Promoting creativity and bringing art closer to the public, that is the objective of the BMW Painting Awards, awards that celebrated their 39th edition this Monday with the presence of Mrs. Sofia. Passionate about art and a firm defender of culture, she has remained faithful once again to this solidarity event that she attended with her sister, Irene from Greece. Felipe VI’s mother presented the awards in a ceremony attended by personalities such as Baroness Thyssen and Nuria González.
© House of SMEl ReyThe evening took place at the Teatro Real and had Paz Vega as master of ceremonies. The actress, who ends debut as a director with Ritahas kept in mind the victims of the Dana that has devastated different parts of Valencia due to torrential rains. During the ceremony, in which solidarity and fraternity were taken into account, he shared the stage with Pilar García de la Puebla. The Director of Communication and Institutional Relations of the BWM Group was in charge of announcing the name of the winners.
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© House of SMEl ReyBaroness Thyssen followed the gala with great attention, announcing that the documentary being prepared about her life will be released “soon” and that she will experience the Christmas holidays “with a lot of nostalgia and a lot of faith.” Also his son, Borja Thyssen, and his daughter-in-law, Blanca Cuesta, have traveled to the Madrid opera house, located a few steps from the Royal Palace. Marta Sánchez, Emilio Butragueño, Nuria González, Patricia Cerezo with Kiko Gámez, Anne Igartiburu, Blanca Suelves, Ainhoa Arteta, Judge Pedraz with Elena Hormigos, Begoña García Vaquero and the couple formed by María Pombo and Pablo Castellano, among others, have completed the exclusive list of attendees.
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© GTRESFrom the box of the Teatro Real, Irene de Grecia, who has always liked to be present at this solidarity evening, has closely followed the ceremony. The Queen’s sister has been with the CEO of BMW, Manuel Terroba, and the Secretary of State for Equality, Aina Calvo. The Aunt Pecu, as her family affectionately calls her, has reduced her public appearances due to the cognitive decline she suffers. Doña Sofía is worried and aware of her medical appointments, but also willing to continue enjoying every moment at his side, as they did this afternoon and as they did in September, when they went to the wedding of his niece, Princess Teodorain Athens.
© GTRESThere has also been a musical tribute under the concept of SinfonIA, which represents harmony in a world in permanent transformation. Already from the box, together with her sister, the Queen listened to the RTVE Symphony Orchestra. Conducted by Christoph König, it has performed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony as it is a work that symbolizes brotherhood, hope and solidarity. Not in vain, the concert has been offered to benefit the Spanish Federation of Food Banks (FESBAL) with an amount of 25,000 euros, in addition to an extraordinary donation of half a million euros by the BMW Group to the Reina Sofía Foundation with the objective of helping victims affected by DANA.
© House of HM the KingAt the same time as this event, at the Mandarin Oriental Ritz hotel, Kings Felipe and Letizia have presented the Francisco Cerecedo award in its XLI edition. This year’s winner was the journalist Carlos Franganillo, who knows the work of the Reina Sofía Foundation well, since two months ago he went to the Alzheimer’s center that the organization created.
The winners
The contest has broken records by receiving more than 1,700 applications, from which the jury has chosen the two winners. On the one hand, the work of Damaris Pan and her proposal has been recognized, All monsters are Human IIwhere he materializes the connection between the monstrous and the human.
Born in Bilbao and professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of the Basque Country. Her paintings reveal a particular language of shapes, densities and color palettes and the artist approaches each work as a new experience, like an essay that she has to begin and resolve in each case.
© House of HM the KingThe other winner was Serafín Álvarez. In the Digital Art category, Spell has been chosen, a piece that transports us to a dream world where the limits of time and space are blurred. Born in León, he has a degree in Fine Arts and a master’s degree in Artistic Productions and Research from the University of Barcelona, where he himself has said that he is carrying out a research project on the transmedia expansion of science fiction as part of his doctorate. .
© House of HM the KingIn the Ballroom of the Teatro Real in Madrid, Mrs. Sofía toured the works of the finalists, with whom she took a family photo to remember. In addition, the Queen has received a commemorative medal.
This year’s jury, made up of representative figures from the world of art and culture, repeats for the second consecutive year, once again contributing its experience and criteria to select the best works of this edition. Among its members is Antonio López, painter, sculptor and draftsman; Miguel Zugaza, director of the Museum of Fine Arts of Bilbao; Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, founder and president of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo; Guillermo Solana, artistic director of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid and Lucía Casani, director of the Carasso Foundation.
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