The photographer Isabel Steva Hernandezknown as tail, received the 2023 Christa Leem Award last Friday, vindicating his love for Barcelona: “It is a great honor because it is a Barcelona award, absolutely Barcelona.” The Minister of Culture and Sport, Miquel Iceta presented him with the award, a recognition that, like all those related to Barcelona, he received with “joy”. “Christa was Barcelona” and “I am in love with the city and these awards so closely linked to it honor me greatly,” the photographer highlighted.
Before this moment, in statements to journalists, the photographer showed her happiness for the distinction, which is granted by the ‘lobby’ ‘One of Ours’in this case, for “the artistic and historical value” of his work, in an act in which the gloss was pronounced by his friend since he was a teenager, the singer Joan Manuel Serrat.
He never imagined when he ended every night at the Venus Dome, where the stripper Christa Leem performed, “the best I’ve ever seen in my life”, that one day he would receive an award named after him. “Now I hope that next year they will give me the Ángel Pavlovsky award and the other, the Mimi Pompón award, and thus we would make the triumvirate of the Barcelona night awards”, in reference to two other artists who also performed on that disappeared stage located at the end of the Rambla.
For Colita, Serrat making his gloss was quite a detail. “He is a close friend of mine since I was a teenager, whom I adore and whom I took the first photos of,” he recalled. “We’ve always had a great time together and it’s an honor that he’s making the gloss. I didn’t know it and it’s been a very pleasant surprise.”
At the moment Colita is very busy organizing her file together with his friend Francesc Palop. It has thousands of images and wants to make it “available to everyone” through a Web: colitafotografia.com which can be accessed by anyone who wishes to learn about their work.
portrait of an era
Serrat defined her friend as an “artist who has perfectly portrayed a time and a society”, with more than forty books, “leaving her mark in everything she has participated in, whether it was cinema or music, especially flamenco, working a lot with Antonio Gades, as well as with the ‘Cançó'”.
“Now Colita is the teacher, she has taken over, fortunately in a country where we have many magnificent photographers”
Joan Manuel Serrat
A disciple of “good teachers, such as Xavier Miserachs, Oriol Maspons or Leopoldo Pomés” who I would like to see here today, all of whom are linked to Francesc Català Roca, “now Colita is the teacher, she has taken over, fortunately in a country where we have a lot of great photographers.
The Christa Leem award, promoted by the cultural agitator Joan Estrada, has not forgotten Colita either. she who isn 2014 he rejected the National Photography Award outraged by the situation of Culture in Spain and “so as not to have to appear in the photo with José Ignacio Wert”, Minister of Culture at the time. In 2021 she did accept the Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts.
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In addition to Serrat and Iceta, around fifty people attended the event, including Jaume Collboni, PSC candidate for mayor of Barcelona.
The prize, which has been awarded since 2003 to those people who, through their life or professional career, have demonstrated progressive values and defended freedom, has distinguished Núria Espert, Niño de Elche, Javier Pérez Andújar, Joan Manuel Serrat, Miguel Poveda, Carlos Jiménez Villarejo, Pilar Manjón, Ian Gibson, Patti Smith, Baltasar Garzón, Gonzalo Pérez de Olaguer, Marcos Ana, Salvador Allende (in memoriam) or Lilian Thuram.
