in
Paris.
Francesco Tullio Altan (Treviso, 1942)
Italian designer. In 1975, he created children’s comics and invented the character
of Pimpa the dog. He contributes to satirical publications, inventing Cipputi for
Linus, with writers, directors and important publications such as L’Espresso and La
Repubblica.
Richard Avedon (New York, 1923-San Antonio, 2004)
US photographer. He started out at Harper’s Bazaar, with the support of Alexey
Brodovitch, to whom he dedicated Observation in 1959; he also contributed to
Vogue and The New Yorker, achieving fame with his fashion photos. He also
produced portraits of famous figures and ordinary people. He published many books
and worked with Diane Arbus and Marvin Israel.
Albert Barbelle (Fall River, 1887–Miami, 1957)
French-American illustrator. In New York he illustrated sheet music. Famous for his
women’s designs in keeping with the fashions of the times.
Jean-Michel Basquiat (New York, 1960-1988)
US artist. He began with his graffiti signed SAMO (Same old shit). In 1978, he
joined the world of New York artists and musicians and rebelled against the
marginalization of blacks by means of his painting and music. Kenny Sharp, Keith
Haring and Diego Cortez introduced him into the East Village. He stopped playing
music, though it continued to be a source of inspiration and a link with African
American culture. In 1981, “Artforum” dedicated The Radiant Child to him.
In 1982, he took part in Documenta in Kassel and the Whitney Museum Biennial.
He worked with Andy Warhol. He took his inspiration from metropolitan life,
juxtaposing quotations from the media, grotesque figures, allusions to African
culture and jazz music to produce the imaginary of a contradictory identity. In
1985, The New York Times featured him on its front page. He was a member of the
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jet set and led a life of excesses and drug dependency. In 1987, he retired from
public life and tried in vain to shake off his dependencies. He died at the age of 28
in his New York apartment.
Romare Bearden (Charlotte, 1911-New York, 1988)
African American artist. During the great migration, he settled in New York. He
studied with George Grosz at the Art Students League. He was a regular in the
Harlem Renaissance and Group 306, bringing together black artists in Harlem. He
produced collages, watercolours, oil paintings and engravings inspired by Southern
culture, Harlem, and literary, historical and musical sources. He founded the
association of African American artists, Spiral, linked to the civil rights movement.
In 1964, he was appointed art director of Harlem Cultural Council and, together
with Norman Lewis, he set up the Cinque Gallery to support young artists from
minorities. He was involved in the birth of the Studio Museum in Harlem and the
Black Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1968, two of his collages appeared on the
front cover of Fortune and Time magazine. In 1987, he was awarded the National
Medal of Arts by the then president, Ronald Reagan. He is the author of numerous
publications, including A History of African American Artists: From 1792 to the
Present, published posthumously in 1993.
Thomas Hart Benton (Neosho, 1889-Kansas City, 1975)
US painter. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and then in Paris. After the
war, his research turned to realism, while observing specific elements of modernity
and taking his inspiration from the life of pioneers, in keeping with the principles of
the regionalist movement. He produced murals of the history of the American
people, such as America Today, a panoramic interpretation of the American jazz
age, with all the vital aspects and drama of economic crisis. He was an outstanding
figure on the New York culture scene and taught at the WPA. In 1935, he moved to
Kansas City and taught at the Art Institute; his students included Jackson Pollock.
He devoted much of his work to representing the working class and the harsh
realities it faced, faithful to his left-wing ideas.
Hart Leroy Bibbs (Kansas City, 1930-1994)
African American artist. Journalist, jazz photographer, painter, sculptor, poet and
actor. In 1986, he was in Tavernier’s Round Midnight.
Peter Brötzmann (Remscheid, 1941)
German musician and artist. He studied art in Wuppertal and was involved in the
Fluxus movement. Considered one of the foremost European exponents of free
jazz, in 1968 he released Machine Gun. He created many of his own album covers
and was responsible for the graphic design of the posters of FMP, Free Music
Production.
Bernard Buffet (Paris, 1928-Tourtour, 1999)
French painter. His figurative work with expressionistic allusions, inspired by the
Existentialist movement, is emblematic of the French post-war generation. In 1950,
he had a successful show in New York. In 1973, the Bernard Buffet Museum opened
in Japan.
Roman Cieslewicz (Lvov, 1930-Paris, 1996)
Polish artist and graphic designer. In Paris, he was art director of Elle, and worked
with Vogue, publishers, theatres and arts institutions such as the Centre Pompidou.
He was a member of the Panique group. He was inspired by the Russian
constructivist avant-garde of the 1920s, the Polish Block group and the
experiments of Op-Art.
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Claude Clark (Rockingham, 1915-Oakland, 2001)
African American artist. He grew up in Philadelphia, in a community of European
and African American emigrants. As of 1939 he worked with the Works Progress
Administration (WPA), set up in 1935 to provide support for American citizens
during the Great Depression, in the framework of the Federal Art Project (FAP),
promoting art. This body was divided into sections for production, training and
research, centring on public art, painting, sculpture and photography. Clark
continued to play an active role in the graphic arts section until 1943. At the same
time, he painted in the studio he shared with Raymond Steth. He was proud of his
roots and described the everyday life of his origins, with its simplicity and vitality.
He taught African and African American art at Merritt College in Oakland.
William Claxton (Pasadena, 1927-Los Angeles, 2008)
US photographer. As a jazz-lover, after 1952 he worked with Pacific Jazz Records.
His photos immortalize the more private side of musicians on America’s West Coast,
not just while performing. He also portrayed moments in the private lives of
models, writers, artists and Hollywood stars. He produced album covers for the
main record labels and contributed to Life, Time, Vogue and Playboy. In 1967, he
made the film Basic Black. His numerous publications include Jazz life, 1961; Jazz,
1996; Claxography: The Art of Jazz Photography, 1996; Young Chet, 1999; Jazz
Scene, 1999.
Jean Cocteau (Maisons Laffite, 1889-Milly-la-Fôret, 1963)
French writer and director. This Parisian dandy wrote plays and ballets, with music
by Stravinsky and inspired by Eric Satie, as well as working with Russian ballets. In
1914, jointly with Iribe, he founded Le Mot. He was a regular on the Montparnasse
scene, with the Surrealists and Picasso. In 1920 he choreographed Le Boeuf sur le
toit with music by the Groupe des Six. In the 1940s, he turned to cinema and, in
1946, he made La Belle et la Bête. In 1952, he showed his paintings for the first
time in Munich, and then in Paris, in 1955.
Robert H. Colescott (Oakland, 1925)
African American painter. He frequented the University of California in Berkeley.
Starting in 1949 he studied in Paris with Fernand Léger. His influences include
abstract art, social realism in murals and the Bay Area artists. In the 1970s he
reinterpreted masterworks of Western art, substituting their protagonists by African
Americans. His chosen themes are associated with racial issues, which he
approaches with irony, centring on the perception of blacks on the part of whites
and vice versa to highlight how racism contributes to creating black identity. In
1997 he represented the US at the Venice Biennial. His paintings form part of major
collections including the New York MoMA, San Francisco, the Museum of Fine Arts in
Boston and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington.
Paul Colin (Nancy, 1892-Nogent-sur-Marne, 1985)
French painter and illustrator. In 1925, when Josephine Baker arrived in Paris, the
Théâtre des Champs-Élysées commissioned him to design a poster for La Revue
Nègre. It was a providential meeting: Josephine found an admirer who introduced
her into French high society, and Paul found a muse. In 1926, Baker left the Revue
to work on her show at the Folies Bergères. The dancer’s fame grew, and in 1927,
at the age of 21, she published her memoires, illustrated by Colin. Encouraged by
Baker, in 1927, he put on a highly successful show, Le Bal Nègre. In 1929 he
published Le Tumulte Noir, a series of 44 lithographs that capture the exuberant
atmospheres of dance and jazz music, beginning with the one that was Josephine’s
letter of introduction. He worked for over 40 years in the show business world,
creating posters, sets and costumes for the theatre.
Robert Combas (Lyon, 1957)
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French painter. The work of this exponent of the free figuration movement was
inspired by rock music, comic books and popular culture.
Miguel Covarrubias (Mexico City, 1904-1957)
Mexican artist and ethnologist. He registered at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria,
but gave up his studies to devote himself to design. In 1923 he moved to New
York, where he studied with the poet José Juan Tablada, who helped him in his
transition from Mexican to US culture. His talent was recognised by the critic and
photographer Carl Van Vechten and the editor of Vanity Fair, Frank Crowninshield,
for whom he worked as an illustrator and caricaturist, and contributed to The New
Yorker and Fortune. His simple-lined designs portray the artists in vogue, such as
Paul Whiteman. He worked with writers and musicians, and illustrated various
publications such as Blues: An Anthology, by W.C. Handy, The Weary Blues by
Langston Hughes and his book Negro Drawings, in which he represented the typical
figures of the Harlem Renaissance. In the 1940s he returned to Mexico, where he
moved in the same circles as Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and Rufino Tamayo. He
painted on social and political themes, and devoted himself to design and to
caricaturing Mexican society. He taught ethnography at the Escuela Nacional de
Antropología.
Guido Crepax (Milan, 1933-2003)
Italian graphic designer and comic-book artist. He designed illustrations for
advertisements and record covers: the first, for a disc by Gats Walzer, dates from
1953; it was followed by others for Armstrong, the Italian Jazz Stars, etc. He
contributed to magazines, such as Corto Maltese and Linus, for which he drew the
character Valentina in 1965.
Alan Davie (Grangemouth, 1920)
Scottish artist. He devoted himself to jewellery, poetry, jazz and painting. In the
late 1940s he discovered Jackson Pollock through Peggy Guggenheim in Venice,
and was inspired to free the mythical imaginary and force of pictorial gesture. His
paintings combine organic presences and geometric forms. In the 1950s he became
interested in African and Pacific art, the artists of the CoBrA group and the abstract
expressionists. He highlighted the importance of intuition, which he expresses by
means of enigmatic signs. Using imaginary forms, he evokes the mythologies of
different cultures, combining meanings and references.
Stuart Davis (Philadelphia, 1892-New York, 1964)
US painter. In 1913 he contributed to the socialist magazine The Masses and
exhibited Cubist-inspired works at the Armory Show. His first abstract paintings
date from 1924. he moved to Paris and met Fernand Léger. In 1926, a New York,
he worked for the mural section of the WPA and produced Swing Landscape for the
Williamsburg Housing Project in Brooklyn. He took his inspiration from urban
landscapes, contemporary icons and jazz, which he transformed into twodimensional abstract elements with bright colours and complex rhythms. He was
active in left-wing political and artistic organizations, was a member of the Artists’
Union and the Artists’ Congress; he taught at the New School of Social Research. In
1944 he was awarded first prize in the “Portrait of America” show, and the following
year James Johnson Sweeney organized a retrospective of his work for the New
York Museum of Modern Art. In 1951 he took part in the first Sao Paulo Biennial
and, in the following year, the Venice Biennial, where he showed again in 1956.
Roy DeCarava (New York, 1919)
Photographer African American. He studied at the Cooper Union School of Art,
which he left in frustration due to racism. As of 1940, he turned to photography. In
1952 he won the Guggenheim Fellowship, the first time it went to an African
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American photographer, and for years he immortalized the everyday life of Harlem.
In 1955, jointly with Langston Hughes he published The Sweet Flypaper of Life. In
1956, he produced a series of portraits of African American jazz musicians, artists
and intellectuals. In 1963, he set up the Kamoinge Workshop in Harlem, an
association of photographers focusing on racial discrimination and black freedom
movements. As of 1975, he taught photography at Hunter College.
Joseph Delaney (Knoxville, 1904-1992)
African American artist. In 1930, he coincided with his brother Beauford in New
York. He studied with Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League. Influenced
by his teacher, he devoted himself to realistic representation: scenes of everyday
life, parades, the city, nightclubs and evenings of jazz. He was active on the New
York scene, working with the WPA and showing at the Washington Square Outdoor
Art Exhibit. The University of Tennessee organized the first retrospective of his
work in 1986.
Charles Delaunay (Paris, 1911-1988)
French artist and intellectual, son of Robert and Sonia. In the 1930s he worked in
advertising and portrayed jazz musicians. In 1933, he went into Hugues Panassié’s
Hot Club de France with whom, in 1934, he set up Jazz Hot, the first French
magazine devoted to jazz. Radio and record producer and entrepreneur, he made a
huge contribution to the development of jazz in France. In 1936 he published Hot
Discography; the following year, he set up Swing, France’s first jazz record label,
and then Vogue Records, for which American and French musicians recorded,
including Django Reinhardt. In 1979 he donated his record collections and archives
to the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Maurice Delavier (Paris, 1902-1983)
French artist. His work as a designer included illustrations for Paul Morand’s Magie
noire in 1930.
Aaron Douglas (Topeka, 1899 - Nashville, 1979)
Painter African American. In 1925 he studied with Winold Reiss in Harlem. He
became an icon of the black cultural movement. He interpreted themes of slavery
and Africa in a modernist style. He came to the attention of W.E.B. DuBois and
Alain Locke, for whom he illustrated The New Negro; he also worked with
Opportunity and The Crisis. In 1928 he became president of the Harlem Artists
Guild. From 1939 to 1966 he taught art at Fisk University, Nashville.
Arthur Garfield Dove (New York, 1880-1946)
US painter. He graduated at Cornell University and worked in New York as an
illustrator. In 1907, in Europe, he discovered Cézanne and fauvism. In 1909, in the
US, he joined the group of artists associated with Alfred Stieglitz, a photographer
and gallery owner who promoted modern art, with whom he shared the need to
convey spiritual values. He showed at the 291 Gallery and, in 1913, at the Armory
Show. Thanks to the support of Duncan Phillips, founder of the Phillips Collection,
he was able to devote himself full time to painting. As well as being found in the
above collections, his paintings can be found at the Art Institute of Chicago, the
Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid.
Jean Dubuffet (Le Havre, 1901-Paris, 1985)
French painter and sculptor. In 1918, he met Max Jacob and Fernand Léger in Paris.
He studied primitive art, African art and the drawings of children and the mentally
ill. In the 1940s he became interested in jazz, which became the theme of his Jazz
hot series of drawings and some paintings. His work is organized in thematic cycles
characterized by experimentation with technique. In 1948 he set up the Foyer de
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l’Art Brut. In 1949 he published L’Art Brut preféré aux arts culturels. He explored
free expressive modalities and denounced the repressive nature of culture. The
L’Hourloupe cycle (1962) marked the start of a phase characterized by labyrinthine
structures associated with sculpture and architecture. In 1974 the Fondation
Dubuffet was created. In 1981 he showed at the Guggenheim in New York and in
1984 he represented France at the Venice Biennial.
Charles and Ray Eames (San Luis, 1907 - Los Angeles, 1978; Sacramento,
1912 - Los Angeles, 1988)
American designers and artists. Charles studied architecture at Washington
University and in 1930 set up an architecture and design practice. Ray studied
painting with Hans Hofmann in New York. In 1941 they married and worked in
California in the field of design. In 1946 they designed the chair that bears their
name. Their house, with its innovative design and materials, became a mecca for
architects from around the world. In the 1950s they devoted themselves to
producing short films on a variety of themes, characterized by great creativity and
original formal solutions. Elmer Bernstein worked on many of these films.
Jimmy Ernst (Cologne, 1920 - New York, 1984)
German artist. The son of Max Ernst, he was influenced by his father and the
Surrealists. In the 1940s he ran Peggy Guggenheim’s gallery in New York. In the
1950s he joined the Irascible Eighteen group. In 1984 he published his
autobiography, A Not-So-Still Life.
Dave Fleischer (New York, 1894 - Woodland Hills, 1979)
US director and producer. As the joint owner, with his brother, of Fleischer Studios,
he made numerous films, including Talkartoons, Betty Boop and Popeye. In 1941,
he gave the studio to Paramount, for whom he continued to work, producing
Superman cartoons, among other things.
Jim Flora (Bellafontaine, 1914 - Rowayton, 1998)
American artist. He started out as an illustrator and set up the Little Man Press with
Robert Lowry. In 1942 he worked at Columbia Records. In the 1950s he contributed
to various magazines and, for RCA Victor Record, he produced some of his most
famous record covers, twice winning the Grammy Award for the Best Album Cover.
He illustrated 17 children’s books. In the 1970s, he switched from commercial work
to artistic research.
Lee de Forest (Council Bluffs, 1873 - Los Angeles, 1961)
US physicist. In 1906 he invented the Audion amplifier. In 1910 he carried out the
first broadcast from New York’s Metropolitan Opera House during a performance by
Caruso. In 1921 he invented Phonofilm, a process for recording sound for films. In
1950 he published his autobiography, Father of the radio.
Leonard Freed (New York, 1929 - 2006)
US photographer. In the 1950s he travelled to Europe and the north of Africa,
where he used photography to explore social themes such as violence and racial
discrimination. In the 1960s, he took part in the civil rights movement: he
photographed its leaders and life in the streets of Harlem and the South. Black in
White America dates from 1968. In 1972 he joined Magnum agency. He published
over 10 books and worked for major publications such as Life, Der Spiegel and The
New York Times Magazine. His photos form part of the collections of the
International Center of Photography, the Metropolitan Museum of New York and the
Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Isadore “Friz” Freleng (Kansas City, 1905 - Los Angeles, 1995)
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US producer, director and designer. He worked for Walt Disney and Warner Bros,
for whom he made the first Looney Tune. He created some of their best-known
cartoons, such as Bugs Bunny, Silvestre and Speedy Gonzales, and won four
Oscars. In 1963 he set up DePatie-Freleng Enterprise, and produced The Pink
Panther Show and other hit shows. He introduced jazz rhythms and processes into
his cartoons, and created masterpieces such as Clean Pastures and The Three Little
Bops, inspired by the story of the Three Little Pigs fable.
John Frew (1875 – c. 1925)
US illustrator. He became famous thanks to the success of “Alexander’s Ragtime
Band”, the sheet music that he illustrated.
Lee Friedlander (Aberdeen, 1934)
US photographer. A great music fan, he met Nesuhi Ertegun, the founder of Atlantic
Records, for whom he produced a series of portraits of jazz musicians which went
on to become record covers. In 1960, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
awarded him the first of the many prizes he was to receive throughout his career.
In 1963, he showed at the International Museum of Photography and took part in
the “New Documents” exhibition organized by New York’s MoMA, which in 2005
devoted a retrospective to him; the MoMA in San Francisco organized another in
2008.
Gérard Fromanger (Pontchartrain, 1939)
French painter. He studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de
Paris and then worked with César. He formed part of the new figuration movement.
He worked with Godard and Joris Ivens.
Alain Garrigue (Paris, 1962)
French designer. He created comics such as Séjour en Afrique with Jean-Luc
Coudray (1989), Le destin perdu d’Argentino Diaz (1990) and Charlie Parker (2003)
for the BD Jazz de Nocturne series.
Domenico Gnoli (Rome, 1933 - New York, 1970)
Italian painter. In 1951 he took part in the “Art Graphique Italien” exhibition. As of
1956 he concentrated on painting and travelling, and showed in New York and
London. In 1962 he published a series of illustrations of Harlem for Show Magazine
Apollo Theatre.
Burt Goldblatt (Dorchester, 1924 - Boston, 2006)
US graphic designer and photographer. He designed some of the most original
record covers. He alternated design with photography, and took film noir as his
inspiration for recreating the atmosphere of jazz nightclubs. He used a variety of
techniques, including collage and X-rays. He worked with Decca and Atlantic, and
with other smaller record labels.
Georges Goursat “Sem” (Périgueux, 1863 - Paris, 1934)
French artist and journalist. In 1900, in Paris, he became a chronicler and illustrator
of the social elite and the belle époque, using designs and articles for the theatre,
show business and fashion. He contributed to various newspapers, such as Le
Figaro.
George Grosz (Berlin, 1893 - 1959)
German painter. He studied at the Academy of Dresden. In 1913, in Paris, he came
into contact with Cubism, Futurism and Expressionism. The experience of the war
served to fire his creativity. In 1918 he became a Dadaist and opposed bourgeois
values. He set up Die Pleite and Der blutige Ernst, two satirical political magazines
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and was responsible for the illustrations. In 1919 he joined the Communist Party
and was arrested during the Spartakus uprising. His designs, marked by social
criticism, represented the Berlin of the 1920s, uncovering its hypocrisy and
violence. In 1925 he took part in the “New Objectivity” show in Mannheim. In 1932
he emigrated to New York, where he gave art classes at the Art Students League.
In 1954 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 1958
he returned to Germany.
Renato Guttuso (Bagheria, 1911 - Rome, 1987)
Italian painter. He lived in Rome as of 1931 and expressed his antifascist stance by
means of realist art. In 1937, his studio was one of the liveliest intellectual hotspots
of the capital, struck up a friendship with Moravia, and in 1940 joined the
Communist Party. As a critic, he contributed to Le Arti, Primato and Il Selvaggio,
which devoted a monographic issue to him in 1939. He was involved in antifascist
resistance and in the creation of the Fronto Nuovo delle Arti movement. His
frescoes of contemporary events, with political connotations inspired by his own life
and rural life, drew on the French realists to create a descriptive realism with social
themes accessible to the masses.
Michel Gyarmathy (Balassagyarmat, 1908 - Paris, 1996)
Hungarian director and costume designer. In 1933, in Paris, he was technical
director of the Folies Bergères, and frequented the jazz scene, Josephine Baker and
Maurice Chevalier.
David Hammons (Springfields, 1943)
African American artist. In 1962, he went to the Chouinard Art Institute in Los
Angeles, where he developed a passionate interest in Bruce Nauman and Chris
Burden and made friends with many jazz musicians. He studied arte povera, but his
original poetics, ephemeral in the extreme, defies categorization. Charismatic and
evasive, he surrounded himself with the aura of inaccessibility, while immersed in
the African American culture that impregnates his work. He has compared his
condition as a black artist in the white world of contemporary art with the situation
of white musicians, such as Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan, in the black world of
jazz. He considers jazz not just as a source of inspiration for his work, some of
which is dedicated to famous songs such as Chasing the Blue Train, but also as a
way of life.
Keith Haring (Reading, 1958 - New York, 1990)
US artist. In 1978 he studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York and, like his
friend Jean-Michel Basquiat, experienced the effervescence of the ‘80s and was
influenced by the energy of his contemporaries, the Andy Warhol myth and the
works of Dubuffet and Alechinsky. Between 1980 and 1985, he painted murals in
the metro and invented a new urban language that revolved around essential forms
and bold lines. He took part in Documenta in Kassel and the Sao Paulo and Whitney
biennials. In 1986, he opened Pop Shop, a shop specializing in the sale of objects
with his designs. In 1988, he was diagnosed with AIDS and in 1989 he set up the
Keith Haring Foundation to fight the illness.
Palmer Hayden (Wide Water, 1890 - New York, 1973)
African American painter. In 1919, he settled in New York, as part of the black
community and the Harlem Renaissance movement, which was more of a spiritual
than a stylistic influence. Thanks to a grant from the Harmon Foundation, one of
the first associations to support black artists, he moved to Paris, where he came
into contact with his culture in Europe, which he portrayed in the dance scenes and
atmospheres of Parisian cafés. In 1932, he returned to New York and worked for
the WPA. In 1933, he took part in the “Works of Negro Artists” exhibition, winning
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the Rockefeller Prize. In the 1940s, he worked on a series dedicated to popular
hero John Henry, inspired by the life of American railroad workers.
Albert Hirschfeld (St Louis, 1903 - New York, 1999)
US illustrator and caricaturist. He became famous for his ability to capture the
essence of show business personalities in just a few lines. His designs form part of
and exalt the world of Broadway.
Daniel Humair (Geneva, 1938)
Swiss musician and artist. Self-taught jazz musician, in 1958 he played in Paris with
foremost musicians. He was also a painter and explored the relation between visual
arts and music. In 1978, the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris devoted a oneman exhibition to him.
Paul Iribe (Angoulême, 1883 - Roquebrune, 1935)
French artist and journalist. He produced designs for various major publications
such as Le Rire, Le Sourire and L'Assiette au beurre. In 1906 he set up Le Témoin.
In 1908, he published Les Robes de Paul Poiret racontées par Paul Iribe. Between
1914 and 1916, jointly with Jean Cocteau he published Le Mot. Paul Iribe’s stylized
rose is a symbol of the Art Deco period.
Marvin Israel (New York, 1924 - Dallas, 1984)
US artist. After graduating from Syracuse University, he studied photography, art
and design. In 1960, he became art director of Harper’s Bazaar and Atlantic
Records, where he designed some record covers. He gave classes at the Parsons
School of Design and Cooper Union. He worked with photographers such as Richard
Avedon, Diane Arbus and Lee Friedlander.
Marcel Janco (Bucharest, 1895 - Tel Aviv, 1984)
Romanian painter and architect. In Zurich, he joined the Dadaist group of the
Cabaret Voltaire nightclub. He illustrated Tzara’s La Première Aventure céleste de
monsieur Antipyrine and designed masks and costumes for Dada ballets. In 1921,
he became distanced from the Dadaists and returned to Bucharest. His focus
switched to abstraction, and he worked as an architect and contributed to
Contimporanul magazine. In 1940, he emigrated to Israel, where he set up New
Horizons Group. In 1953, in the village of Ein Hod, he organized an artists’ colony
and, in the latter years of his life, worked to create the Janco Dada Museum.
Louise E. Jefferson (1908 - 2002)
African American artist and photographer. She lived in Harlem; in 1935, with
Augusta Savage, Aaron Douglas and Jacob Lawrence she set up the Harlem Artists
Guild. She worked as an illustrator, became art director of the Friendship Press and
contributed to Opportunity and The Crisis. She illustrated the life and history of
African Americans, addressing the racism of the times. In 1936, We Sing America,
a book of songs illustrated by Jefferson with images of black and white children,
was prohibited in Georgia. On a study grant from the Ford Foundation she travelled
to Africa to study the art of her birthplace and produced the book The Decorative
Arts of Africa.
Ted Joans (Cairo, Illinois, 1928 - Vancouver, 2003)
US poet, jazz musician and painter. Exponent of the beat generation and friend of
Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. In 1955, he created the Bird Lives myth and
graffiti in New York City. He invented the technique of “outagraphy”. His books
include Black Pow-Wow and A Black Manifesto in Jazz Poems and Prose.
William Henry Johnson (Florence, 1901 - 1970)
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US painter. He frequented the National Academy of Design. In 1926, he went to
Paris and his work was influenced by expressionism. In 1929 he won the first
Harmon Foundation prize and in 1930 he married Holcha Krake in Denmark, where
he lived for five years. In 1938 he returned to New York and gave classes at the
Harlem Community Art Center. He knew Norman Lewis, Jacob Lawrence and other
member artists of the Harlem Artists Guild and found his roots there. His paintings
are full of memories of the South and scenes of the urban black community; he
immortalized its lifestyle and the vivacity of its music and dances, like the jitterbug,
but also the violence and abuses it suffered. After 1944, he suffered from mental
disorders and went into a sanatorium where he remained for over 20 years. He died
in obscurity.
Louis Joos (Auderghem, 1940)
Belgian artist. He started out as an illustrator, creating his first comic book for
Aménophis. He set many of his designs in the world of jazz, capturing its nuances
and stories of outsiders. Since 1991 he has also produced illustrations for children’s
books.
Art Kane (New York, 1925 - 1995)
US photographer. After the war, he worked as a graphic designer for Esquire and
later as art director for Seventeen magazine. He studied photography with Alexey
Brodovitch. His best-known photo, and also one of his first, Harlem 1958, was a
commission by Robert Benton for the article “Golden age of jazz” in Esquire. In the
1960s he portrayed musicians and rock stars for Life, Look and McCalls; he also
took fashion photos for Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. In 1984 he was awarded the
American Society of Magazine Photographers Lifetime Achievement Award and the
ASMP Photographer of the Year.
Mati Klarwein (Hamburg, 1932 - Majorca, 2002)
German painter. In 1948 he lived in Israel with his parents, and then moved to
Paris, where he studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts with
Léger. In 1964, after travelling round the world, he arrived in New York and showed
Crucifixion, part of the Aleph Sanctuary installation. He is considered to be the first
psychedelic artist. Annunciation features on the cover of Abraxas by Santana and
he created Bitches Brew for Miles Davis’ record of the same name in 1969.
Elaine Marie de Kooning (New York, 1918 - East Hampton, 1989)
US painter. In 1938, she met Willem de Kooning, whom she married five years
later. She painted and developed a critical body of work, writing texts about her
husband and the artists of the New York School. Her pictorial research centred on
the portrait; she painted President John F. Kennedy for the Truman Library.
Frantisek or Frank Kupka (Opocno, 1871 - Paris, 1957)
Czech painter. After gradating from the Academy of Prague, he moved to Vienna
where he became interested in theosophy. In Paris, in 1896, he contributed to
L’Illustration and L’Assiette au Beurre and produced posters for Le Chat Noir
cabaret. His pictorial work explores mysticism and symbolism, but also social satire
directed against the bourgeoisie. In 1923, in Prague, he published La Création dans
les Arts Plastiques. He met Van Doesburg in 1926 and was involved in the
Abstraction-Création group. He followed the theories of Auguste Herbin and saw the
idea of representation in lines and light values as the agents of expression. In
1935, he started to become interested in music, particularly jazz; the Jazz Hot and
Musique series date from this period. In 1936 he showed at the MoMA in New York,
in “Cubism and Abstract Art” and for the first time in Paris, at the Musée du Jeu de
Paume. A year after his death, the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris held a
retrospective of his work.
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Jacob Lawrence (Atlantic City, 1917 - Seattle, 2000)
African American painter. In the 1930s, he studied in Harlem with Charles Alston
and Augusta Savage. He worked in the painting section of the WPA and took the life
of the black community as inspiration for his paintings. In 1940-1941, he produced
his “Migration series”, published in the same year in Fortune. In 1974, the Whitney
Museum of American Art in New York held a retrospective of his work, and in 1990
he was awarded the National Medal of the Arts.
Le Corbusier (La Chaux-de-Fonds, 1887 - Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, 1965)
Swiss architect, painter and theorist, one of the most important of the 20th
century, in 1917 Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris adopted the pseudonym of Le
Corbusier for his architectural work; he also devoted himself to painting. In the
1920s, he developed a passion for variety shows, the Revue Nègre and its leading
actress, Josephine Baker, with whom he coincided in 1929, first in Buenos Aires and
then on the voyage to Bordeaux aboard the Lutétia. A photo immortalizes the
architect disguised as Josephine at a party on board the ship.
Guy Le Querrec (Brittany, 1941)
French photographer. In London, in the late 1950s, he took his first jazz photos. In
1967 he became a professional photographer and in 1969 produced a reportage for
Jeune Afrique. In 1972 he set up the Viva agency, which he left in 1976 to join
Magnum. He was awarded the Grand Prix de la Ville de Paris in 1998.
Sidney Leff (New York, 1901-nd)
US illustrator. He was famous in the 1920s and ‘30s for his prolific output in Art
Deco style. He showed at the MoMA in New York with an exhibited devoted to
cabaret.
Fernand Léger (Argentan, 1881-Gif-sur-Yvette, 1955)
French painter. Influenced by Cézanne, Picasso and Braque. In 1911 he showed at
the Salon des Indépendants de Paris. On his return from the war, which made a
deep impression on his artistic and social orientation, he became interested in
machines and industrial architecture. His work featured the themes and cultural
influences of the modern age, including jazz. During the Occupation he took refuge
in the United States, in 1944 he joined the Communist Party and in 1946, in
France, jointly with Picasso he became its artistic spokesman. The Constructors
series synthesises his search for artistic freedom and an aesthetic programme open
to the common man. In 1955, he won first prize in the Sao Paulo Biennial.
Herman Leonard (Allentown, 1923)
US photographer. He studied at Ohio University until 1947. In 1948, he set up a
studio in New York, contributed to Life, Esquire and Playboy, and frequented the
Royal Roost and Birdland by photographing great jazz musicians such as Charlie
Parker and Billie Holiday. He created many record covers for Norman Granz. He
lived in Paris for a time, where he contributed to Jazz Magazine, and in 1989 he
settled in New Orleans.
Roy Lichtenstein (New York, 1923-1997)
US artist. As an adolescent he took a passionate interest in jazz, played with a band
and frequented the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. In 1961 he worked with Leo Castelli
and created paintings based on images taken from comic books and consumer
articles using the Ben-Day dots of typographic techniques. In 1962 he took part in
the group exhibition “New Painting of Common Object” and in 1963 he produced
Whaam!, currently in London’s Tate Modern. One of the most famous exponents of
pop art.
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Adolf Loos (Brno, 1879-Vienna, 1933)
Austrian architect. In 1896, in Vienna, he devoted himself to producing projects and
publishing architecture texts in various magazines. In 1908 he wrote Ornament and
Crime and in 1919 the manifesto Richtlinien fur ein Kunstamt, to bring art to the
people in the new Austria that emerged after World War I. In 1921 he published the
compilation Ins Leere Gesprochen. In 1925 he settled in Paris, contributed to
L’Esprit Nouveau, and designed houses for Tzara and Josephine Baker. He is
considered one of the founders of European rationalism.
Jacques de Loustal (Neuilly-Sur-Seine, 1956)
French artist and illustrator. He contributed to major publications such as Libération
and The New Yorker. For À Suivre, he designed Cœurs de Sable, Barney et la Note
Bleue, Un Jeune Homme Romantique and Kid Congo.
Herb Lubalin (New York, 1918 - 1981)
US graphic designer. He contributed to Eros, Fact and Avant Garde; for the latter,
in 1967 he developed the font of the same name and in 1971 Avant Garde Gothic.
After 1973, he devoted himself to typographical experimentation with his editorial
project U&lc Magazine (Upper and Lower Case).
Tadeusz Makowski (Oswiecim, 1882 - Paris, 1932)
Polish artist. In 1907, he began to frequent the Paris circle of Le Fauconnier and
was influenced by Cubism. In the 1920s he experimented with various styles and
created themes with geometric forms and musical settings such as Jazz (1929). As
of the 1930s, his paintings were characterized by a marked expressionist style. He
illustrated books and devoted himself to poetry and art theory.
Christian Marclay (San Rafael, 1955)
Swiss artist and musician. His research centres on a fusion of the visual arts and
music in the form of representations, collages, installations, photography and
videos that turn sound into a visible element. He is considered a pioneer in the use
of the turntable as a musical instrument. His Recycled Records series dates from
1980. In Body Mix (1991-1992), he creates phantasms of the music world using
record covers stuck together. His Guitar Drag video (2000) denounces the
persecutions of African Americans with explicit reference to the murder of James
Byrd, Jr. in Texas. The Quartet video (2002) is on show at London’s Tate Modern.
As a musician he works with John Zorn, among others.
Reginald Marsh (Paris, 1898 - New York, 1954)
US artist. He studied at Yale and settled in New York. He created satirical
illustrations for magazines such as Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. In 1923 he
studied painting with K. H. Miller and John Sloan. He represented the metropolitan
scene of everyday American life: Harlem, dance halls, parks, Coney Island beaches
and New York’s port workers. He was an exponent of the New American School,
and in the 1940s he taught at the Art Students League in New York. His paintings
are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum and the Whitney Museum in New
York, the Art Institute of Chicago and Boston Museum.
Roberto Masotti (Ravenna, 1947)
Italian photographer. He studied industrial design in Florence and in 1974 settled in
Milan. An enthusiast of jazz and experimental music, he devotes himself to research
using photography and theoretical essay. Many of his photographs are used by
record producers and, in particular, by ECM as record covers. The series of 115
portraits of musicians You turned the tables on me dates from 1974-1981.
Henri Matisse (Le Cateau - Cambrésis, 1869 - Nice, 1954)
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French painter. Starting in 1895 he studied in Paris with Gustave Moreau. In 1904,
at the Salon d’Automne, he was the main exponent of La Cage aux Fauves. He was
interested in primitive art. He was patronised by Leo and Gertrude Stein and the
Russian Shchukin, who commissioned him to produce The Dance and Music. In the
1920s he began to research space and musicality. In 1947 he published Jazz, a
series in which he resolved the conflict between drawing and colour “by drawing”
with scissors. In the following year he started to decorate the Chapelle du Rosaire
in Vence. In 1952 he attended the opening of the Musée Matisse in the city of his
birth.
Roberto Sebastián Matta Echaurren (Santiago de Chile, 1911 - Rome,
2002)
Chilean painter and engraver. He graduated in architecture at the Catholic
University of Chile, and worked in Paris with Le Corbusier and in London with
Gropius and Moholy-Nagy. A friend of Dalí and Breton, in 1938 he took part in the
“Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme”. In New York, in 1939, he was the
spokesman for Surrealism. He broke with the Surrealists and settled in Rome. As a
supporter of Allende, he was refused Chilean nationality after Pinochet’s coup.
When he died, the Chilean president Lagos proclaimed three day’s of national
mourning.
Jan Matulka (Bohemia, 1890 - New York, 1972)
Czech painter. In 1908 he emigrated to New York and studied at the National
Academy of Design. In 1919 he discovered Cubism in Paris, assimilated the
concepts of the avant-garde and, in 1925, showed a series of urban landscapes of
Cubist inspiration. He was associated with Communism and contributed to New
Masses magazine. As of 1929 he gave classes at the Art Students League. In the
1930s, the WPA commissioned him to paint some murals. He mainly painted stilllifes, joining objects with enigmatic ties that evoke his symbolism: from African
masks to musical references. In 1979 the Whitney Museum held a retrospective to
pay tribute to this master who lived the latter years of his life in obscurity.
Norman McLaren (Stirling, 1914 - Montreal, 1987)
Scottish filmmaker. At a festival, he was noticed by John Grierson, who offered him
a job with the British GPO Film Unit. In 1939, a New York, he concentrated his
research on synthetic sound and semi-musical effects. In 1942, still with Grierson,
he applied innovative techniques to eliminate the camera, designing directly on film
stock. He created animation sound, a visible sound form obtained by drawing
manually on the film reel. He used many musical forms with original combinations:
Glenn Gould playing Bach in Spheres, and the jazz of the Oscar Peterson Trio in
Begone Dull Care.
Pierre Merlin (Bordeaux, 1928 - Paris, 1988)
French artist, graphic designer and musician. In 1940 he decorated the Hot Club de
France in Bordeaux. In 1948, on the occasion of the Festival in Nice, he dedicated
his first design to Armstrong and Mezzrow. Between 1950 and 1954 he designed
record covers for Vogue and Swing. From 1956 to 1980, together with Pierre Altan,
he worked on the model of the French quarter of New Orleans, reconstructed as it
was in 1915.
Gjon Mili (Korça, 1904 - Stamford, 1984)
US photographer and director. He arrived in the United States in 1923. He was a
contributor to Life. Jointly with H.E. Edgerton, he was a pioneer in the use of flash.
In 1944 he directed the short film Jammin’ the Blues, a landmark in the filming of
musicians. In 1980 he published Photographs and Recollections.
Reid Miles (New York, 1927 - 1993)
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US graphic designer. 1956 saw the start of his collaboration with the Blue Note
record label. His records covers play with a Swiss-inspired typography and often
involve the photography of Francis Wolff, one of the record company’s two
proprietors.
Piet Mondrian (Amersfoort, 1872 - New York, 1944)
Dutch painter. He studied philosophy and theosophy. During World War I, he
founded, jointly with Theo van Doesburg, De Stijl magazine and published essays
on neo-Plasticism. In the 1920s, in Paris, he concentrated on abstraction and
primary colours. He took part in El Lissitzky’s Cabinet des abstraits, and in the
Cercle et Carré and Abstration-Création groups. In December 1927 he published an
article entitled “De Jazz der Neo-Plastiek”. He emigrated to New York in 1939. His
passion for music is manifest in titles such as Broadway Boogie-Woogie and Victory
Boogie-Woogie, in which the composition of lines reflects the vitality of rhythms of
music and the city.
Jacques Monory (Paris, 1924)
French painter. An exponent of narrative figuration. His works reinterpret dramatic
monochrome blue photographs. The Mac-Val, Musée d’art contemporain du Val-deMarne, opened in 2005 with a retrospective of his work.
Archibald J. Motley, Jr. (New Orleans, 1891 - Chicago, 1981)
African American painter. Despite living in Chicago, he formed part of the Harlem
Renaissance. In 1928 he won a prize from the Harmon Foundation and was the first
African American artist to show in New York. In 1929, thanks to a grant from the
Guggenheim Fellowship, he travelled to France to study the masters of the
Renaissance, the Flemish and Delacroix. He painted scenes of jazz and nightlife
with great skill of composition and a use of colour based on the effects of natural
and artificial light.
Dudley Murphy (Winchester, 1897 - Malibu, 1968)
US director. He worked on Fernand Léger’s Ballet mécanique in 1924. His short
films St. Louis Blues, with Bessie Smith, and Black and Tan Fantasy, with Duke
Ellington, date from 1929, and The Emperor Jones with Paul Robeson was made in
1933.
Gerald Murphy (Boston, 1888 - New York, 1964)
US artist. This rich heir moved with his wife to France in the 1920s and became a
legendary figure of the jazz age. Friend and patron of artists and writers such as
Picasso, Léger and Scott Fitzgerald. He worked with the Russian ballets and in
1923, together with Cole Porter, he created the jazz ballet Within the Quota, a
satirical work about American culture. He devoted himself to semi-abstract
paintings of machines, everyday objects and fragments of architecture.
Bruce Nauman (Fort Wayne, 1941)
US artist. He studied mathematics, physics and art at the University of California.
In 1964 he started to take an interest in sculpture, performance and video. In 1968
he showed at “Nine at Castelli” and “Anti-Illusion”. In 1969 he took part in “When
attitude became form”. He uses the body and language to explore the physical and
psychical limits of the everyday. In 1973, the Los Angeles County Museum and the
Whitney organized “Bruce Nauman: Works from 1965-1982”, which travelled to
Europe. In 1999 he was awarded the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennial and, in
2004, the Praemium Imperiale for sculpture. He will represent the United States at
the Venice Biennial in 2009.
George Noël (Béziers, 1924)
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French artist. In 1956, in Paris, he became interested in Fontana, Dubuffet, Novelli
and Brassaï. He frequented the post-informal generation and the new realists. The
Centre National des Arts Plastiques in Paris and the Musée des Beaux Arts in Pau
held retrospectives of his work in 1985 and 2006-2007, respectively.
Gastone Novelli (Vienna, 1925 - Milan, 1968)
Italian artist. A member of the informal trend, he experimented with various
techniques in keeping with the political ideals that form the central theme of his
artistic research. He used signs, letter and hieroglyphics, inspired by the walls of
run-down buildings, marked by time and human rage. In 1968 he was guest artist
at the Venice Biennial, but closed his gallery to protest at the police presence in the
gardens. His works are on show at the National Gallery of Washington, the MoMA in
New York, the Palazzo Reale in Milan and the GNAM in Rome.
Albert Oehlen (Krefeld, 1945)
German painter. He studied with Sigmar Polke in Hamburg. He emerged in the
1980s with the Neue Wilde movement. He explores various media and styles and
merges the figurative and the abstract in his paintings. He works collaboratively
with Jonathan Meese, with whom he shares the idea of the failure of the functions
of art, politics and ideologies. He teaches painting at the Kunstakademie in
Düsseldorf; he is a jazz-lover and pays with two bands, Red Krayola and Van
Oehlen.
Claes Oldenburg (Stockholm, 1929)
US artist. He studied at Yale and at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1956 he moved
to New York. His works from the 1960s are constructions such as The Street or
Bedroom Ensemble. An exponent of pop art, he created sculptures using everyday
objects. Lipstick dates from 1969: a trivial object transformed into a totemic form.
He creates large installations for public spaces around the world, and worked with
Frank O. Gehry and, after, with Coosje Van Bruggen, whom he married in 1977.
Hamed Ouattara Watts (Abidjan, 1957)
French artist. In the 1980s he studied in Paris, met Jean-Michel Basquiat and
moved to New York. He travelled around Europe and the Ivory Coast, where he was
born, to study African art. A jazz enthusiast, he merged music and art in paintings
and collages that used recycled everyday materials. He has shown at the Whitney
Biennial and in “The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in
Africa, 1945-1994” at the P.S.1 in New York.
Gordon Parks (Fort Scott, 1912 - New York, 2006)
African American photographer, director, writer and composer. In 1942 he
presented American Gothic. In 1944 he moved to Harlem and contributed to Vogue.
In 1948 he joined the editorial board of Life and specialized in social themes linked
to racism and the urban life of African Americans. In 1969 he directed the film
version of his autobiography The Learning Tree and, in 1971, Shaft. In 1987, the
New York Public Library held a retrospective of his work and the following year
Ronald Reagan awarded him the National Medal of Arts. In 1996, Life published his
A Great Day in Harlem 2, an updated version of Kane’s photo.
Pino Pascali (Bari, 1935 - Rome, 1968)
Italian artist. He started out with the informal style during his studies at the
Academy; he worked as a set designer and graphic designer in advertising. An
exponent of arte povera, he produced experimental art; his series of arms and
canons dates from 1965. In 1968, during the Venice Biennial, he died in a
motorbike accident, and was posthumously awarded the International Sculpture
Prize.
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A.R. Penck (pseudonym of Ralf Winkler) (Dresden, 1939)
German artist, director, musician and writer. In 1962, together with Baselitz, he
signed the Pandämonium manifesto. He created the concept of “Standart”: the
reduction of reality to stylized elements. In 1968 he adopted the pseudonym “A.R.
Penck” to contrast with the RDT. In 1972 and in 1977 he took part in Documenta in
Kassel and in 1975 a retrospective of his work was held in Berne’s Kunsthalle. A
jazz percussionist, he showed at concerts and in 1979 he released his first album.
In 1980, in Cologne, he joined the neoexpressionist movement. He is a teacher at
the Academy in Düsseldorf and the author of philosophical essays.
Tom Phillips (London, 1937)
British artist and musician. He studied literature and art at Oxford. He teaches at
the Ipswich School of Art. His multidisciplinary research culminated with
Humument, the transposition of a Victorian novel into a total artwork. He
contributed to The Times Literary Supplement, and has worked with writers such as
Rushdie, musicians such as Bosseur and Tilbury, and with Peter Greenaway, with
whom he produced a television version of Dante’s Inferno. He has shown at the
National Portrait Gallery in London, the Gemeente Museum in the Hague and the
Kunsthalle in Basel.
Francis Picabia (Paris, 1879 - 1953)
French artist, graphic designer and writer. Very early on he manifested a
nonconformist character. He studied at the École des Arts Décoratifs with Braque.
Influenced by Sisley and Pissarro, and by Cubism and Abstractionism, his aim was
constant renovation. In New York, he showed at the Armory Show in 1913,
frequented Stieglitz’s 291 Gallery and avant-garde movements, with which he
shared the idea of a radically new figuration. In 1915 he produced Dessins
mécaniques, of Dadaist inspiration. In the 1920s he was one of the protagonists of
Paris’s belle époque; emblematic of that period is the manifesto from the New
Year’s Eve dinner at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. In the 1930s he moved
closer to the Surrealists and the circle of Gertrude Stein, and in the 1940s he
retired to the south of France.
Giuseppe Pino (Milan, 1940)
Italian photographer. A jazz enthusiast, he came to photography via music, at the
age of 17, after an Armstrong concert at the Teatro Lirico in Milan. He followed the
major musicians and contributed to many publications, including Jazz Magazine in
France, and produced many record covers. He extended his portrait activity beyond
the world of jazz.
Adrian Piper (New York, 1948)
African American artist. Lecturer in philosophy. She introduced into her vocabulary
the theme of race and gender, and directed her work towards her socio-political
and ideological concerns. She used her own life to describe the situation of African
Americans in the United States. She works with photography and texts using
conceptual devices. In the 1960s she took an interest in eastern philosophies. She
set up the Adrian Piper Research Archive in Berlin.
Michelangelo Pistoletto (Biella, 1933)
Italian artist. In the 1950s he started his research into the self-portrait, which in
1962 he developed in Quadri specchianti. He took part in shows associated with pop
art and new realism. Between 1965 and 1966, he produced the Oggetti in meno, a
series of works that were essential to the birth of arte povera. Venere degli stracci
and the “creative collaborations” with artists from different disciplines date from
1967. In the 1990s he set up the Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto in Biella. In
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2003 he was awarded the Golden Lion for his career and in 2007, in Jerusalem, he
received the Wolf Foundation Prize in Arts.
Jackson Pollock (Cody, 1912 - Long Island, 1956)
US painter. In 1930, he studied at New York’s Art Students League with Thomas
Hart Benton. In 1935 he joined the WPA, studied Picasso, European Surrealism and
Mexican muralists; he worked with Siquieros. In 1942 he met Lee Krasner, whom
he married in 1945. In 1943 he showed at Peggy Guggenheim’s gallery. In 1949,
he invented dripping. White Light (1954) is reproduced on the record cover of Free
Jazz a collective improvisation by Ornette Coleman. In 1950 he took part in the
Venice Biennial. He died as a result of a car accident.
Mario Puppo (Levanto, 1905 - Chiavari, 1977)
Italian illustrator. He produced posters to advertise tourist resorts, presenting
images of Italy to the world. In 1930, he made the poster for Jack Hilton’s jazz
band, in the Art Deco style.
Bernard Rancillac (Paris, 1931)
French painter. After producing some work of informal inspiration, he moved closer
to pop art and used comic strip motifs that he turned into critical parodies of the
contemporary world. In 1963, he formed the narrative figuration group. He
incorporates historical documents into painting to confront them with the present
day. He explores a variety of themes: politics, sport and music, particularly jazz. In
1991 he published Voir et comprendre la peinture.
Man Ray (Philadelphia, 1890 - Paris, 1976)
US painter, photographer and director. In New York frequented Alfred Stieglitz’s
291 Gallery and the artistic avant-gardes. In 1920, with Duchamp, he produced the
first examples of kinetic art and the following year he published the only issue of
New York Dada. In Paris, he met the singer Kiki and the Surrealist painters. He
experimented in photography with rayographs and solarization. He portrayed the
fashionable figures of the times and worked with compositions of objects which,
inspired by his many interests, such as jazz, became visual architectures with a
Surrealist stamp. In 1925, he showed in the Surrealist exhibition. During World War
I, he took refuge in Los Angeles, but returned to Paris in the latter years of his life.
Winold Reiss (Karlsruhe, 1887 - New York, 1953)
German artist. He studied at the Munich Academy. In 1913, he emigrated to New
York where he became interested in the culture of Native and African Americans. In
1922, Survey Graphic commissioned him to produce the illustrations for its special
issue Harlem: Mecca of the New Negro. These illustrations reappeared in Alain
Locke’s The New Negro. He contributed to Opportunity and Scribner’s Magazine. He
thought that the artistic representation of the honour, beauty and dignity of
minorities could put an end to racial prejudice. The themes of his highly coloured
and graphic work are urban landscapes, fragments of everyday life and emblematic
characters, from African Americans to Zapatista revolutionaries. In 1915 he set up
the Society of Modern Art and Modern Art Collector magazine. In 1933, he
produced the cycle of murals for the Cincinnati Union Terminal. He taught at New
York University.
Kenneth Rexroth (South Bend, 1905 - Santa Barbara, 1982)
US poet. A foremost figure of the San Francisco Renaissance linked to the beat
generation. His texts and poems reflect his interest in jazz, politics, and Japanese
and Chinese poetry and philosophy.
Mischa Richter (Kharkov, 1912 - Provincetown, 2001)
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US illustrator. Between 1942 and 2000 he created over 1500 comic strips for The
New Yorker. He published Strictly Richter and in 1979 was awarded the National
Cartoonist Society Prize.
Larry Rivers (New York, 1923 - 2002)
US artist and saxophonist. In the 1940s he gave up music to devote himself to
painting. Initially influenced by the abstract expressionists, in the 1950s he
developed a figurative style, with musical or historical settings, in which he included
references to advertising, pop culture and the classics. He constantly reworked his
paintings, leaving traces of previous phases. The works from his mature period are
chronicles of life: anecdotal scenes of society and history, with erotic and
provocative references, celebrating the degrading age of American culture that
inspired them.
R.S. Rosebaum
A mysterious signature that appears on many scores and probably refers to the
Rosenbaum Studios, active in New York in the early decades of the 20th century.
James Rosenquist (Grand Forks, 1933)
US painter. His first painting, Zone, dates from 1961. His research is set in the pop
art movement, with a style characterized by the insertion of images and details of
objects or faces brought together randomly on the canvas: a symbolic portrait of
the consumer society that mixing everything together. In 1967 he showed F-111 at
the Sao Paulo Biennial and in 1978 at the Venice Biennial. In 1987 he was made a
member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters of New York.
Mimmo Rotella (Catanzaro, 1918 - Milan, 2006)
Italian painter. In 1945, in Rome, he worked with photography, photomontage,
décollages and combinations of miscellaneous objects. In 1954, Emilio Villa he
showed his décollages, advertising posters torn up and stuck to the canvas. As of
1958 he made décollages of the stars of the cinema and show business. In 1961,
invited by Pierre Restany, he joined the new realism movement. In 1964, in Paris,
he worked with techniques such as Mec art and Artypo. In 1972, he published his
autobiography, Autorotella.
Ed Ruscha (Omaha, 1937)
US artist. In 1962, he took part in “New Painting of Common Objects”. He explored
painting, photography and artist’s books, combining urban landscapes and
everyday language. Acclaimed by the San Francisco MoMA and the Centre
Pompidou in Paris, in 2005 he represented the United States at the Venice Biennial.
Anri Sala (Tirana, 1974)
Albanian artist. His research focuses on the magnitude of human suffering, change
and collective drama, to which he brings a documental approach. In Long Sorrow,
the saxophone of Jemeel Moondoc expresses the pain of the city in which the video
is set. He has shown at major museums and numerous biennials, including Venice,
Sydney and Istanbul.
Christian Schad (Miesbach, 1894 - Stuttgart, 1982)
German painter. In 1915, in Zurich, he was involved in the Dadaist movement. He
produced woodcuts, carvings and stills. In 1925, in Vienna, he was drawn to new
objectivity. He represented the Weimar Republic and its café culture, focusing on
the ambiguous and the symbolic, and defined it, in the 1960s, as magical realism.
Viktor Schreckengost (Cleveland, 1906 - 2008)
27
US artist and designer. He studied at Cleveland School of Art and was interested in
ceramics. In 1929, in Vienna, he began his career as sculptor and jazz saxophonist,
a passion that became the subject of paintings and sculptures. He showed at the
Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago. In the 1930s,
he worked in industrial design, combining aesthetics and functionality; after 1972,
he devoted himself to teaching.
Ben Shahn (Kovno, 1906 - New York, 1969)
US artist. In New York, he studied at City College and the National Academy of
Design. His works reflected polítical events and the cultural and musical life of
America. He carried out public commissions and, with Diego Rivera, produced the
murals for the Rockefeller Center in New York. He worked for the press and
advertising, and with William Golden. Fred W. Friendly, commissioned him to
produce TV documentaries, including Ambassador Satchmo in 1956, about the life
of Armstrong, with a characteristic style that to some is suggestive of jazz record
covers. In 1947, the MoMA organized a retrospective of his work and, in 1954, with
Willem de Kooning, he represented the United States at the Venice Biennial.
Joël Shapiro (New York, 1941)
US sculptor. He studied at New York University. His dynamic sculptures of
rectangular forms have been shown, since his first show in 1970, at foremost
museums, such as New York’s Whitney, the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts and the
Stedelijk in Amsterdam. He took part in Documenta in 1977 and in 1982, and in the
Venice Biennial in 1980.
Lorna Simpson (New York, 1960)
African American artist. She is interested in cultural, political and social themes,
principally linked to the identity of African American women. She experiments with
techniques of photographic impression and including texts in visual images, and
works on the relation between image and spectator. More recently she has been
using videos, films and drawings. Her work shows at international museums, such
as the MoMA in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.
Siné (pseudonym of Maurice Sinet) (Paris, 1928)
French illustrator. Famous for his caricatures and drawings of political themes, he
contributed to L’Express and Charlie-Hebdo; in 1962 he created Siné Massacre and
in 1968 he set up L’Enragé. He is a jazz lover, and illustrates many books and
record covers.
James Blanding Sloan (Corsicana, 1886 - Canyon, 1975)
US artist. He studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. He met George
Senseney and devoted himself to colour engraving. In around 1925 he produced
film sets for Hollywood. He had various showed of his engravings, including in 1936
at the Library of Congress. In 1928-1929 he directed the Marionette Theatre in San
Francisco and then, in Los Angeles, the WPA Federal Theatre.
Albert Alexander Smith (New York, 1896 - Paris, 1940)
African American artist. First black student at the National Academy of Design. After
the war, fleeing racial prejudice, he moved to Paris, where he played the banjo and
sang in venues such as La Coupole to earn his living. He showed at the New York
Public Library in 1921 and 1922. He infuses his works with his political activism,
representing racial conflicts and abuses, but also culture and lifestyle. The collector
Arthur Schomburg commissioned him to produce works and research about the life
of African Americans in Europe. He did not receive recognition in his own country
until 1929, when he was awarded a medal by the Harmon Foundation.
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Morgan and Marvin Smith (Nicholasville,
Nicholasville, 1910 - New York, 2003)
1910-New
York,
1993;
African American photographers. They studied with Augusta Savage in Harlem and
in 1937 photographed the community, highlighting the positive aspects and dignity
of the people. In the 1950s they closed down their mythical photographic studio to
devote themselves to the cinema.
Michael Snow (Toronto, 1929)
Canadian artist and musician. He started playing the piano in 1948. His Walking
Women series dates from the 1960s. Famous for his experimental films, in 1964 he
made New York Eye and Ear Control and Wavelength in 1967. He has shown at the
Centre Pompidou in Paris, the MoMA in New York and the Whitney Biennial.
Nicolas de Staël (Sant Petersburg, 1914 - Antibes, 1955)
Russian painter. Of aristocratic extraction, his family fled to Brussels during the
October Revolution. As a painter, he studied contemporary artists and travelled to
Europe and the north of Africa. In the 1940s, his style evolves to monumental
compositions, generous surfaces of luminous tones worked with a spatula. A twodimensional figuration, with intense colours, is well represented in his work Les
Musiciens, in which he pays tribute to the Paris jazz scene. In 1954 he settled in
Antibes. In 1955, he committed suicide, leaving his last painting, Le Grand concert,
unfinished.
Frederick Starter (1879 - nd)
US illustrator. Together with his brother William, he was one of the most prolific
illustrators of sheet music between 1890 and 1940.
Alex Steinweiss (New York, 1917)
US graphic designer. He graduated from the Parsons School of Design and worked
with Joseph Binder. In 1939 he became art director at Columbia Records and
produced his first record cover. In 1941, PM Magazine, edited by Dr. Leslie, devoted
a cover page and much of its June-July issue to him. In 1998 he was awarded a
prize by the Art Directors Club of New York for his career’s work.
Raymond Steth (Norfolk, 1917 - 1997)
African American artist. In 1938 he worked with Dox Thrash on developing the
technique of carborundum prints. In 1940 he worked in the department of graphic
arts of the WPA, organizing the “Philographic” workshop. His works are included in
major collections, including those of the Metropolitan Museum of New York, the
Smithsonian Institution and the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C.
David Stone Martin (Livingstone, 1913 - 1992)
US artist and graphic designer. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and
worked with Ben Shahn on the murals for the Chicago World’s Fair. With Norman
Granz he established a productive collaboration. He created over 400 record covers,
for Clef, Norgran, Verve, Down Home, Progressive and JATP, illustrating the history
of jazz of the 1950s. He worked with publishers and magazines such as Life. He
showed at the MoMa, the Metropolitan Museum of New York and the Art Institute of
Chicago.
Vito Stracquadaini (Kairouan, 1891 - Rome, 1955)
Italian illustrator. During World War I he edited the humoristic military paper Il
Ghibli and in 1932 set up the Association des Artistes Musicalistes.
Sun Ra (pseudonym
Birmingham, 1993)
of Herman Poole Blount)
(Birmingham,
1914-
29
African American musician, artist and poet. In the course of his life he changed
name several times, identifying himself in 1955 with Sun Ra, of “angelic race”, born
under the sign of Saturn. An eccentric and mysterious character, he developed a
cosmic, poetic philosophy inspired by Ancient Egypt and the space age. In the
1950s, he set up The Arkestra, with whom he made records, which he also
illustrated, of free improvisation and cosmic jazz for his record company, El Saturn
Records. His film, Space Is the Place, dates from 1972.
Mark di Suvero (Shanghai, 1933)
US sculptor. In the late 1950s he moved to New York, where he met the abstract
expressionists and was involved in setting up Park Place Gallery. In the 1960s, he
started to create large sculptures using industrial materials and everyday objects.
He was awarded a prize for his life’s work by the International Sculpture Center,
and in 2005 won the Heinz Award for the Arts and Humanities.
Joost Swarte (Heemstede, 1947)
Dutch designer and illustrator. In 1971 he set up Modern Papier and contributed to
The New Yorker. In 1980 he showed at the Salon International de la Bande
Dessinée d’Angoulême. In 1984 he published Swarte, Hors Serie and in 1992 set up
“Stripdagen” in Haarlem, the International Comic Book Biennial.
Thayaht (pseudonym of Ernesto Michaelles) (Florence, 1893-Marina di
Pietrasanta, 1959)
Italian sculptor, painter and silversmith. In 1919 he designed the “TuTa”, the
universal garment. He joined the fascist movement and met Marinetti, who
introduced him to the second futurism and aeropainting. An eclectic artist, he
developed an aesthetic characterized by synthetic and geometric forms. He took
part in several Venice Biennials and the National Art Quadrennial in Rome. In 1945,
he devoted himself to studying science and astronomy.
Bob Thompson (Louisville, 1937 - Rome, 1966)
African American artist. In 1955 he studied at Boston University and the University
of Louisville. In the 1960s he travelled to Europe. He was inspired by the classics,
such as Goya, Pussin and Piero della Francesca, and his compositions adopted
themes of contemporary mythology devoted to African American music and culture.
He died suddenly in Rome. In 1998 the Whitney held a retrospective of his work.
His works are represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum, the MoMA
and the Whitney Museum in New York.
Dox Thrash (Griffin, 1893 - Philadelphia, 1965)
African American artist. In 1908, he emigrated to the north, and travelled and
works in vaudeville until 1911, when he settled in Chicago, where he worked as a
labourer and took courses at the Art Institute. In 1930, in Philadelphia, he produced
the poster for the Second Annual National Negro Music Festival and worked with the
Tra Club. Between 1936 and 1939, he invented the carborundum print for the
Federal Art Project, a technique he used for his major works, based on the realistic
representation of the lives of African Americans. The Philadelphia Museum of Art
produced “Dox Thrash: An African-American Master Printmaker Rediscovered. The
Carborundum Mezzotint Process”.
Niklaus Troxler (Willisau, 1947)
Swiss graphic designer. In 1966 he organized the first jazz concert in Willisau,
which in 1975 became the Willisau Jazz Festival, for which he designed the posters,
bringing together his passion for jazz and graphic design. His posters, characterized
by typographic research, are influenced by pop art and music. Lecturer at the
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Academy in Stuttgart, his work is included in collections at the MoMA in New York
and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
Ed van der Elsken (Amsterdam, 1925 - 1990)
Dutch photographer. He travelled and captured fleeting moments of life in the
streets of the cities he visited. In 1956 he published his first book, Love on the left
bank, followed three years later by Jazz.
Theo Van Doesburg (Utrecht, 1883 - Davos, 1931)
Dutch painter, architect and theorist. In 1912 he worked as a militant publicist. In
1917, jointly with Mondrian, he set up De Stijl magazine. His painting is
characterized by the use of primary colours and geometric forms. In the 1920s he
worked with the Dadaists on Mécano magazine. In 1924, he showed at the
Landesmuseum in Weimar and published Principles of Plastic Art for the Bauhaus.
In 1926 he left De Stijl and introduced a dynamic movement into his paintings,
which he described in the Elementarism manifesto. He was involved in the Cercle et
Carré, Art Concret and Abstraction-Création movements.
Kees Van Dongen (Delfshaven, 1877 - Montecarlo, 1968)
Dutch painter. He studied at the Academy in Rotterdam; in 1897, in Paris, he
contributed to satirical publications such as Frou-Frou, L’Assiette au beurre and La
Revue Blanche. Initially influenced by neo-impressionism and the Nabis, André
Derain directed him towards fauvism, the results of which he showed in 1905. He
frequented the high society of the Roaring Twenties, portraying women and
foremost figures. In 1926 he was awarded the Legion d’Honneur.
Ger van Elk (Amsterdam, 1941)
Dutch artist. He experiments with different techniques, including photography, in an
ironic search that seeks to reflect critically on 17th-century art and the
destabilization of the spectator’s gaze. In 1980 he represented the Netherlands at
the Venice Biennial.
Carl Van Vechten (Cedar Rapids, 1880 - New York, 1964)
US intellectual and photographer. In 1906 he was a music critic for The New York
Times. In Paris he met Gertrude Stein. He wrote essays about musical and literary
themes. He worked to promote the artists of the Harlem Renaissance. He
frequented Harlem and wrote the novel Nigger Heaven, published in 1926 together
with the essay “Negro Blues Singers” in Vanity Fair. Beginning in the early 1930s he
photographed famous people: intellectuals, artists, film stars and jazz musicians.
Edmond Vandercammen (Ohain, 1901 - Uccle, 1980)
Belgian poet and artist. He became interested in poetry with his school friend
Robert Goffin. In 1920, in Brussels, he was involved in the let-wing intellectual
avant-garde, following the events of the Front littéraire de Gauche and the
Mouvement des écrivains prolétariens, whose manifesto he signed. His painting
takes a new look at Cubism and Surrealism, and includes details of African art. In
the 1940s he started to devote himself to his poetry.
Marcel Vertès (Budapest, 1895 - New York, 1961)
Hungarian artist. In 1925, in Paris, he worked with lithography, illustration and set
design, and contributed to Vogue in the 1930s and ‘40s.
Kara Walker (Stockton, 1969)
US artist. She is famous for her figures of cut-paper silhouettes that are stuck to
walls to create a theatrical space of fantastic, anguishing figures, with themes
inspired by the age of slavery, African American identity and the role of women.
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She has showed at the MoMA in New York and San Francisco, and at the Walker Art
Center in Minneapolis. She teaches at MFA at Columbia University.
Jeff Wall (Vancouver, 1946)
Canadian artist. He studied at the University of British Columbia and the Courtauld
Institute. His essays on contemporary art history are published in Jeff Wall:
Selected Essays and Interviews (2007). The themes of his backlit photographs,
lightboxes, are taken from the artistic imaginary, everyday life and contemporary
history. He divides his photos into two categories: documentary and
cinematographic. The latter are the result of a scrupulous staging, featuring
professional actors, in which he seeks a meticulous description of reality.
Andy Warhol (Pittsburgh, 1928 - New York, 1987)
US artist. He was the start of pop art. In the 1960s he produced his first
advertising-based paintings. His silk-screen prints of commercial images, American
stars and cultural symbols are American pop icons. In 1962 he set up the Factory.
He produced record covers for jazz musicians and for Velvet Underground. In 1975
he published The Philosophy of Andy Warhol and in 1982 showed at Documenta in
Kassel. In 1989, the New York MoMA held a major retrospective of his work.
James Weeks (Oakland, 1922 - Boston, 1998)
US painter. He studied art at the Marian Hartwell School of Design in San Francisco.
In 1948 he taught at the Californian School of Fine Arts in San Francisco and came
into contact with the Bay Area artists. In 1957 he took part in the group exhibition
“Contemporary Bay Area Figurative Painting” at the Oakland Art Museum. In 1960
he presented Two Musicians in his first one-man show in New York.
David Osipovich Widhopff (Odessa, 1867 - Claire-sur-Epte, 1933)
Russian painter. In 1890, in Paris, he created illustrations for Courrier Français and
L’Assiette au beurre.
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4.1.- Catalan artists
Joan Brotat (Barcelona, 1920 - 1990)
Catalan painter. An individualist who does not form part of any group or trend. In
the context of the New Catalan Figuration in the 1950s, he practised a naïf
figurative painting. His rigid characters and flat perspective form a link with the
medieval Romanesque tradition and with Rousseau’s primitivism. In the 1960s, he
moved closer to informalism and abstraction with a gestural body of work, of great
expressionistic force and rich texture. He ultimately returned to primitivistic
figuration. He also produced ceramics and engraving. In 1961, he was awarded the
Grand Prix for Painting at the Alexandria Biennial. In 1991, the Caja de Ahorros de
Madrid organized an anthological show of his work in Barcelona.
Francesc Català Roca (Valls, 1922 - Barcelona, 1998)
Catalan photographer. Son of Pere Català i Pic, one of the introducers of avantgarde photography into Catalonia, he is considered by some critics to be the most
important Catalan photographer of the 20th century. In his work for publications
such as Destino, Gaceta Ilustrada and La Vanguardia, and in the studio (set up in
1947), in exhibitions (his first in 1953) and in book illustrations (Sert, Gaudí,
Chillida, history of Catalan art...), and in reportages about real Spain, his
photography took risks, seeking out unusual viewpoints, the strength of shadows
and contrasts, and the human element. His neorealism was awarded many prizes:
Ciutat de Barcelona (1951, 1952), the Spanish Government’s National Visual Arts
Prize (1983), the Creu de Sant Jordi (1992) and the Gold Medal for Artistic Merit
(1993). He left holdings of over 200,000 images.
Modest Cuixart (Barcelona, 1925 - Palafrugell, 2007)
Catalan painter. A restless experimenter with a fertile, oneiric imaginary. He started
out in 1948 with the Dau al Set group, centring on the magic, mysterious
dimension of reality. In the mid-1950s, with time spent in Paris and Lyon, he
devoted himself to informalism, experimenting with grooves, textures and relief,
and incorporated new materials such as gold and silver pigments, and metal
emulsions and drippings. In 1959, he was awarded first prize in the Sâo Paulo
Biennial and took part in Documenta in Kassel. In 1960, he took part in an avantgarde exhibition at London’s Tate Gallery and at the Guggenheim in New York.
Faithful to his visionary themes, in the 1970s and ‘80s he returned to figuration. His
work is on show at the MOMA in New York, at the MNCARS in Madrid and at the
MACBA in Barcelona, among other museums. Anthological shows of his work were
held in 1991 and 1995, in Barcelona and Madrid respectively.
Salvador Dalí (Figueres, 1904 - 1989)
Catalan painter and writer. He started out in the artistic avant-garde in the 1920s,
working with the filmmaker Luís Buñuel and the poet Federico García Lorca. In
1929, in Paris, he came into contact with the Surrealist group of André Breton. He
was critical of the group’s discipline, and his contribution to pictorial Surrealism was
highly personal: the well-known critical paranoia method. In 1931, he showed for
the first time in Paris and New York. In 1934, he travelled to the United States.
From then on, he worked and lived in New York, Paris and Cadaqués. As early as in
1941, the MOMA held an anthological exhibition of his work. In addition to his
multifaceted visual production (architecture, objects, jewellery, illustration, stage
sets...), he also produced a prolific body of written work. In 1979, he was made a
member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Paris, and the Centre Pompidou held a
retrospective that travelled to London’s Tate Gallery the following year.
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Josep Guinovart (Barcelona, 1927 - 2007)
Catalan painter and engraver. In 1957, he began practising informalist abstraction
with large-format works using three-dimensional elements. An all-rounder
(engraving, drawing, poster, sculpture), in the early fifties he worked with Tàpies
and Joan Josep Tharrats, among others, and with the Dau al Set and Taüll groups.
His informalism incorporated the presence of the Mediterranean landscape. He was
awarded numerous prizes (Spanish Government’s National Visual Arts Prize in
1982, Chevalier and Officier of the Order of Arts and Letters of the French
Government in 1984 and in 1993, the Creu de Sant Jordi of the Generalitat Catalan
Autonomous Government in 1983, among others). His work is on show at the
MNCARS in Madrid, Bocchum Museum in Germany, at the Museum of Modern Art in
Mexico City and the Fine Arts Museum of Long Island in New York, among others.
In 1994 he set up the private foundation Espai Guinovart d’Agramunt (Lleida).
Joan Ponç (Barcelona, 1927 - Saint Paul de Vence, 1984)
Catalan painter. From the very start, in the 1940s, he developed a singular
symbolism: a personal world inhabited by visions and shady beings of great visual
impact. He was a promoter, in the late 1940s, of the Dau al Set group, together
with Tàpies, Modest Cuixart and others, and manifested great creative freedom that
combined a degree of primitivism with references to what were known as the
second pictorial avant-garde movements. Apart from a few years out in Brazil
(1953-1962), he was in contact with Dalí and Miró, who recognised the force of his
oneiric Surrealism, and with the poets Josep Vicenç Foix and Joan Brossa. In the
late 1970s, problems of sight caused by diabetes brought syncretism and intensity
to his disturbing visionary world.
Antoni Tàpies (Barcelona, 1923)
Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist. His highly material pictorial informalism,
using signs of spiritual symbology, has become a worldwide reference. He started
showing in 1948, the year in which he created the Dau al Set group, inspired by
Surrealism and Dadaism. Since then, he has been an untiring experimenter with
matter (rubble, earth and stones) and with objects, thereby forming part of the
European informal trend and arte povera. Socially committed to opposing Franco in
the 1960s and ‘70s, he also developed a solid body of written reflection about art.
He has shown at some of the world’s most prestigious museums, with works in
their collections. He has received many awards, including the Prince of Asturias
Prize for the Arts (1990) and the Unesco Picasso Medal (1993). In the same year,
he represented Spain at the Venice Biennial and won the Golden Lion. In 1990, the
Fundació Antoni Tàpies was opened in Barcelona.
Joan Josep Tharrats (Girona, 1918 - Barcelona, 2001)
Catalan painter, art theorist and publisher. Initially close to impressionism, he soon
switched to abstraction. In 1948, he founded the Dau al Set group with Tàpies and
others, and published the magazine of the same name. Since 1949, he has shown
in Barcelona, Stockholm, New York and other cities. He took part in the Sâo Paulo
Biennial in 1959 and in the Venice Biennials of 1960 and 1964. A pioneer of the
post-war Catalan avant-garde, he evolved a linear abstraction rooted in Surrealism
that moved towards an informalism of textures, colour and free graphic expression.
He created his own version of printing techniques (maculatures), and also designed
posters, illustrated books, painted murals, and made stained-glass windows,
mosaics, jewellery and stage sets. His work is in collections at the MOMA, the
Guggenheim in New York, London’s Tate Gallery and at the MNCARS in Madrid,
among others.
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5.- CATALOGUE
Texts by: Daniel Soutif, Hubert Damisch,
Philippe
Baudoin,
Francis
Hofstein,
Krin
Gabbard, Harry Cooper, Catherine de Smet,
Filippo Bianchi, Jean-Pierre Criqui, Alfredo
Papo, Gilles Moüellic, Enzo Capua, Philippe
Carles.
350 images
344 pages
Format: 17 x 24 cm
Catalan with Spanish offprint
RRP 18€
ISBN: 978-84-9803-318-2
Foreword
“The Jazz Century” is an ambitious and captivating exhibition, the product
of the dynamic collaboration of prestigious international arts institutions.
The project, directed with passion and enthusiasm by Daniel Soutif, the
exhibition curator, has brought together the work of three European
institutions with a lively interest in the latest expressions of international
culture: the Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto,
the Musée du quai Branly in Paris and the Centre de Cultura Contemporània
in Barcelona.
The show’s interdisciplinary approach marks a new phase in the exploration
of artistic events of the last century. The relation between the visual arts
and the popularization—sometimes revolutionary and very high profile—of
jazz music is significant, in the sense that each of these two fields of human
creativity throws new light on the other. This show transforms our
understanding of the socio-cultural phenomena of the 20th century,
captured in all their complexity, and bears witness to an art, which, far from
being limited to museums, continues to feed on the stimuli of contemporary
urban life.
“The Jazz Century” is, then, a unique occasion to appreciate works and
testimonies rooted in a cultural experience that is common to America and
Europe, which allow us to discover and understand the experiences
produced in different environments, and for integral parts of the context of
each nation. It is our most sincere desire to convey this message of
collaboration to a broad public, moving beyond not just national artistic
borders but also those traditionally established between disciplines.
Franco Bernabè
President of the Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto
Stéphane Martin
President of the Musée du quai Branly in Paris
Josep Ramoneda
Director of the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona
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6.- PARALLEL ACTIVITIES
Concert to inaugurate “The Jazz Century”
AUDITORIUM OF LA PEDRERA
28 JULY AT 8 P.M.
FREE ADMISSION – LIMITED PLACES (RESERVATIONS ON 902 400 973)
This reinterpretation of the history of jazz is offered by upcoming musicians
of the 21st century. A quartet of figures at the forefront of the international
scene invites us on a journey that will take us from the swing of Louis
Armstrong and Benny Goodman to Charlie Parker, Chet Baker and Miles
Davis, bringing us up to date with contemporary jazz.
With Raynald Colom, trumpet; Joan Díaz, piano; Tom Warburton, double bass;
Marc Ayza, drums.
Guest musicians: Josep M. Farràs, trumpet; Biel Amargant, sax; Philippe
Colom, sax and clarinets; Jordi Farrés, guitar.
CCCB jam sessions, “within arm’s reach”
BASEMENT 1 AT THE CCCB
EVERY THURSDAY FROM 10 SEPTEMBER TO 15 OCTOBER AT 9.30 P.M.
FREE ADMISSION
Making the musical present, live. Six jam sessions involving musicians from
different backgrounds and generations, who come together to create a
once-only conjunction. The magic of spontaneous complicity. An opportunity
to experience it, within arm’s reach.
10 September
JAZZ SÍ CLUB TALLER DE MÚSICS
The Taller de Músics is celebrating its 30th anniversary. It was one of the first
centres in democratic Spain to train new generations of jazz musicians who are now
internationally renowned. Inseparable from everyday life in the Raval district, it has
been a pioneer in the defence of live music. Pianist Joan Díaz, head of studies at
the new school of further music studies, is one of the facilitators of the jams that
take place every week at the school’s club, Jazz Sí.
17 September
GRÀCIA JAM SESSIONS
The jams that take place in small bars like Heliogàbal and Continental in the district
of Gràcia, and at Harlem Jazz Club, Robadors23, Monasterio, and Jazz Clot
Underground in other parts of the city, offer a natural acoustic context that has
proved popular with a very broad public. Every Tuesday at Heliogàbal, guitarist
Andreu Zaragoza is right behind bringing new sounds to the public.
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24 September
WHAT THE FUCK AT JAMBOREE
One of the city’s most emblematic clubs, Jamboree in Plaça Reial, produces one of
the jam sessions with most character, from trad jazz to the very latest avantgardes, and from renowned musicians to an endless source of upcoming exponents.
Famous musicians from all over the world have been dropping into these inspired
What The Fuck sessions, organized by Aurelio Santos every Monday for eight
years.
1 October
ESCOLA DE BELLATERRA
For 20 years, Bellaterra School of Music has been a focus for learning jazz. Many of
the musicians who trained there in the 1970s are now involved in training the latest
generations. Between Barcelona and Terrassa, the two jazz focuses, the Friday
night jams in Bellaterra have grown up in a complex-free, familiar atmosphere,
providing a stage for upcoming young musicians.
8 October
RE-GENERACIÓ 3
Jam sessions are served up every night at Re-Generació 3, a meeting place for jazz
musicians. A way of working and welcoming people. The first generations of
musicians to graduate from the ESMUC (Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya)
come together under the organizational umbrella of pianist Jordi Berni to
champion live music in a venue that sets out to provoke and revolutionize jazz in
the city.
15 October
NOVA JAZZ CAVA- JAZZ TERRASSA
Terrassa’s Club d'Amics de les Arts is celebrating its 50th anniversary. For 38 years,
hundreds of musicians from all over have been stepping onto its stage: the Jazz
Cava, since 1985 known as the Nova Jazz Cava. This venue has become the jazz
mecca of Catalonia, witnessing the performances of the great jazz musicians of
history and bringing them together with great Catalan musicians.
BCNmp7. Jazz marathon
SATURDAY
19 SEPTEMBER AT 6 P.M.
FREE ADMISSION
Catalan jazz has always sought fusion with other cultures and musical
styles, and leaves no one indifferent. To mark the 20th anniversary of the
Associació de Músics de Jazz i Música Moderna de Catalunya (AMJM) and in
the context of the exhibition “The Jazz Century” at the CCCB, BCNmp7 is
set to become a musical marathon where participating groups can showcase
the evolution of this artistic trend in our country with the most genuine
expression of jazz, the jam session, the crowning moment of this great
party.
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Plus...
Gandules'09. Playing cinema
In August, cinema al fresco
TUESDAYS, WEDNESDAYS AND THURSDAYS AT 10 P.M.
PATI DE LES DONES COURTYARD
FREE ADMISSION
This year, the CCCB’s cycle of cinema al fresco, Gandules, turns around the
concept of Playing Cinema: a journey to explore cinema that performs,
interprets and plays music, discovering rhythms and musical forms.
Because cinema has a lot to do with music: it can fix the lyrical intimacy of
pop songs, the improvised immediacy of jazz, the stylized rigour of the
studio recording, the austerity of the acoustic instrument and the electric
energy of rock.
Coinciding with the show “The Jazz Century”, Gandules’09 will be screening
various short films and two of the most memorable films to have dealt with
jazz: Let’s Get Lost by Bruce Weber and Thelonius Monk: Straight No
Chaser, by Charlotte Zwerin.
Thursday 14 August
Let’s Get Lost
Bruce Weber, 1988, 119’, Spanish subtitles
The life of jazz trumpeter and vocalist Chet Baker over a period of 30 years, in a
striking portrait of beauty and its destruction. From Oklahoma to California, and
from New York to Europe, from playing with Charlie Parker in the 50s to the
darkness of the 80s. Bruce Weber, photographer, discovered Chet Baker in 1962
and met up with him again in 1986 when, after a photo shoot, he spent two years
filming him. The present of the filming conjures up the past (material recorded at
concerts, Italian B movies, interviews) and draws a portrait of an enigmatic figure.
Wednesday 26 August
Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser
Charlotte Zwerin, 1989, 90’, Catalan subtitles
The materials are varied, but the heart of this moving film, produced by Eastwood,
is provided by rough footage of the private Thelonious Monk, with his worn shoes
and hats, lost in solitude, chasing his private ghosts, cutting in phrases and
amazing us on the piano with his action playing: “he moves his hesitant fingers
through the air, allows them to drop and we are saved, Thelonious the captain is
here and our course is set for a while” (Julio Cortázar).
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7.- CV OF THE CURATOR
Daniel Soutif
Paris, 1946
Daniel Soutif is a philosophy lecturer, art critic and exhibition curator. He
has addressed a wide range of themes in his various occupations,
particularly as editor of Cahier du Musée national d'art moderne from 1990
to 1994, director of Cultural Development at the Centre Pompidou in Paris
from 1993 to 2001, and head of the Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea Luigi
Pecci in Prato, Italy.
For Daniel Soutif, time is vital to thought, as corroborated by his
publications (Papiers Journal and Voyages Immobiles, 1994) and
exhibitions, including “Le Temps, vite”, held in 2000.
In 2002, he edited the reference work L'art du XXe siècle (1939-2002): de
l'art moderne à l'art contemporain (20th-century art [1939-2002]: from
modern art to contemporary art).
Since 2004, Daniel Soutif has been working on more personal projects: as
an art critic and as curator of the exhibition “The Jazz Century”, prompted
by his passion for jazz, on the subject of which he also writes for Libération
newspaper and Jazz Magazine.
(Biography based on a text published in Critique d’Art, by Christophe Virât)
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8.- GENERAL INFORMATION
Dates
CCCB – From 22 July to 18 October 2009
Musée du Quai Branly, Paris – From 17 May to 28 June 2009
MART – From 15 November 2008 to 15 February 2009
Opening times
Tuesday to Sunday and public holidays: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Thursdays: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Closed on Mondays except public holidays
Admission
Price: 4.50 €
Concessions on Wednesdays (except holidays) and for senior citizens
and students: 3.40 €
Free admission
Under-16s, the unwaged, Friends of the CCCB
Thursdays from 8 to 10 p.m.
Sundays from 3 to 8 p.m.
Guided visits to the exhibition
In Catalan: Tuesdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 11.30 a.m.
In Spanish: Thursdays at 6 p.m. and Saturdays at 11.30 a.m.
Group visits: prior arrangement by phone on 93 306 41 35 (Tuesday to
Friday, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.) or by e-mail: SEducatiu@cccb.org
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