To make the mural, the artists conceived a design in watercolour, with details in other techniques, which then had to be scanned and laser printed on the more than 2,800 tiles that make up the new skin of the historic building.
The work is also accompanied by QR codes that link with La Casa On digital platform and five other blocks of digital content: La Casa Encendida Radio, cultural recommendations, music and cinema, Inspirational Voices, Ecology and citizenship (videos of recognized personalities of the theme) and the block of girls and boys (with audiobooks, playlists, workshops, among others).
The proposal thus invites the interaction of users as a way to democratize socio-cultural and artistic content and will be present until the beginning of the renovation works of the Palace.
Description of project by Los Bravú
Montemadrid Foundation presents a monumental intervention on the façade of the Palacio de la Música by La Casa Encendida and Los Bravú
The artistic mural made of tile is the work of Los Bravú and gives access to free socio-cultural content of La Casa Encendida through QR codes.
Montemadrid thus joins two of its cultural projects, La Casa Encendida and the Palacio de la Música, with this commitment to emerging art and access to culture, which will be visible at number 35 Gran Vía until the start of the works of the theater.
The 170 square meter mural, more than 30 meters wide and almost 5 meters high, is an allegory about culture and the environment made from a mixed technique drawing by Dea Gómez (Salamanca, 1989) and Diego Omil (Pontevedra, 1988), alias Los Bravú.
In anticipation of the cultural use that the Palacio de la Música will have, its façade thus becomes an invitation to stop, observe and activate reflection and enjoyment on the busiest street in Madrid.
Using QR codes, the mural offers free music, cultural recommendations, videos on ecology and citizenship, inspiring talks on social and inclusive issues, La Casa Encendida Radio podcast and children's activities produced by La Casa Encendida and available online.
The Casa Encendida of Fundación Montemadrid intervenes, by the hand of the artist duo Los Bravú, the facade of the Palacio de la Música in Madrid, with a large-scale work of art made in the blue tile present in so many facades of Madrid and that represents a plea in favor of culture and the environment.
This work of art at the foot of the busiest street in Spain occupies 170 square meters, more than 30 meters wide and almost 5 meters high and, from a drawing made with techniques that range from watercolor to marker, describe situations , current characters and objects in the classic style.
The typical tiles of Madrid, mainly figurative, decorate buildings, restaurants and historic shops in the city and much of it has been lost. Inspired by his iconography, but passed through the sieve of his iconic productions, fundamentally female and contemporary figures are represented in the Renaissance way and capture the attention of the viewer. Dea Gómez (Salamanca, 1989) and Diego Omil (Pontevedra, 1988), alias Los Bravú, once again fill the Gran Vía with tiles, intertwining the past, the present and the cultural future of one of the most emblematic streets of the city and in the one that the Palacio de la Música of the Montemadrid Foundation will once again be a benchmark.
The mural also includes QR codes that connect to La Casa On, La Casa Encendida's digital platform. With a program that will be updated, through these codes, passers-by will be able to access content divided into five blocks for free:
La Casa Encendida Radio, a platform for sound experimentation that explores the radio format from an artistic perspective with podcasts such as Bam Bam Chica for chica, a radio program that maps the 100% female music scene; You Got to Get In to Get Out, podcast that recognizes techno as a cultural, social, historical and material entity, or Terrordrome, presented by Anna Bogutskaya and created together with Chinese Moya on horror cinema.
Cultural, music and film recommendations such as the La Terraza Magnética concerts, the Audioactivity festival, or the “Give Me Five” section, in which artists, curators, thinkers and writers share five cultural recommendations.
Inspiring voices such as those of Amaranta Gómez, Brigitte Baptiste, Nora Chipaumire, Noha El Haddad or Daniel Innerarity.
Ecology and citizenship through content such as the recent interview with Orsola de Castro or the meeting between Yayo Herrero and Kois Casadevante.
In the block dedicated to girls and boys, the Audio Story "En Familia" by Olga de Dios, the playlist created by Nano4814 or the workshop "Food comes to life" is offered in which Mari Miyazawa teaches how to create an edible work of art with school lunch.
Through La Casa On, La Casa Encendida has developed numerous online activities since the beginning of the pandemic in order to expand and influence the cultural, social and public service commitment that since 2002 has characterized the cultural space belonging to the Montemadrid Foundation. La Casa On is a virtual platform focused on new formats of creation, exhibition and knowledge and in which the temporal, geographical and disciplinary limits of programming are expanded and blurred.
The Bravú are Dea Gómez (Salamanca, 1989) and Diego Omil (Pontevedra, 1988). Under the name of Los Bravú they have developed a multidisciplinary career where they intersperse painting, sculpture or comics. The Bravú resort to different disciplines to investigate contemporary issues such as tourism, the life of young people in rural areas or the human relationship with digital media. His most recent exhibitions in art centers include Processi 144_M, Interlacing with Roma (Matadero, Madrid), Brillas mucho (DA2 Museo de Arte Moderno de Salamanca) or Unflappable (Unit 1, London). In 2020 they began to work in the field of performing arts, presenting their show Cuaderno de Diciembre at the Escenas do Cambio festival.
The Palace of Music, almost 100 years of history
The Palacio de la Música is an emblematic building on Madrid's Gran Vía, the work of the architect Secundino Zuazo, dating from 1926. The Montemadrid Foundation is working on the reform project to turn it into a first-rate cultural facility. The objective is to recover it and give it back its use as a reference stage space inside and outside the capital. The project approved by the Local Historical Heritage Commission of the Madrid City Council in April 2020 respects the original building, scrupulously complying with the protection measures that the law requires for a building of this type. The conservation of the original building is at the base of this project, which updates the uses and needs, with spaces dedicated to restoration and other possible uses, to turn it into a 21st century cultural space.
Fundación Montemadrid is a private non-profit organization that works in favor of inclusion and equal opportunities, promotes participatory citizenship with access to education, employment and culture and favors the conservation of the environment. The Foundation maintains and manages socio-cultural centers such as La Casa Encendida or Casa San Cristóbal, educational centers, libraries, centers for the elderly, special employment centers and various management centers assigned to social institutions, among others
