The Alhambra of Morente’s Universe

The Minister for Education, Culture and Sport of the Regional Govern-ment of Andalusia presents the exhibition staged as a tribute to the great flamenco singer Enrique Morente (Granada 1942-Madrid 2010). The inauguration ceremony in the courtyard of the Palace of Charles V will include a performance entitled ‘La Aurora de Morente’ by Aurora Carbonell, for which only limited tickets are available.

The Universe of Enrique Morente (Granada 1942-Madrid 2010) comes to the Alhambra with an exhibition in which the Alhambra pays tribute to the Maestro. The exhibition is being inaugurated tomorrow, 28th October, at the Temporary Exhibition Room in the Granada Fine Arts Museum in the Palace of Charles V, and in the Musical Documentation Centre of Andalusia, where it will remain on show until 1st March 2015.

This morning, the Minister for Education, Culture and Sport of the Regional Govern-ment of Andalusia, Luciano Alonso, together with the Director of the Council of the Alhambra and Generalife, María del Mar Villafranca, presented this exhibition project, ac-companied by the whole Morente family, who were “thrilled by this tribute”, which brings to a magnificent end the various activities organized to commemorate the Gra-nada flamenco singer, who died in 2010.

Alonso also announced a surprise for the inauguration event: La Aurora de Morente, a performance in which Enrique Morente’s three children Estrella, Soleá and José En-rique, and his widow, Aurora Carbonell, will all be taking part. Aurora Carbonell has also made the wire sculptures that will be used in the stage scenery. A limited number of tickets will be available, so we recommend that those who wish to attend should ar-rive with plenty of time before the show begins at 18:30.

Organized by the Council of the Alhambra and Generalife, Universo Morente the exhi-bition comprises almost 800 pieces including: personal items; records made by the art-ist between 1967-2010, including two posthumous albums and his first recording La celestina plus the records he made for his own record label Discos Pobreticos; photographs of Pablo Picasso, Edward Quinn, Alberto García-Alix, Paco Manzano, Andre Villers, Mario Pacheco, among others; projections filmed by José Val del Omar, Imelda Ferrer, Pepe Zapata, Luis Mengs, as well as documentaries, interviews and films by Emilio R. Barrachina, José Sánchez Montes, etc. 

The exhibition also includes paintings by Francisco Goya, Pablo Picasso, Miquel Bar-celó, Federico García Lorca, Salvador Dalí, José María Sicilia, Antonio Buero Vallejo, Ignacio Meco and Antonio Badía, among others and books by Miguel Hernández, Lor-ca, Francisco Pacheco and San Juan de la Cruz. Alongside these pieces there are a large number of works of art by Aurora Carbonell in which Enrique Morente is the cen-tral figure. These include paintings made with different techniques (acrylics, collages, temperas, oils, watercolours), drawings on paper and sculptures in stone carved with a chisel, works in wire or iron, and collages made with things she found.

The exhibition is organized around the main theme, his records, and branches out at various levels: In the words of Enrique, Discography, Visual arts, Poetry and Literature, Performing arts, Music and Writings, the exhibition Universo Morente has been curated by Amaranta Ariño and designed by Andrés Mengs with the “passionate collaboration of all the Morente-Carbonell family, who have given their full support and effort to the project”. Ariño was helped by an advisory committee made up of specialists such as José Manuel Gamboa, Balbino Gutiérrez, Pedro G. Romero and José Luis Ortiz Nue-vo.

Universo Morente is in short a broad-based, multidisciplinary project in which painting, performing, music, words and poetry come together to present the legacy of the flamenco singer from Granada, and remember one of Andalusia’s most universal artists. A catalogue has also been produced and will be published jointly by the Council of the Alhambra and Generalife and TF Editores. It contains photographs and other works, along with an illustrated biography of Enrique Morente and texts written among others by María del Mar Villafranca, Amaranta Ariño, Miguel Mora, Pedro G. Romero, José Manuel Gamboa, Balbino Gutiérrez, José Luis Ortiz Nuevo, Miguel Mora and Antonio Pradel. The epilogue entitled The boy singer with the face of an angel, was written by Aurora Carbonell. 

The events organized as a tribute to Enrique Morente have proved very successful both in terms of audience and critical reaction. They began in September with the show entitled Granada sings, plays and dances to Morente, which was staged at the Gener-alife Theatre, on 5th September. Almost 1,700 people enjoyed the evening, which starred the Morente family together with numerous singers and dancers from Granada, who wanted to pay a well-deserved tribute to the multi-talented singer in this his home city. The next day in the Teatro Alhambra, several hundred more people again enjoyed the show, as happened later at the Sala El Tren and La Tertulia.

For more information, please visit www.alhambra-patronato.es