A motley crew of diverse individuals
Artist in Residence: Marcelo von Schwartz from Argentina
Polopos has a curious quality of attracting all kinds of people. The majority is still Spanish and that is a thing to cherish, as most Spanish cities and villages that are as close to the coast as we are, have dramatically lost their Spanish identity with the influx of foreigners vying for a place under the Andalucian sun. Many of our Spanish neighbors have roots elsewhere in Spain, but their families have lived here for generations. After the Moors were banished from the Iberian peninsula, the Alpujarra, the region that we are in, remained uninhabited for many decades. It took the forced relocation of Spaniards from other regions to repopulate villages like Polopos. This is why, when you visit our modest cemetary, you find family names that are originally from Galicia or Murcia or some other Spanish region. But I digress…
Poster for the exhibition on 18 March of 2023.
In the past thirty years the village has seen some foreigners moving to the village. We have some English people still living here that can tell stories about the shops and bars that Polopos still had in the 90’s, but have now sadly closed their doors for good. Since the 60’s many Spanish families have moved away to the cities and the population fell from once 1200 inhabitants to 60 when we came here 5 years ago. We now have over 80 inhabitants, so the tide has slightly turned, but it is mostly people from other countries than Spain. Much has to do with the Dutch television show that we were in, so it is no surprise that the majority of the newcomers are from the Netherlands. Thankfully though, not all, because as much as we would like to see Spanish families move back, it is nice to have some French, Germans, Americans, Venezuelan and other nationalities bring life to the village. And within those nationalities we find a motley crew of diverse individuals.
With our artist residence we definitely spice up the mix. The main criterion really to select artists who are eligible for an artist in residency program is that they can contribute something to the outward appearance of the village through a mural or other artworks in the public domain, provide some entertainment through concerts or other performances, or conduct workshops for the people in the village. We receive many applications and we haven’t even gotten around to formalize the procedure in how to apply. We have been too busy with all the other activities that we are involved in to do this. But artists are very creative (pun intended) and we have had some amazing artists stay with us already.
The exhibition on 18 March of 2023 attrackted many people from the vilage, both Spanish and newcomers.
One of those artists is Marcelo von Schwartz, an Argentinean film director, architect, art photographer and sound architect, who just happened to visit the village and had a lunch at the vegetarian restaurant La Cantina Verde that we are so proud off of having in our village. We had only just opened our artist residence and had just said goodbye to Brie Adkins, a Canadian muralist who was the first artist we welcomed. He wasn’t necessarily looking for a residency, but he was working on a project and really liked Polopos. So he asked Rene, the owner of the restaurant, if he knew if there was anything up for rent. We were still installing light bulbs, painting walls and finding furniture for the residence (we explicitly told Brie that she was a little early to the party, but she wanted to come anyway), so we hadn’t looked actively to find artists. For Marcelo this was not a problem. We had space, he was in search of a place, and we wouldn’t have to think of a project for him to do in the village. He would pay a small amount for renting the residence, with which we would be able to buy materials for possible artworks in the future.
Now to come back to my opening statement that “Polopos has a curious quality of attracting all kinds of people”, this is how Marcelo describes one of the art forms that he is passionate about:
"I create architectural photography of non-existing spaces. I like to use photography because it's a kind of objective media we trust. The idea is to show in a kind of realistic way, some impossible spaces and make people go through the window into these spaces. [..]
Von Schwartz describes working with photography like a sculpture. Not using any new technology like 360 degree photos, all the manipulation is made post production. He cuts, reproduces and sometimes extrudes the image, always making sure to work with very precise geometrical rules.”
Quoted from the Bangkok Post.
Record #19. Marcelo gave us a reproduction of this photo after his stay with us. It is clearly a very different style than the pictures he made in Polopos.
If you have ever visited Polopos you will know that there isn’t much material to work with if this is your objective. This is why both Marcelo and we, agreed for him to stay in the residence and not him not having to bend and twist his artistic identity to fit into our program.
But art is what happens when you are busy making other plans (to paraphrase writer Allen Saunders and later John Lennon) and Marcelo found the faces of the people in Polopos to be a perfect subject for an improvised exposition. So he ended up taking pictures of everyone in the village who was willing to participate. Contrary to his usual approach he went at it with a naive manner, taking pictures of villagers where he found them and not doing any editing afterwards. It resulted in the exhibition ‘Retratos de Polopos’ (Portraits of Polopos) in our gallery and all the Poloperos loved it.
Poster for the exhibition on 18 March of 2023..