LLEI D'ART 10

II Eduardo Lourenço. On the 23rd of May 2013 this Portu- guese thinker and brilliant writer turned ninety, as lucid and committed as ever, although suffering the physical ravages of his age. Neither in Spain nor Portugal is there anyone of his standard, and I am not sure there is anyway of his calibre in the whole of Europe at the moment. He has lived in France since the 1950s, making pilgrimages to many of the world’s universities, but living in Nice. Eduardo Lourenço is a maître à penser , a guide, an intel- lectual landmark that apart from informing and reflecting, teaches how to think, taking enjoyment in finding solutions to one’s problems. He analyses, purifies, refines a particular situation and extracts the consequences thereof, which he then turns into exquisite portraits. Nobody has studied Portu- gueseness like him in his Labirinto da Saudade (Labyrinth of Longing) printed by Publicaçoes Dom Quixote, Lisbon, 1978. He began his teaching career at Coimbra in 1947, he was lecturer of Culture and Language at Hamburg, Heidelberg and Montpellier, as well as Professor of Philosophy in Bahía (Brazil) and Nice. His clear, dazzling language is as good as anything by Ortega y Gasset. His is the theorist par excel- lence on heterodoxy, the most learnèd and subtle interpreter of Fernando Pessoa: Pessoa Revisited , Inova, Porto, 1973. A student of poetry, Camões, and of thought, he has also written Time and Poetry (Inova, Porto 1974); Soldiers and Power (Editora Arcádia, Lisbon, 1975). He has looked into Erasmism and the currents of liberty that enshrine freedom. Lourenço has tried to correct the failure of Europe as it has been created, but Society as a whole only listens to what it wants to. The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation has started to edit his complete works and one volume has already been released, which has won all the main Portuguese and European prizes. However, the question is: What has been the result of all this? Little, since this talented man is lavished praise on more than he is paid attention to. Have any European leaders read him? I presume not, and neither have the Portuguese with few exceptions, as I have seen. What is a thinker for? To explain what happens in life clearly, to open up windows into our own lack of horizons, to broaden and expand our lives with their analysis, and to un- derstand their commitment and to commit ourselves also... Regardless, we must read him, and debate, refute, contrast and validate ...And all of this does not occur, or if it does, it is within a small group of specialists that create a kind of isolated ghetto. Reading Eduardo Lourenço is an exercise in freedom and clarity that awakens our imagination and gives order to our life. An essayist in the style of Montaigne, the Lord of the Moun- tain as he was called by Quevedo, his works number: O can- to do Signo. Existencia e Literatura, ( The Song of the Sign: Existence and Literature , 1984); Nós e a Europa, ( Europe and Us , 1988); La muerte de Colón. Metamorfosis y fin de Occi- dente como mito, ( The Death of Columbus: Metamorphosis and the end of the Myth of the West , Editora Regional, Bada- joz 2010). Long live the master! III Madrid City Council and Culture. Remembering Pío Baro- ja’s joke about Navarrese Thinking, saying Madrid City Coun- cil and cultural management in the same sentence is a bad joke; something false and impossible. Madrid City Council and their Area of Arts –the novelty of the name being an un- successful attempt to trick us– are obsessed with scale, and enormous, megalomanical projects like the ‘Matadero’? How much has been invested in the Matadero and where are the results? Centro-Centro, Conde Duque, all paralysed, inop- erative, inane, unopened. In the fourth government reshuffle by mayor Ana Botella, Pe- dro Corral was named Art, Sport and Tourism councillor, who succeeded Fernando Villalonga who, instead of resigning is going to direct Macsa (Madrid Art and Culture) with his own team. Botella named Diego Sanjuanbenito the Environment and Mobility Councillor, substituting Juan Antonio Gómez Ángulo, who is named the mayor’s political coordinator instead of merely leaving. Quite the scandal! Villalonga’s ap- pointment was something of a scandal, since he has moved from post to post without any real background to shore his appointment up. Pedro Corral should be given a vote of confidence until this madness is sorted out, being as he is an ABC reporter, novelist and was one of José María Aznar’s assessors. I hope it is his attitude that got him the job rather than his connection to Aznar, and if he does not do away with this den of corruption and poor management, he will have to answer for it. What about the local district cultural centres? There are too many of them, badly-run, deterio- rated, unused and with no culture policy, where anyone who can afford it can pay to exhibit. Some of the centres require an example of the exhibitioner’s work, and other charge both directly and indirectly. What is the need for so many profes- sionals and assessors given these circumstances? If the city council cannot undertake any cultural work, then they should not, but if part of our tax money goes towards culture then we should know where it is being spent! If anyone doubts the above, they should take a look at the activities and exhibitions programme of the following thea- tres: the Fernán-Gómez, the Moncloa, the Casa de Vacas, the Galileo, the Arturo Soria, the Nicolás Salmerón, the Cen- tro, the Carabanchel and dozens and dozens more. Analyse the programmes, in fact, and the outrageous ignorance and corruption will become clear. IV Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño. The 29th of March 2013 marks the centenary of the birth of Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño in Tardelcuenda, near Soria. As the president of the AECA (Spanish Art Critics Association) I must remember him and keep his legacy alive: as a student of art and criticism, I am a grateful admirer of his work. The memorial of Gaya is not a self-interested whim, remembering that choleric and high- minded, if somewhat ungainly citizen, who is now a referent of attitude and skill set. He called his literary books ‘outlandish’ and defined them as a ´sarabande of prose stuck together just by the title’. He was a dense and substantial writer, not only an excellent critic 32