“What Rosalía has done for flamenco has not even been done by UNESCO”

The artist Pedro G. Romero awarded with the National Prize for Plastic Artshas assured that it What Rosalía “has done for flamenco” has not been achieved “even by UNESCO” with the recognition of the genre as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

“Every time she (Rosalía) includes three claps or five bars of bulería in a song that is listened to by so many millions of people, since people don’t really know what flamenco is, it goes through the roof. The fact is that interest in flamenco is soaring everywhere thanks to Rosalía. She has recorded many flamenco pieces and doesn’t release them because they are in a production machine that is already at another level, but she always shows it off. At first, flamenco artists received it with some resentment, but now there is no problem because what Rosalía has done for flamenco has not been done by UNESCO,” explained the award winner, a friend of the Catalan artist, in an interview with Europa Press.

Although Pedro G. Romero has assured that “it was nothing”, he has said that he mentioned to Rosalía, in 2018, the existence of ‘Flamenco’, a 13th century novel on which she would later base her album ‘El mal querer’.

“Rosalía was an incredible artist and a super good friend. When she collaborated on my film she also launched herself, it’s a brutal phenomenon, it’s something… Being there in mass culture… Many times they recognize me there and say: ‘It’s Rosalía’s!’. And in reality it was nothing, it was a comment I made to Rosalía, and she was so perceptive to go, buy the book, read it and “I’ve made it into a kind of fetish of her output. She’s still a great friend and a great artist, and I’m very happy with her work.”added the Sevillian.

The artist received this Friday, September 20, the National Prize for Plastic Arts awarded by the Ministry of Culture at the proposal of the jury, which highlighted Romero “for a consolidated career whose artistic, intellectual and material work covers multiple fields of meaning and apparently opposite formats (sculpture, cinema, archival productions, performances, etc.), integrating curatorial and research practices into their artistic work.”

In this sense, he has assured that he receives the award as an “individual recognition” but also collective recognition from the context of artists of which he is a part.

“In my work the word ‘collaborative’ falls short, it is a work that is always a collective production. So, this afternoon I know that there are many parties organized in my name, in Seville, and that makes me happy, yes (…) I have always claimed a lot of this collective work, the idea of ​​a situation,” he explained.

His work revolves mainly around around the pillars of iconoclasm and flamenco, although he has acknowledged that lately he has been focused on the idea of ​​”what popular means” and the way in which it is often presented as something “opposite” to “high culture.”

“From flamenco I have learned how one can be in the center and marginal at the same time, how one can be central and peripheral. “Like flamenco in Andalusia, which is at the same time hegemonic and all the politicians talk a lot about flamenco, saying that it is everywhere, being a marvel for tourists, at the same time it continues to be an art on the margins. Emilio Caracafé is one of the artists that I admire the most and he continues to live in his little house in the Tres Mil Viviendas in Seville,” he concluded.

The jury also considered “the notable milestones in his career last year 2023, with reference exhibitions such as ‘popular’ (October 2023 – April 2024), IVAM, Valencia, ‘A de Archipiélago’ (June – September 2023), in Es Baluard, Palma de Mallorca or film pieces such as ‘Lo que va por bajo’ (2023-2024) MACBA, Barcelona”.