Calatrava’s City of Arts and Sciences

Every March Montreal hosts a truly exciting cultural event- FIFA , the international festival of films on art. For 10 days art lovers can gorge themselves on films on an array of art-related subjects, including mime, circus arts, tattooing, and comics.

Turning Torso

At last year’s festival, the 28th edition, I saw the German documentary, Turning Torso, Malmö. Turning Torso is a spectacular 54-story tower, in Malmö, Sweden, designed by Spanish architect, Santiago Calatrava. At 154 meters high it is the highest skyscraper in Scandinavia. Calatrava’s impressive list of works includes bridges, train stations, communications towers and traffic control towers.

In Valencia this summer, I had the chance to appreciate Calatrava’s City of Arts and Sciences. Of this large-scale urban recreation center for culture and science, Calatrava says, “As the site is close to the sea, and Valencia is so dry, I decided to make water a major element for the whole site using it as a mirror for the architecture. »

Aviary

I spent a day with my family at l’oceanográfico. Part of the complex, this underwater city was designed by the late Felix Candela. I felt like a kid, discovering fantastic sea creatures in this futuristic setting. I have visited many aquariums including the ones in Miami, Key West, Vancouver, Barcelona, Monaco and the Rosario Islands in Colombia, however, the oceanográfico was a memorable and unique experience, due in large part to the architecture and installations that are home to a fabulous array of animals.

35 meter long tunnel with sharks

The City of Arts and Sciences is located on the old dried-up river bed of the Turia, midway between the old city of Valencia and the coastal district of Nazaret. Following a disastrous flood in 1957, the river was diverted and transformed into a 7 kilometer promenade. It is fitting that Calatrava has featured water thoughout the complex.

Calatrava is also a prolific sculptor and painter. He believes that architecture combines all the arts into one. In 2003, the Metropolitan Museum of Art featured an exhibition of his work, entitled “Santiago Calatrava: Sculpture into Architecture.”

Bridge designed by Calatrava and Candela

His style bridges the division between structural engineering and architecture. He continues the tradition of Spanish modernist engineering that includes Felix Candela and Antoni Gaudí. Calatrava’s style is also highly personal, inspired by the human body and the natural world.

When I saw the film on the Turning Torso, I had no idea that four months later I would visit an architectural complex designed by Calatrava. Whether it is hazard, destiny, a chain of related or unrelated events, or serendipity, I like it.

Talleen Hacikyan

Photos of The City of Arts and Sciences by Talleen, Yayo and Pablo.

The Printing Session at Atelier Circulaire

After twenty-five years at the etching press each printing session still captivates me. There is something reassuring about repeating the gestures that have been handed down to me through generations of master printers.

I learned the fine art and craft of intaglio printing from François-Xavier Marange, maître taille-doucier, master printer. François-Xavier, born in France, printed at Ateliers Leblanc, Lacourière-Frélaut and Maeght, in Paris, and printed for many great names such as Friedlander, Lam, Miró, Tapiès, and Zao Wou-Ki. He is responsible for introducing the traditional method of intaglio printing to Atelier Circulaire in Montreal. He injected a passion for the métier that touched all the artists who worked with him, including myself. Through the years I have also had the chance to print with many other master printers, including Luc Guérin, Pierre Colin, and Alain Piroir, all from France.

The printing session is a ritual. Each gesture is performed a certain way, and the body memorizes these movements, which over time become as natural as walking. At the press, especially when printing a large edition, this automatism contributes to smooth, technically sound and fast work.

Since spring I have been working on a series of large format collagraph prints on the theme of the dress. Printing large works is challenging, physically exhausting and expensive. They can also be gratifying to create and powerful to look at. Every couple of years I have to indulge in my desire to go big. There is something sensual and inviting about attacking the large cardboard plates that I use to print with.

In the case of my dresses I wanted to make slightly larger than life-size robes that conjure real bodies, or rather the absence of them. When working big I am physically drawn to my plate in a way that cannot happen when working on a smaller scale. For this series I printed parts of my body directly onto my dress plate to make textural imprints, traces of myself, of actual moments that in the context of my artwork take on the role of fictive dramas that play in the viewers’s imagination--adult footprints running toward an empty womb, reaching arms within a female torso, a naked torso emerging from floral lace.

Detail from Eye Chart, collagraph, 2010

When I print test proofs of my cardboard plates, the intuitive work that went into creating my plate is brought under the objective scrutiny of my eyes as I examine what my proof reveals to me. These prints are like compasses. They direct me and tell me how to intervene on my plate in order to improve and eventually perfect my print.

The Hurel 1, that I use to print my dress collagraphs with, was designed by François Xavier. This Cadillac of a press can work magic, however, everything is exaggerated when printing on this monstrous scale. Ordinarily simple tasks such as cutting, wetting, brushing and placing paper become a dance. Turning the press turns into a grueling workout at the gym!

At the end of my printing session, I wipe my ink off the glass table with vegetable oil and a good dose of elbow grease. No one I know likes this step, but the body complies with this duty that has to be performed meticulously in order to maintain peace with fellow artists at this community printmaking studio. The upside is that while cleaning I can admire the view from our panoramic windows. The setting sun becomes a metaphor for continuity. There is something reassuring about this natural phenomenon. It makes me feel harmonious and alive, which is how I feel when I turn the press.

Talleen Hacikyan

Photos by Celia Vara
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