Past Events at Queen Sofía Spanish Institute

The Food of Spain: Wednesday, June 8, 2011

The Food of Spain: A Most Intricate Gastronomic Tapestry
with Claudia Roden
Wednesday, June 8 at 7:00 p.m.

[Presented in collaboration with Culinary Historians of New York]

Perched at the tip of the Mediterranean, like a sentry guarding the vast Atlantic ocean, Spain was for millennia the final western stop for Phoenicians, Romans, and Muslims, while, to the north, the majestic Pyrenees have funneled Goths, Franks, and others into the Iberian peninsula. Spain's extraordinary geographic diversity and its dramatic patchwork history result in a land of breathtaking gastronomic diversity. Claudia Roden will focus on the historical influences that produced a unique, colorful, and sensuous cuisine where every dish holds memories and stories of the past.

Claudia Roden has spent a lifetime studying the foods and cultures of the Near East and Mediterranean, and is the author of many cookbooks, including "A Book of Middle Eastern Food," "A Book of Jewish Food" (James Beard Award winner), and, most recently, "Arabesque: A Taste of Morocco, Turkey, and Lebanon," winner of the André Simon Memorial Award, the Glenfiddich Best Food Book Award, and the Gourmand World Media Special Jury Award. This lecture celebrates the publication of Roden's latest work, "The Food of Spain" (HarperCollins).

Reception to follow, with support from Wines from Spain and Despaña NYC.

RSVP required for admission.

RE-IMAGINING DON QUIXOTE - March 10 – June 8, 2011

RE-IMAGINING DON QUIXOTE:
Books and Drawings and Prints by William T. Wiley for the 2010 Arion Press edition
March 10 – June 8, 2011



Gallery Hours: Mon. - Thurs.: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. ; Fri.: 10 a.m. - 8 p.m. ; Sat.: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

An exhibition of this new artistic edition of Edith Grossman's 2003 translation of Don Quixote, in collaboration with Arion Press and Americas Society. On display with the book are original preliminary sketches by William T. Wiley, who created 97 full-page illustrations interpreting the novel, the cover design for the handcrafted goatskin binding, and separate color prints on Cervantes' themes. Also included are printing plates for the illustrations and metal galleys for the letterpress printing of the texts. Photographs show the artist, typographers, printers, and bookbinders at work during the over two years they devoted to this edition of Cervantes.

The exhibition sheds light on the current renaissance of the book making crafts. This new artist edition of Don Quixote is a contemporary instance of the long tradition of publishers, printers, translators, and artists devoting their talents to interpreting Cervantes' masterwork. The elevation of the character of Don Quixote into a cultural icon is largely owing to the work of visual artists and their publishers over four centuries.

For further information, press release, and images, please contact press at queensofiasi dot org.

As Eduardo Urbina of the Cervantes Project explains:

"The record of Don Quixote illustrated is a key element of the canonization of the novel and the iconic transformation of its principal characters... and the editorial history as well... artists and engravers have interpreted the text and characters, and thus contributed in large measure to its iconic status."

Arion Press has been the nation's most prominent publisher of fine handcrafted books with artists for thirty years. Don Quixote (2010) is the third of its landmark editions of literary classics, following Moby-Dick (1978), and Ulysses, with artist Robert Motherwell (1988). The two-volume edition of Cervantes was entirely designed and produced by a team of traditionally trained craftsmen at Arion Press's one of a kind facility in San Francisco, from making type from molten lead, and printing the text and illustrations by letterpress, through hand binding. Illustrating Don Quixote has been the life-long dream of California artist William T. Wiley.

Celebration of The Hudson Review's Spanish Issue - May 18, 2011

Celebration of The Hudson Review's Spanish Issue
An evening of readings and discussion
Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Held in honor of the veteran literary and arts publication's latest edition, Spanish Institute is thrilled to welcome several of The Hudson Review Spanish Issue's distinguished contributing writers for a dialogue about their texts.

Antonio Muñoz Molina
“A Double Education”
Coming-of-age as a writer as Spain itself emerged in the post-Franco years

Edith Grossman
“The Solitudes”
From the 17th-century lyric poem by Luis de Góngora

Esther Allen
Jorge Luis Borges’
“Course in English Literature”
How the Norman Conquest made Britain a world power

Jonathan Cohen
Newly-discovered translations of Spanish poems by William Carlos Williams

Moderated by Tess Lewis

Copies of the issue are available through The Hudson Review website.

BALENCIAGA: SPANISH MASTER - November 19, 2010 - February 19, 2011

BALENCIAGA: Spanish Master
Curated by Hamish Bowles. Conceived of by Oscar de la Renta, Institute Chairman.
Friday, November 19, 2010 - Saturday, February 19, 2011

Balenciaga evening ensemble, 1967. Courtesy of Balenciaga Archives, Paris.

This November, Queen Sofía Spanish Institute is proud to present BALENCIAGA: Spanish Master, the first exhibition to consider the impact of Spain's culture, history and art on one of its greatest twentieth-century sons, the legendary designer Cristóbal Balenciaga (1895-1972). Hailed as "Fashion's Picasso" by Cecil Beaton, Balenciaga's innovations transformed the way women dressed, from the opening of his Paris fashion house in 1937 until his retirement in 1968. His visionary designs and impeccable standards seduced generations of the best-dressed women in the world.

Following its inauguration by Her Majesty Queen Sofía of Spain, BALENCIAGA: Spanish Master officially opened to the public on November 19, 2010 and remains on view through February 19, 2011. The exhibition was conceived by Oscar de la Renta, Chairman of the Institute's Board of Directors, who has worked closely with the exhibition team to develop and realize the show. Mr. de la Renta himself began his career in fashion working in Madrid at Eisa, one of the Spanish branches of Balenciaga's fashion empire.

The exhibition curator is Hamish Bowles, Vogue's European Editor at Large and the curator of the 2001 exhibition Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years, which opened at The Metropolitan Museum of Art to widespread critical attention and acclaim, and later traveled to the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston, The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, the Field Museum in Chicago, and Les Arts décoratifs, musée de la Mode et du Textile in Paris.

Showcasing more than seventy items of Cristóbal Balenciaga clothing and accessories, BALENCIAGA: Spanish Master is the result of an unprecedented collaboration between the House of Balenciaga in Paris and an American institution. Queen Sofia Spanish Institute is indebted to Balenciaga, which has opened up its Archives and whose immense generosity has enabled a unique loan of historically significant Cristóbal Balenciaga garments to the exhibition, in addition to access to the Archives' related materials and iconography. Masterpieces from this highly significant collection include Balenciaga's 1939 "Infanta" gown, and his four-point silk gazar dress of 1967 which illustrates the increasing abstraction and experimentation in his work.

In partnership with the Ministry of Culture of Spain, highlights from the Fundación Cristóbal Balenciaga include the extraordinary embroidered 1957 wedding dress of Sonsoles Díez de Rivera (daughter of Balenciaga's Spanish muse, the Marquesa de Llanzol), which is as splendid as the vestments of a Sevillana Madonna figure.

Additional objects such as matador boleros from 1946 and flamenco-inspired dresses from 1951 and 1961 come from museum and private collections in America and Europe. The material, some of which has never before been exhibited, includes highly significant pieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, The Hispanic Society of America, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of the City of New York, and the Texas Fashion Collection, as well as Mr. Bowles' own collection and those of leading private couture collectors such as Sandy Schreier. The pieces will consist of garments commissioned and worn by some of the twentieth century's most iconic taste-making women - Pauline de Rothschild, Mona Bismarck, Thelma Chrysler Foy, Doris Duke, and Claudia Heard de Osborne among them.

Related support material will incorporate historical and regional Spanish dress.

The accompanying catalogue - written by Hamish Bowles; published by Rizzoli; and art directed by Alex González, Executive Creative Director of AR New York and former creative director of GQ, German Vogue, and L'Uomo Vogue - has as its focus the influence of Balenciaga's native country on the designer's creative process and work. The exhibition was designed by set designer Stefan Beckman, whose prestigious client list includes Marc Jacobs, Alexander McQueen, Cartier, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

For Diana Vreeland, Balenciaga's "inspiration came from the bullrings, the flamenco dancers, the loose blouses the fishermen wear, the cool of the cloisters." BALENCIAGA: Spanish Master considers the influences on his designs of the country's great artists, from Zurbarán and Goya to Picasso, Sorolla and Miró, and of Spain's religious dress and ceremony, its royal history, its rich regional costume, its dance traditions, and the power and splendor of the bullfight.

Significant Spanish works of art and decorative arts support the curatorial thesis of the exhibition to create a compelling, lively, and dramatic vision of Spain in all its glory, and the work of its most masterful designer.

Following its premiere at Queen Sofía Spanish Institute, the original exhibition will be expanded for presentation as Balenciaga and Spain at the de Young Museum in San Francisco from March 26 through July 4, 2011.

BALENCIAGA: Spanish Master will be accompanied by a series of related public programs including exhibition tours and lectures. To be informed of upcoming events, join the Institute's mailing list.

For further information, press release, and images, please contact press at queensofiasi dot org.

QUEEN SOFÍA SPANISH INSTITUTE TRANSLATION PRIZE

2010 Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Translation Prize
Edith Grossman is the inaugural winner for her translation of A Manuscript of Ashes by Antonio Muñoz Molina



The Reading Committee of the Inaugural Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Translation Prize has unanimously recommended Edith Grossman to receive the Inaugural Prize for her extraordinary translation of Antonio Muñoz Molina's A Manuscript of Ashes (Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt, 2008; originally published as Beatus Ille in 1986). With the aim of elevating awareness and engendering appreciation of Spanish literature in the United States, this triennial $10,000 prize has been created by the Cultural Committee and Board of Directors of Queen Sofía Spanish Institute to honor the best English-language translation of a work of fiction written in Castilian by a Spanish author and published by an American imprint. The inaugural award celebrates the best translation published between 2006 and 2008, with subsequent awards anticipated in 2012 and 2015.

The award ceremony on February 2 was presided by Oscar de la Renta, Chairman of the Institute's Board of Directors, and featured Edith Grossman and Antonio Muñoz Molina in dialogue on the art of writing and translating. Books are still available.

The establishment of the prize has been made possible thanks to the generous support of the Ministry of Culture of Spain, the Spain USA Foundation, and Mrs. Jean van Waveren.

(Full press release)

For more information, or to obtain a book: (212)628-0420 or ebogue@queensofiasi.org.