The artist Esteban Bernal Aguirre has worked to create “a modern and elegant trophy without losing its primitive features as an expression of a festival true to its roots”
The mining lamp trophy has been transformed and updated for the 61 years of the international festival of Cante de las Minas. The artist Esteban Bernal presented last Thursday to the President of the Cante de las Minas Foundation, Pedro López, the new design of this “modern and elegant prize without losing its primitive features as an expression of a festival true to its roots, but equally lively and current”, as emphasized by the creator. Added to this is a new ‘Catedral del Cante’ with a much more vertical design.
Esteban Bernal is the author of the festival’s trophies in recent years. “He is a versatile artist who is always at the service of the Municipality of La Unión and the Cante de las Minas Foundation and his proposals are accepted because they are of enormous quality,” said Pedro López, President of the Cante de las Minas Foundation , who described him as “visionary”, able to “always look beyond”, which kept the festival growing. “We believe that this impressive design means that this festival is in no way a stagnant festival, nor in terms of prizes,” added López.
Representing the fifth transformation since its origin, the new mining lamp design consists of three flat pieces cut from stainless steel, curved to provide dynamism and three-dimensionality, making this material a nod to the brilliance of silver obtained in mining and with which it was previously manufactured. It retains the two most unique original elements: the lamp and the pickaxe, tools typical of mining, but evolving towards simpler geometric shapes and with a more modern language.
The curved base points to the edge of the mine shaft. The rings form a play of opposing curves that “reflect the paradoxical duality between the lower darkness of the pit and the light of the lamp above, as well as between death and life in the mine, or suffering and prize gained with victory,” emphasized Bernal Moreover, instead of the engraved trophy text appearing, it is completely cut-away, “like the heart of the Sierra Minera excavated and pierced by innumerable pits and galleries.” Finally, in the central part is the heart of the trophy, the the lamp’s luminous flame cut out over the circle of darkness, from which it shines.
The other trophy also updated in this 61st edition is the ‘Cathedral of Cante’, designed on a 4 mm stainless steel plate that pays tribute to the building of the old public market, the headquarters of the festival. In it, the silhouette of one of the central walls of the monumental building, the stained glass windows and the needles of the exterior decoration like a Gothic cathedral can be seen in a recognizable way.
“Everything in it is geometric and simple, like a flamenco comb showing its filigree in the upper part and leaving the rest of the body free to indicate the title with the letters cut from the steel,” Bernal said. The foundations of such a unique building are formed by a solid four centimeter thick methacrylate block which gives this new trophy more elegance and modernity.
Source: La Verdad
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