The Formentera Office of Culture is pleased to report that from 11 to 22 October, the Sala d'Exposicions "Ajuntament Vell" will host "Retrats del 2000 al 2022" (Portraits from 2000 to 2022), an exhibition by photographer Pamela Spitz.

In roughly ninety photographs, the exhibition spotlights portraits of figures in the Spitz's orbit, including friends and members of the local community: some still here and some, witnesses of a bygone reality, who have moved on. In this way Spitz has built up an interesting catalogue of characters. The photos were shot with a Hasselblad, a medium-format analogue camera.  The prints, which Spitz made from the 6x6cm negatives of this camera, measure 40x50cm and 30x40cm.

Spitz, whose previous showings at the "Ajuntament Vell" space include the series "Dusty Wheels", returns this time with portraits. Some of the subjects are no longer with us, such as former school director Jaume Verdera; singer Pau Donés; artists Marcus Tessier, César Ordaz and Schoppi; and photographer Reinald Wünsche, among others.

Spitz spent much of the most important years of her youth on the island. And as she herself says, "for two years I have been back home, and I feel like just another islander. I have left the city to return to my roots, to be near the sea and my friends". Spitz continues to work as a photojournalist for the German newspapers Die Welt and Welt am Sonntag.

"Retrats del 2000 al 2022" opens Monday 10 October at 7.00pm. Visitors are welcome Monday to Saturday, 11.00am to 2.00pm and 6.00pm to 8.00pm.

The exhibition hall closes Monday mornings, Sundays and holidays.

6 October 2022
Communications Office
Consell de Formentera

The Formentera Office of Culture is pleased to announce that from 6 to 9 October, Jardí de ses Eres in Sant Francesc will be home to a new fair called "Autumn of Art" (Tardor d'Art). From 10.00am to 10.00pm, creations by artists from the island will be exhibited and a space for exchange will be open to the public. An opening will be staged Thursday 6 October at 7.00pm.

"Reviving the essence of the old Fira d'Art de Primavera, this new event is conceived as a yearly showcase for shining works from Formentera's resident artists and recurring visitors", said Susana Labrador, councillor of culture, encouraging all islanders to come out for the event at a time of year that is "ideal for reflection". The initiative of the Association of Formentera Artists is curated by Tanja Grass, director of the Drap-Art Festival and resident of the island since 1965.

Fifteen artists will participate in the first Tardor d'Art, among them Sol Courreges Boné de Torre, Fran Lucas Simón, María Teresa Matilla López, Jorge Traverso and Woff Kahlen. Maribel Escandell Guasch, Diana Masiliauskas, María Lagrange, Enric Riera and Antoni Taulé will contribute paintings; Fabiana Schulz will display photos; Pablo Arias and Lorenzo Pepe will exhibit sculptures; Albert Merino and Juan González Fornés will contribute videos.

Curator Tanja Grass describes the fair as "a platform where artists can develop more personal, more reflective works", saying, "With problems like tourist saturation and climate change, critical mass is needed to open the debate on necessary social change. With Tardor d'Art, artists have a space to show what moves and worries them".

The fair also has a daily programme. At 8.00pm on the first full day after the opening, artist Crystn Hunt Akron will present a performance entitled Plasticphonia. From 6.00pm to 8.00pm on Friday 7 October, visual artist and cultural manager Laura Marte will give a workshop on best practices in the arts and the professionalisation of cultural workers. From 7.00pm to 8.00pm on Saturday 8 October, attendees can sit for a round table on the current situation, including a look at similarities and differences, in the arts in the Balearics. The event will include the participation of artists and cultural actors with ties to the island. And finally, from 7.00pm to 9.00pm on Sunday 9 October, the fair will close with the presence of Elena Ruiz, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Eivissa (MACE), with the lecture "Isabel Echarri/La Reina Blanca".

30 September 2022
Communications Office
Consell de Formentera

The Formentera Office of Culture is pleased to announce that 5 October 2022 to 25 March 2023, Far de la Mola Cultural and Educational Space will host "Oceà interior" by artist Pedro María Asensio.

This new exhibition offers visitors a peek into the trajectory of the visual artist. Asensio draws an analogy between the artist and the lighthouse keeper, both of whom are dedicated to the work of safeguarding in solitude. "Through his creations, the artist shares with spectators his aesthetic, intellectual and spiritual reflections; he takes a stand against the post-modern alienation that tends to dehumanise", asserts Asensio. The paintings of "Oceà interior" enter into conceptual and geometric dialogue with the exhibition space and evoke the marine environment that ties back into the inner universe of the lighthouse keeper.

Born in Cuenca, Asensio has been influenced by the Museum of Spanish Abstract Art and its most representative artists. A resident of Eivissa since the seventies, he has developed most of his artistic career on the island. His trajectory also includes an educational facet, and for six years Asensio was director of the Can Misses primary school there. The previous decade has found Asensio working between a studio on Eivissa and others in Cuenca and Madrid. Asensio's paintings, sculptures, engravings, videos and installations have been exhibited in various countries.

From very early on, the artist cast his artistic gaze toward two trajectories which, though seemingly different, often converge: a rationalist tendency in the tradition of abstract expressionists' search for purity, and another more social and less abstract tendency positing human beings and their circumstance as objects of expression.

Far de la Mola hours
The exhibition opens Tuesday 4 October at 12 noon. It can be visited during opening hours at the lighthouse, Tuesday to Sunday, 11.00am to 2.00pm, and Wednesday and Sunday, 5.00pm to 9.00pm. From 13 October, hours at the lighthouse change, opening Tuesday to Saturday, 10.00am to 2.00pm. The space is closed Sundays, holidays and Mondays.

29 September 2022
Communications Office
Consell de Formentera

The Formentera Office of Culture is pleased to announce Marià Villangómez Library has programmed a presentation of the book Junil a les terres dels bàrbars, by author Joan-Lluís Lluís, for 7.30pm, Tuesday 4 October.

Lluís's seventh novel is an act of faith in the imagination: a grand and splendorous adventure in which escapades are the language and strangeness the condition. In distinctly fable-esque fashion, our heroine first appears before readers hanging papyrus in her father's bookshop, and it is in the shadow of his contempt that she learns to read. When he dies, Junil flees on foot with three slaves, traversing the frontier and learning the game of life as she goes, where gods and languages vary.

Joan-Lluís Lluís (Perpignan, 1963) is a Catalan novelist, poet, translator, essayist and columnist. Among his multiple literary honours are the Sant Jordi Prize for Jo sóc aquell que va matar Franco and the Òmnium Prize for Novel of the Year for Junil a les terres dels bàrbars. Lluís's works have been translated into Basque, Spanish, French and Czech.

27 September 2022
Communications Office
Consell de Formentera