'Coco Chanel' by Lita Cabellut - 'Retratos' Exhibition, Marbella

Described as “a museum quality exhibition of striking portraits of strong individuals such as Coco Chanel, Billy Holiday, Anne Frank, Lorca and Frida Kahlo”, critically acclaimed Spanish artist Lita Cabellut’s Retratos showcase runs at the Red Penguin Gallery in Marbella until 20 June.

Lita, an orphan who grew up on the streets of Barcelona in a deprived gypsy community, was adopted when she was 12 and remarkably had her first exhibition just five short years later, before moving to the Netherlands at the age of 19, where she studied at Amsterdam’s Rietveld Academy…

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Telling John Lennon’s unique story through the eyes of his first wife Cynthia and their son Julian, this is the first time that the ‘Beatles Memorabilia – The Julian Lennon Collection’ has ever set foot outside Liverpool…

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Coming to Marbella on Saturday, 27 October, the ‘In Transition 2012’ conference takes place at the Palacio de Congresos from 11am to 10pm, and will feature talks about the Transition Town concept by various high-profile speakers. The non-profit event (tickets cost €10 each) will also include the dynamic Transition in Action market – open to all and free to attend – with stalls selling local organic produce, plants, arts and crafts and a range of stands featuring seed banks, green technology, NGOs, plus a showcase highlighting the astounding richness and diversity of Andalucía.

An international campaign to create more sustainable communities which reduce their carbon footprint, are less reliant on fossil fuels and equip people with the skills to respond to the changing circumstances which diminishing fossil fuels will cause, the Transition Town movement encourages people to think globally and act locally!

Organised by Marbella Town Hall and Arboretum Marbella, ‘In Transition 2012’ aims to inspire local politicians and residents alike to create more sustainable communities, and will bring together experts from Transition projects locally, nationally and internationally, to share their successes and difficulties as well as offering practical solutions in order to make a lasting difference to the local environment.

“More and more people in Spain are concerned about the future and climate change,” says Alejandro César Orioli, the director of Arboretum Marbella, “and the conference will help to bring people together to create communities better able to deal with the challenges ahead.”

The event will feature talks from a number of speakers from Transition communities around the world, including permaculturalist Rob Hopkins, co-founder of the Transition Network and author of The Transition Handbook From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience. There will also be informal group sessions, encouraging discussion and debate on dealing with the current economic crisis through the Transition model.

Rob Hopkins’ video conference will be in English while all the other presentations will be in Spanish.

Entrance to the conference – including all the day’s seminars – costs €10. Tickets are on sale now at FNAC La Cañada, Marbella.

You wouldn’t normally think that the state of the tide had anything at all to do with horse racing. Unless, that is, you were in charge of organising Andalucía’s annual ‘Carreras de Caballos’, renowned as being of ‘International Touristic Interest’ and attracting thousands of visitors every year!

Because in Sanlúcar de Barrameda – in the neighbouring province of Cádiz – the very first thing on the committee’s agenda is to consult their tide tables. Which isn’t really surprising since this is where the 6 exciting and unforgettable days of flat-racing take place right on the beach, with thoroughbred hooves kicking up the surf instead of pounding the turf…

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OK, so ask any of my friends and they’ll all tell you I’m a massive – and I really do mean massive – fan of Bryan Ferry. I’ll try my very best to be objective here, but when it comes to blogging about Mr Cool himself, one of my all-time most favourite singer-songwriters and musicians, well, you’ll forgive me if I get a little bit carried away.

Over the years, I’ve been to Bryan Ferry gigs at Málaga’s Peñón del Cuervo beach, and at the city’s Cervantes Theatre, but I’ve never yet had the opportunity of seeing the former Roxy Music frontman perform in Marbella.

One of Britain’s greatest art school pop creatives, 65-year-old Bryan Ferry CBE was in town last year, famously performing at a private party in the opulent Villa del Mar in the Marbella Club Hotel, to celebrate the 1^st anniversary of Stephen Webster’s Puerto Banús jewellery boutique. He and Stephen are good friends. But since guests forked out €500 a head to attend that particular event, I wasn’t among them.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Málaga – the cultural capital of the Costa del Sol – but I’ve got to say that there’s absolutely no better place than Marbella when it comes to hosting a glam rock event. Actually, ‘the master of sublime effortlessness’ will be performing centre stage, on the centre court of the Hotel Puente Romano Tennis Club, where just last year I watched Björn Borg take on Pat Cash.

If you like the cool vibes of Bryan Ferry as much as I do, maybe I’ll see you there?

Tickets start at €48.00

Hotel Puente Romano Tennis Club, Marbella

Concert starts at 10pm on Friday 20 July

Ticket hotline: T. 648 780 781 and available online from ticketmaster.es

More about the blockbusting summer 2012 concerts and gigs in Marbella.

Ten talented sculptors from around the world are currently taking part in the Marbella International Sand Art Competition, a week-long event running from July 9 to 15, whose theme is ‘Secrets of the Sea’.

Between them, the artists – from India, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Holland, Ireland, Germany, Italy and Spain – will be using thousands of tons of sand to create their stunning sculptures which will be judged in five different categories.

Sudarshan Pattnaik's 'Mermaid' sand sculpture won him first prize at the Copenhagen Sand Sculpture Festival in May.

A favourite to watch out for is award-winning Indian artist Sudarshan Pattnaik from Odisha, who has participated in more than 50 sculpture championships around the globe. No stranger to Spain, he came second in the Valladolid contest in 2003, while his ‘Mermaid’ sculpture won him the first prize at the Copenhagen International Sand Sculpture Festival in May of this year.

The state-of-the-art Equestrian Centre is located within the Marbella Club Golf Resort in Benahavís.

If you love horses and all things equestrian, then here’s an event you definitely won’t want to miss…

The state-of-the-art Marbella Club Equestrian Centre – set amid the breathtaking Benahavís countryside – is hosting the National Showjumping Competition in which 200 horses and their riders from both the Spanish and Moroccan national teams will be taking part.

The event runs from 6 to 8 July and 13 to 15 July, from 10am to 1pm and from 6pm to 11pm. Visitors are welcome and entrance is free of charge – the perfect day out for all the family!

The Equestrian Centre – complete with a 4,500 square metre arena – is located within the Marbella Club Golf Resort. For more information, Tel: 952 880 608.

One of only two Spanish venues included on his 60-city Summer 2012 World Tour, Sting will be in concert at the Puente Romano Tennis Club on Saturday 30 June, before heading off to appear in Ibiza the following night.

Fronting a smaller line-up than he generally has since the days of The Police – longtime guitarist Dominic Miller, former E Street keyboardist David Sancious, violinist David Tickell, drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and backing vocalist Jo Lawry – Sting’s set will include highlights from his ‘Ten Summoner’s Tales’ and ‘Mercury Falling’ albums, plus of course a selection of all-time favourite hits from his days with The Police.

With 16 Grammys to his name and a 35-year musical career to date, 60-year-old Newcastle-born Sting’s 2-hour ‘Back to Bass’ Summer 2012 World Tour has already gone down a storm with audiences in the US and Scandinavia, as well as Prague, Budapest and Zagreb.

A previous concert at the Puente Romano Tennis Club, Marbella.

And one of the great things about his Marbella gig is that the Puente Romano Tennis Club is such an intimate venue compared with the vast stadiums he usually performs in!

The Sting concert starts at 10pm on Saturday, 30 June at the Puente Romano Tennis Club. Tickets are still available from El Corte Inglés, the official Sting website and ticktackticket, or call the ticket hotline on (+34) 608 134 380.

Find out more about the sensational line-up of international megastars performing live in Marbella this summer.

Per Barclay's 'Fluido' installation at the CAC Málaga Centro de Arte Contemporáneo.

Norwegian artist Per Barclay (Oslo, 1955) has flooded the main gallery of the city’s prestigious CAC Málaga art museum with 7,000 litres of oil, creating a conceptual installation that wouldn’t look out of place at the Tate Modern or New York’s MoMA.

Entitled ‘Fluido’, the exhibit – which takes the form of a trapezoidal PVC tank measuring 23 metres long and filled to a depth of 5cm with black-tinted sunflower oil – has been specifically designed for the CAC Málaga, with the opaque liquid reflecting the structure of the building as if it were a vast mirror.

“The first impression a visitor gets is that of seeing a smooth, dark, elegant surface which seems very simple,” says Barclay. “Yet at the same time, a sense of depth is created, giving visitors both a sensation of ambiguity and vertigo.”

The Norwegian artist's works reveal his interest in space and the way of occupying and completely filling it.

Per Barclay’s works have been exhibited at the MGM Gallery (Oslo), the Fondazione Merz (Turin), the Palacio de Cristal at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), and many other prestigious galleries and museums around the world. He is particularly well-known for his ‘Oil Rooms’ installations revealing his interest in space and the way of occupying and completely filling it.

Per Barclay at the inauguration of his CAC Málaga installation.

“This aspect of his work reveals Edvard Munch’s influence on the artist, whose installations arouse emotions such as anxiety, fear of death and love,” explains Fernando Francés, CAC Málaga director. “Even when using other liquids – engine oil, water, blood or wine - Barclay creates a tension that shatters any sense of calm.”

Per Barclay exhibited his first work in Norway in 1984 and currently lives in Turin and Oslo.

The ‘Fluido’ exhibition runs until 4 September 2012 at the CAC Málaga Centro de Arte Contemporáneo

C/ Alemania, Málaga

Open Tuesdays – Sundays from 10am to 2pm & 5pm to 9pm

T. 952 120 055

'Peggy Sue and Lilly too' by acclaimed British artist and Cero Arte's art director, James Blinkhorn.

One of Marbella’s fastest growing, most popular and dynamic cultural events, the FIAM Festival Internacional de Arte – the largest street art festival in Southern Spain – will be taking up residence in the Avenida del Mar, in the heart of the town from 21 to 24 June, when more than 20,000 art lovers are expected to descend on the spectacular white tented village created specifically for the event. Now in its 4^th year, FIAM will be showcasing the works of 80+ artists of around 25 nationalities, including Spanish, British, German, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Ukrainian and Cuban, whose talents span a wide variety of artistic disciplines such as figurative and abstract painting, sculpture, ceramics, photography, murals, volumetric art, lithographs, collage, pencil drawing, digital graffiti and textile art. This year, too, several collectives will be taking part, including an artists’ group from Mijas, a Hispanic-Russian collective and both the AIA and Arte Groups.

A work by Cuban artist, Roger Ayala.

Highlights will include a unique work by 3-dimensional photographer Daniel Posner, who’ll be exhibiting a 3-metre long, recently created aerial image of Marbella. Taken from an altitude of 2,500 metres, the limited edition work features the entire town all the way from San Pedro to the eastern side of La Concha mountain. Cero Arte, a new gallery on Marbella’s Golden Mile, will be exhibiting works by Nigel Cooke and Angelo Bellini, while gallery art director James Blinkhorn – a highly acclaimed British artist – will be giving away a fabulous work of his own, entitled Peggy Sue and Lilly too, as an introductory promotion. This year, Málaga’s prestigious Museo Carmen Thyssen is also collaborating with non-profit making organisation FIAM and will be bringing to the festival a gigantic artistic jigsaw puzzle which visitors can help put together. But it’s not only about art. The Gourmet Corner will be returning to the event, with a selection of restaurants offering freshly made gastronomic treats throughout the festival, while a vibrant 3-day complementary programme of quality free entertainment is guaranteed to bring the town centre alive from midday to 11pm.

Sotogrande International School students will be putting on a Dickensian-style drama and a comedy, as well as taking a nostalgic look at the Beatles.

The performances – including music, theatre and dance – will take place in Avenida del Mar, and with performers flying in from around the globe, there’ll be jazz, pop, opera, flamenco and swing on offer, as well as the many talents of Sotogrande International School, whose students will be putting on a Dickensian-style drama, a comedy and also taking a nostalgic look at the Beatles. The line-up of live entertainment also features:

• Broadway Musicals: bringing together the voices of Steve Shapelle, Adele Lee Peters, Gemma Lloyd & Benjamin James.

• The Mighty Pimps: A versatile blues band fronted by popular musician and entertainer Chas Burnett.

• Temo: Iconic Georgian-Russian pop singer and recording artist.

• Salome: Another exceptional young Georgian vocalist and resident of Marbella.

• Hungarian vocalist Tamas Zsigrai will be playing tribute to Michael Buble.

• Also doing some impressive covers, Jordana will be performing hits by Lady Gaga, Amy Winehouse & Adele.

For more information, you can download a copy of the programme here.