Can Balaguer hosts a photographic exhibition on the guitars of Paco de Lucía

Can Balaguer hosts until March 27 the exhibition “Against the strings. Paco de Lucía’s guitars”. The exhibition, which is part of the Paco de Lucía Festival, brings together forty photographs of the musician’s guitars, taken by Tomeu Coll, Oto Marabel and the musician’s widow, Gabriela Canseco.

“We wanted the guitars to be present at the festival,” said the organizer of this event, Soledad Bescós, who stressed that these instruments “had never been presented” in public. For his part, the photographer and curator of the exhibition, Tomeu Coll, explained that it was decided to leave a graphic document of the guitars that Paco de Lucía had in Mallorca before his move to Madrid. “We’ve taken some of the guitars out for a walk and placed them in places he liked, related to trees and light,” he added.

The photographs have been taken in places such as the Sant Jordi plain, Campos or corners of the Serra de Tramuntana. The luthier Antonio Morales also attended the presentation of the exhibition and recalled his collaboration with de Lucía. “Working with him was easy and difficult. He was very demanding and had an incredible ear, but he didn’t put pressure on you,” he said, adding that the last thing the guitarist had in mind was “the beauty of the materials.” “The important thing for him was how the guitar sounded, the balance, the balance, the sensations… He wasn’t obsessive with the materials, but he was with the tunings,” he said.

In addition to the images of the guitars, this exhibition, which forms part of the Paco de Lucía Festival programme, also offers a series of intimate portraits of the guitarist at different times, made by his wife, Gabriela Canseco. Canseco’s images reveal an intimate Paco and testify to moments before the concerts, in which the musician needed to relax and think about things that calmed him down in some way. Regarding the photographs of the guitars, they are divided into two sections.

The first is dedicated to these instruments in representative spaces of the place where he lived and where he kept them. Second, you will be able to see details of the guitars and appreciate the excellence of the design, materials and manufacture.