Museums

La Cartuja de Cazalla  -  Cazalla de la Sierra
Telephone: (0034) 954 88 45 16/ 954 88 42 52/ (0034) 954 88 42 52

Web: www.cartujadecazalla.com  /  Email: send a message

lacartuja

Center of contemporaneous art
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 Francisco Espinoza Dueñas Museum

Art work from Francisco Espinoza, Amaya Espinoza, Annet Kossen, Alejandro Velasco
and temporary exhibitions of other artists.

Opening: every day (except for December 24th y 25th)
Entrance: € 5,00 per person, children € 1,00 (Prices 2009).
An environment of creativity

The tranquility and the atmosphere of La Cartuja is ideal for the art.
Both the artists and the lovers of the art have always felt received well in this place, for more than twenty years. The Center of Contemporary Culture has studios and workshops for the resident artists and a Gallery of art composed by permanent exhibition of the museum work close to the temporary exhibitions.

The artists of La Cartuja

Francisco EspinozaFrancisco Espinoza has done during his life a great contribution to the art in the world of Spanish language.
The paintings and Espinoza's wall mosaics appear in public places of three continents. During more than fifty years his works have been shown in numerous galleries and have delighted an international public. His career is defined as a deep commitment by the society and his belief in the role that an artist must play in the community.

" ? .The painting, the ceramics or the engraving, what goes out of Espinoza's hands, has something of telluric force, of a volcano in eruption, of fireflies in the astral night, of twitch of an old tormented god. It is very difficult to define the art of this master, but from my contact with him in the distant Cuba, something shook my artistic sensibility and I fell from one surprise into another seeing his aesthetic evolution. I said wrongly, Espinoza is not an artist who evolves, he is an artist that in-volutions.

Involution does not want to say going back, but going inside. In Spanish there is a word that describes our artist very well , it is the word "ensimismado". It is on the one hand, to persist in yourself, to go inside yourself and on the other hand, going inside yourself leaving those around you. This is what was happening to the mystics who were living "ensimismados", as that is how he lives, this mystic of the art, Francisco Espinoza.

This will seem a contradiction, because a man who has made out of his life an artistic apostolate, a delivery to the others, how can it be considered "ensimismado"? Well, we must not confuse it with egoistic. The egoist is the one that forgets the others and is cares for himself as a narcissus; the enthusiastic is the one that gathers strength that to deliver to the others. This one is Espinoza, whose life is dedicated to two things, love and pedagogy. There is a novel of Unamuno which is titled " Love and Pedagogy ". Thus might be titled the novel of Espinoza's life: Love and Pedagogy ? ? "

FERNANDO CHUECA GOITA
February, 1993

Amaya EspinozaAmaya Espinoza was born in Paris in 1963. Daughter and disciple of the Teacher Espinoza, was educated from her birth to develop her artistic capacities. In spite of the strong paternal influence, she has developed her own style.
After her step along The United States, in 1990 she establishes her residence in the Center of Contemporary Culture La Cartuja where she remains until 1997. The history and the stones of La Cartuja inspire an intense work based on the high Middle Ages. In the Museum of La Cartuja we can contemplate part of her American work influenced by her teacher and placed in the Sancto Sanctorum and a series of great format inspired by the king D. Pedro I of Castile, placed in the room of the Refectory.

Annet KossenAnnet Kossen, did her studies in the School of Visual Arts of New York. After ten years that she lived in The United States she returned to Amsterdam, where she was born.
She began to paint oils, parallel to her successful career as writer and illustrative of infantile stories.
Her books have been published also in France, Belgium, Denmark and Germany. Her works have been exposed in places as diverse as The Annual International Fair of Infantile Books of Bologna in Italy, the Museum of Dutch Literature in The Hague and in the famous Stedelijk Museum in Ámsterdam.

When she was traveling through Andalusia in the beginning of the nineties, she stumbled over La Cartuja and got caught by the attraction of the place. She remained here for one month and I realized her first exhibition in the bathroom of the room n º 6.
The spiritual qualities of her paintings make them perfectly adapted to be shown in this wonderful environment of La Cartuja.

  lacartuja
Alejandro Velasco
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Renate Caals