The Chairs of Tàpies: Blanca Llum Vidal and Los Sara Fontán

The Chairs of Tàpies is a series of multidisciplinary sound actions organised in the context of the Tàpies Centenary Year, with the collaboration of Pompeu Fabra University. The proposal focuses on the voice and words to create a sound accompaniment to oral memory. In this way, each of the thirteen sessions will feature a creator whose starting point will be the chair, taken as a performative object, linking back to the creative universe of Tàpies through the expressive languages and settings of the present day.

The eighth proposal of the series was conceived by Blanca Llum Vidal and Los Sara Fontán, in an action that modulates textures, processes the voice and lends musicality to things which perhaps were not meant to be music. Bringing together a host of authors, the invited artists will attempt to transform words into rhythmic matter, extracting sounds out of things while building a narrative. As occurs in Tàpies, the chair will not just be an idea, but above all an object and a reality to be considered, agitated and meditated upon.

Blanca Llum Vidal studied Social Work and Catalan Philology, and has a Master in Contemporary Thought. She works in the Zona Franca of Barcelona in a shelter for people who are functional diverse. With Arnau Pons she has translated La Douleur, by Marguerite Duras, and individually has translated Duras’s book Écrire. She has edited the poetry of Àngel Guimerà, Mercè Rodoreda’s letters from exile to Anna Murià, short stories by Víctor Català, Dues Catalunyes: jocfloralescos i xarons, by Àngel Carmona and, amongst other projects, the book accompanying the exhibition on Francesc Tosquelles and the catalogue for Agnès Varda, to be released this year at the CCCB. She was editor of an anthology of feminist essays by Maria Aurèlia Capmany, and has recited her work in the Catalan Countries, Spain, Ukraine, Santiago de Chile and Buenos Aires (at the International Book Fair). She has written about Ausiàs March, Blanchot, Kafka, Rodoreda, Arendt, Hersch, Català and Duras, amongst others. In 2023 she released an anthology of her work, published by Textos Sentido Edição & Letras, translated to Portuguese by Àlex Tarradellas, and is currently preparing an anthology of her work to be translated into Italian by Marcelo Belotti, and into Spanish by Unai Velasco. Her publications include La cabra que hi havia, Nosaltres i tu, Homes i ocells, Visca!, Punyetera flor, Maripasoula (crònica d’un viatge a la Guaiana francesa), Aquest amor que no és u / Este amor que no es uno (Spanish translation by Berta García Faet), Amor a la brega, La princesa sou Vós / La princesa sois Vos (Spanish translation by Unai Velasco), Llegir petit i escriure sobre literatura i amor and No cometràs adulteri. She has published in the Quadern supplement of El País and in the political and cultural daily El Temps, and is currently a regular contributor to the digital review Catorze. She has been on stage with Maria Callís to perform La Infanticida, by Víctor Català, performing as well with the classic and post-rock music of Los Sara Fontán, and most recently with the sound designs of Julián D’Avino, in a show taking its aim at contradictions in politics, love, ethics and aesthetics, both old and new. This year she was an invitee to the Guadalajara Book Fair (Mexico).

Los Sara Fontán is an experimental duo featuring Sara Fontán and Edi Pou. They focus on live performance of a physical, passionate and punk character, ever-changing and open to the surroundings. A concert by Los Sara Fontán is a play on melody and rhythm, adding features of programmatic romanticism to directly and indirectly narrate a story, giving audience members freedom to interpret the work in a personal manner.

Stimulated by the question of whether it is possible to advance a career in music without following the productive routines of the music industry, Los Sara Fontán spent five years touring, playing at festivals and self-run venues across Europe, without recording their music. This was possible thanks to a musical and personal underground network they feel fortunate to belong to. In the autumn of 2023, they released Queda pendiente, an album done at their own residence, which they performed, recorded and produced themselves.

Their music is open code, as the prolific duo continually recomposes its own creations to open them up to broader, multidisciplinary collectives, whether other musicians (SO with Amorante, 4132314 with Tarta Relena and Cocanha), different communities (Laboratório dos Riscos Impossíveis, with residents of the Fontainhas neighbourhood in Porto), dancers (Fem una bona pena abans de morir, with Sònia Gómez), poetry (La princesa sou Vós, with Blanca Llum Vidal), theatre (Concrete Matter, by Los Detectives, and Songs for the bitch-witch women, by Mariona Naudin), or TV series and films (the soundtracks for Autodefensa, Magaluf Ghost Town and Remember My Name).

This session of The Chairs of Tàpies will be part of the opening programme of the exhibition Antoni Tàpies. The Practice of Art.