Letter from Madrid
"When Benedikt Taschen extends an invitation to go somewhere, to see something, it is best to go" - Impressions of the Taschen Collection and Martin Kippenberger show as seen by Eric Kroll
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It was late and Yasuo Satomi of Taschen Japan was busy recording with video the guests. Small bows and many smiles. At one moment I was handed a Xeroxed hand written note "Come For Drinks At Jazz Club". But of course. My Spanish friend Javier Pison, owner of the Wild Seduction gallery in Miami and I got into a cab and ended up at an apartment house on Doctor Cortezo street. We were to ring the bell:jazz club. A bunch of people waited to get in and we went to the second floor and knocked. We were ushered into an apartment with many smoke filled rooms crowded with jazz. We had to say "Isabela". I recognized some from the dinner and many others I didn't know until I found Albert Ohlen. In minutes we were admitting our mutual addiction to JAZZ. I said this. He said that. I hope he doesn't mind, but what he said gave me a beautiful and vivid impression of his childhood. He said his early memory - he was six years old - was of his dad putting a Dizzy Gillespie record on the turntable and dancing to the music alo e in front of his son. Strings of bebop against dark royal red walls. Then to bar Cock to meet some friends then back to my hotel.
Tuesday morning I had breakfast at the El Circulo de Bellas Artes, a wonderful, reasonably priced art- filled spot along calle Alcala. In the afternoon I had the honor of being invited to lunch with Luis Garcia Berlanga, Spain's most prolific elder filmmaker and builder of Ciudad De La Luz, the "world's most advanced film studio". Luis had another friend for lunch, Jess Franco, the Spanish filmmaker of The Torture Chamber of Fu Manchu, The Awful Dr. Orloff, and Vampire Lesbos among 150 films. Later, I learned he is in the class of Russ Meyer and Hershell Gordon Lewis. Jess' companion was actress Lina Romay whom I got to watch on video walk as a naked mute vampire. Delicious food, delicious company.
That night I met Benedikt at the Hotel Ritz and we went over the Bill Ward mock-up then to dinner at Lhardy. Naturally, we ended the evening at Bar Cock.
That last night Benedikt and I were together, he turned to me and said he was glad I had come to Madrid. He had wanted me to meet his European friends. And I had. And I had seen how he is on the pulse of any town he is in. I saw glimpses of that in years past in Tahiti or Mexico but the speakeasy jazz club and the bar Cock convinced me.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
It was late and Yasuo Satomi of Taschen Japan was busy recording with video the guests. Small bows and many smiles. At one moment I was handed a Xeroxed hand written note "Come For Drinks At Jazz Club". But of course. My Spanish friend Javier Pison, owner of the Wild Seduction gallery in Miami and I got into a cab and ended up at an apartment house on Doctor Cortezo street. We were to ring the bell:jazz club. A bunch of people waited to get in and we went to the second floor and knocked. We were ushered into an apartment with many smoke filled rooms crowded with jazz. We had to say "Isabela". I recognized some from the dinner and many others I didn't know until I found Albert Ohlen. In minutes we were admitting our mutual addiction to JAZZ. I said this. He said that. I hope he doesn't mind, but what he said gave me a beautiful and vivid impression of his childhood. He said his early memory - he was six years old - was of his dad putting a Dizzy Gillespie record on the turntable and dancing to the music alo e in front of his son. Strings of bebop against dark royal red walls. Then to bar Cock to meet some friends then back to my hotel.
Tuesday morning I had breakfast at the El Circulo de Bellas Artes, a wonderful, reasonably priced art- filled spot along calle Alcala. In the afternoon I had the honor of being invited to lunch with Luis Garcia Berlanga, Spain's most prolific elder filmmaker and builder of Ciudad De La Luz, the "world's most advanced film studio". Luis had another friend for lunch, Jess Franco, the Spanish filmmaker of The Torture Chamber of Fu Manchu, The Awful Dr. Orloff, and Vampire Lesbos among 150 films. Later, I learned he is in the class of Russ Meyer and Hershell Gordon Lewis. Jess' companion was actress Lina Romay whom I got to watch on video walk as a naked mute vampire. Delicious food, delicious company.
That night I met Benedikt at the Hotel Ritz and we went over the Bill Ward mock-up then to dinner at Lhardy. Naturally, we ended the evening at Bar Cock.
That last night Benedikt and I were together, he turned to me and said he was glad I had come to Madrid. He had wanted me to meet his European friends. And I had. And I had seen how he is on the pulse of any town he is in. I saw glimpses of that in years past in Tahiti or Mexico but the speakeasy jazz club and the bar Cock convinced me.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Taschen Collection
Hardcover, 29.7 x 42 cm (11.7 x 16.5 in.), 254 pages
$ 70.00
$ 70.00
The Benedikt Taschen Collection on show at Reina Sofía
At the Casa Ciriaco
I realized I was seeing, in person, some of the pages of Helmut Newton's SUMO book