Inauguration of Aguilar Moré (March 8th 2013)

Aguilar Moré joins us again at the Rusiñol Gallery. We have been close friends for a very long time and it gives us great satisfaction to have him here with us today. On this occasion he has brought us a select collection of paintings where jazz is the protagonist. Since we know he is a great lover of this genre, we wanted to offer him a live jazz concert that has left no one indifferent.

Ignasi Cabanas, the Rusiñol Gallery’s manager, starts the presentation of this exhibition. After welcoming attendees, he says that today the Gallery has become a kind of “Dragon’s cave”, where three young musicians —Marta Riba, Lídia García and Eduard Balaguer— are the ones in charge. He then explains that the exhibition is accompanied by the book “65 years of jazz in Barcelona” (the same title as the exhibition). This book is available at the Rusiñol Gallery, and it reproduces a large number of the works exhibited.

“Today I have the commitment of explaining the secret of Aguilar More’s work”, says the art critic Josep M. Cadena, “which is nothing more than the fact that he loves the freedom of creation”. A freedom that consists of doing what belongs to society because he trusts in its environment and in the people. Ramón Aguilar Moré was born in 1924; he was aware of the consequences of the Civil War and of its postwar events. After that, Mr. Cadena did an historical review and he spoke about certain oppressed societies and the role that jazz played on them.

Mr. Cadena said also that Aguilar Moré was interested in jazz from his very youth. The first sketches of the “natural” that he performed at the Liceo Theatre opened the way to those he began at the Novedades Theatre, where there were jazz sessions in the evenings, and in the “Rigat ballroom”, where the main Spanish orchestras played. Since then jazz has been a lifestyle for him.

The presentation ended with words from Aguilar Moré who explained to all present that this exhibition consists of a selection of his best drawings about jazz. In fact, these paintings have been kept as his personal collection.