by the El Reportero’s news services
Diego Rivera y Frida KahloThe French city of Strasbourg is hosting a photographic exhibition this week titled Complicities. Diego and Frida, which includes 35 images of iconic Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.
The show, organized by the Mexican Foreign Relations Secretariat and the Permanent Office of the Council of Europe, features images from Mexico’s National Anthropology and History Institute and the National Fine Arts and Literature Institute.
The exhibition provides visitors with a window into “the complicities shared by the two artists,” who “were not only lovers, a couple, militants and painters, but were also behind an entire generation of change in modern Mexico,” former Diego Rivera Research Center director Magdalena Zavala said.
Half of the photographs are by unknown authors, while the rest are signed by Agustin V. Casasola, Jose María Lupercio, Hugo Brehme, Tina Modotti, Enrique Díaz, Lucienne Bloch, Ismael Casasola, Louis Riley, Esther Born and Nacho López.
Filming for “Pele” the Movie Starts in Brazil
The Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro provides the set for the filming of “Pele,” a U.S. production in English of the life story of the Brazilian soccer legend, from early childhood to the masterful way he led his team to victory in the 1958 World Cup.
The film, meant not just for Brazil but for the world, will begin with Pele’s infancy and youth, and is being created by a standout team that includes actors Vincent Donofrio, Rodrigo Santoro and Seu Jorge, director Michael Zimbalist told Efe.
“For me Pele is not just a soccer player. He’s a model of behavior,” the film’s producer, Ivan Orlic, said, adding that “his life has inspired so many and now he’ll be back to inspire a new generation.”
The film is being shot, among other settings, in the stadium of the Brazilian soccer club America, where the moviemakers have meticulously reproduced the Swedish stadium where the Brazilian team led by Pele won their country’s first World Cup.
Ancient, magnificent frescoes uncovered in Roman Catacombs
The cubicle that houses frescoes representing the resurrection of Lazarus is one of the latest, most magnificent discoveries to be found in the Roman Catacombs of Priscilla after five years of archaeological exploration.
Lasers have been used to restore these ancient frescoes that increase even more the value of the Catacombs of Priscilla, with their priceless paleochristian works of art that include the first known image of the Holy Mother and Child.
In the frescoes showing the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus, which date back to the 4th century A.D., Jesus is seen dressed in the style of the Roman Empire and touching with a wand the mummy of Lazarus, still lying in his tomb.
The value of the new find lies in the lively colors and almost perfect restoration made possible by the use of lasers, Catacombs of Priscilla superintendent and Pontifical Commission of Sacred Archaeology member Fabrizio Bisconti told Efe.
Archaeological works over the past five years have led to the recovery of more than 700 fragments of sarcophagi, examples of funerary sculpture of the late Roman Empire that bear witness to the interaction between the pagan and Christian worlds and the cultural evolution between the 3rd and 5th centuries, a time when the catacombs began to have a Christian usage.
Starting next month, the launch of a Google Maps program will reveal all these discoveries and allow everyone interested to make a virtual visit to ancient underground Rome.
