Crossed Perspectives - A Visual Arts Competition, at the 6th Spanish Cultural Week

As part of the 6th Spanish Cultural week, a competition on visual arts, tagged Crossed Perspectives - Nigerian Young Artists Interpreting Spanish Contemporary Masterpieces, was held at the Hilton Hotel on October 11, 2011.

According to the Ambassador of Spain to Nigeria, H.E. Alvaro Castillo Aguillar, the great Spanish painter, Pablo Picasso, saw an exhibition on African art in the Tracadero Museum of Ethnology (now the Musee de l'Homme) in Paris, and the colours and forms of the African masks and sculptures inspired him (Picasso) for the rest of his career. 

"Bearing this anecdote in mind," Ambassador Aguillar said, "we wanted to give our participants the opportunity to get to know Spanish masterpieces, which could serve as a source of inspiration for the works they would present in the contest."

In other words, the participants in the competition were shown photos of works by Spanish artists and were asked to interpret these works. The winner, Henry Osaretin, interpreted a work by Joaquin Sorolla, with a painting that Osaretin calls A Wall of Defence, showing a man helping a woman in tying a wrapper around her body (see photo No. 2 below).

Here are some photos taken during the awarding ceremony.

H.E. Ambassador Aguillar and Mr. Ignacio Garrido of the Spanish Embassy with
Mr. Abdullahi S. Muku (with cap), Director General of the National Gallery of Art, and another guest.

First Prize Winner, Henry Osaretin, who won an all-expensed paid trip to Spain.

Second Prize

Third Prize

Spanish Embassy staff and guests. Top left t is theAmbassador of Spain chatting with
the Ambassador of Venezuela

Guests and staff of the Spanish Embassy

Published by Araceli Aipoh

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The Expansion of the City - An Exhibition

Embassies of France, Italy, Portugal and Spain in Abuja in collaboration with the Federal Capital Territory Administration held an exhibition entitled THE EXPANSION OF THE CITY on October 4-16, 2011, at the FCT Archives House in Garki.

“The Expansion of the City,” according to the brochure distributed during the exhibition “reflects the challenge of 13 cities of the South of Europe facing the phenomena of fast growing urban population. The exposition is the result of a series of seminars on urban development with the occasion of the Universal Forum of the Cultures in Barcelona in 2004 and has been hosted ever since in Milan, Bologna, Madrid and Nouakchott.

"The lessons learned from the experience of these 13 cities could give food for thought for the challenges faced by Nigeria, with an increasing urban population, and Abuja, a city created from scratch and in continuous and fast pace urban development.

"The Expansion of the City presents an inventory of the territorial transformations that took place in thirteen representative European urban regions. The repertory/collection gives us an overview of the changes and it offers the most significant aspects of current projects. Furthermore, it includes theoretical reflections of prominent authors, as well as a selection of projects and territorial proposals from the thirteen regions that the exhibition deals with.

"The exhibition is the result of an investigation carried out by the Urban Development Chair of the Faculty of Architecture from Valles in the  Technical College of Catalonia, Spain. Thirteen work teams with French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish investigators collaborated in the project that includes the following European urban regions: Barcelona, Bologna, Donostia-Bayona, Genoa, Lisbon, Madrid, Marseilles, Milan, Montpellier, Porto, Valencia and Venice.

"The FORUM Barcelona 2004 hosted The Expansion of the City for the first time . After this event, the exhibition has been shown in Bologna, Milan, Madrid, and Nouakchott."

(Culled from THE EXPANSION OF THE CITY brochure)

Photos by Araceli Aipoh

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