Only for subscribers, for collectors and with a life cycle limited to 26 issues: the magazine Bullfighter was born in 1995 and instantly became an institution. Its objective was to be “a cult object for the public interested in creation, the arts and trends”, summarizes Alberto Anaut, founder of the header and the Factory, publisher of art books and cultural promoter that has given birth to projects such as PhotoEspaña or Madrid Design Festival. For Anaut, the magazine had to be spectacular. “Some of the editions are printed with up to 14 inks: the Artist’s Notebook dedicated to Sol LeWitt was made with 17”, he says. That, along with the fundamental: the authors. “The pages are delivered to creators, philosophers, mathematicians, plastic artists… and they make the magazine.”
On the occasion of its 25th anniversary, La Fábrica has held a tribute exhibition, part of this edition of Madrid Design Festival: Matador 25. Journey to the heart of a mythical magazine. The life of this publication is finite, since it focuses on one letter of the alphabet per year and in 2023, after 26 years, it will finally reach Z, but it goes hand in hand with the creation of other projects such as matador clubthe wine editor Matador Winery (coordinated by Telmo Rodríguez), the Artist’s Notebooks and the Matador Dictionary (which will add up to 300 artists, in addition to four special editions).
The exhibition, which will be open at the Fernan Gomez Cultural Center until March 13, it is a journey inside a project that unravels in the form of images and pieces – between sculptures, photographs, drawings and design products – the intense relationships of the magazine. Of its three legs, the first is design: to follow the path of Bullfighter is to take a journey through graphic design from the mid-nineties to today. Fernando Gutiérrez, who is behind the graphic image of museum entities such as The Design Museum in Londonthe Prado Museum or the Royal Botanical Garden of Madridfrom publications such as the first The Country of Temptations and editions such as the catalogs of Albers & The Bauhaus or the one dedicated to Rineke Dijistra.
In the 1990s, Gutiérrez dreamed of developing a cultural content magazine with total freedom, where he could put unique and surprising stories on the page. “My obsession was to value the text and the image in equal parts and that the graphic design would serve to enhance the message,” he admits to ICON Design. Gutiérrez and Anaut not only hatched the idea, but also thought Bullfighter, in the broadest sense. Later, the designers Pablo Rubio and Juanjo Justicia took over from Gutiérrez to “rejuvenate and keep the magazine alive,” says Anaut.
According to Alberto Anaut, the artists are the second axis of the exhibition matador 25 yearsyes “We have chosen some 65 exceptional works by up to 35 artists,” he explains. Among them, Anaut cites some drawings by Eduardo Chillida, dated 1949 and published in the first Artist’s Notebook that was edited. It also highlights the work Periscope by Luis Gordillo, a large painting also exhibited in the rooms of the Fernán Gómez, which connects with Swatch, a brand closely linked to Bullfighter since its launch and which, on the occasion of this anniversary, has created a special edition in collaboration with the Sevillian artist.
As for photography, the director of La Fábrica points out two little-known self-portraits by Alberto García-Alix, Chema Madoz’s tribute to Picasso and two photographs belonging to the early period of Cristina García Rodero “which are special because they belong to the period in which he travels through rural Spain”, he argues.
The diversity of works that converge in the exhibition is represented by the piece entitled 1846 by Ferrán Adrià and which corresponds to the same number of dishes that the chef prepared at El Bulli in Cala Montjoi. “This way you can remember the menu you ate in a given year,” he says.
In the world of product design, the chapel dedicated to three pieces by Patricia Urquiola and the ceramic tapestry by Jaime Hayon, two international figures of Spanish design, stand out. Both have been protagonists of monographic exhibitions in different editions of the Madrid Design Festival.
As for architecture, it is represented by the model of the Palazzo del Cinema that Rafael Moneo presented for the international competition in Venice and that was ultimately not built. This section also includes great names such as Marina Abramovic, present through four pieces, three photographs and a video in homage to Saint Teresa of Jesus. Anaut does not forget Miquel Barceló either, one of the great authors who have collaborated with Bullfighter, and draws attention to a work: the tablecloth painted by Barceló and embroidered by his mother, Francisca Artigues, the last one they have made together. “It is one of the most attractive works because it brings together Miquel’s entire creative world and has that beautiful mother-son story behind it,” she concludes.
The texts are the third leg of the exhibition: “There are three or four dozen great creators and their words are presented in fragments that, in addition to being seen, can be read,” he indicates. Among them he cites the writers José Saramago and Javier Marías, the artists Eduardo Arroyo and Louise Bourgeois, and the Nobel Prize for Literature winner Louise Glück and the novelist Toni Morrison. “You can jump from the pages of a novel to a tablecloth, passing through a model of a building or the mushrooms reproduced by Karsten Höller”, says Anaut. For Concha Marcos, director of the Bridge communication agency and collector of Bullfighterit is a well-deserved tribute to an iconic magazine “incredibly well edited and magical”.
With an eye on 2023, the year in which the Bullfighter Anaut announces the intention of not saying goodbye to his readers and looking for “something that smells of Bullfighter”. And he adds: “As we really like paper and we believe in it, we are that crazy, we would like the spirit to stay alive, in what form, I don’t know”. The only certainty is that, one way or another, the spirit of this project will continue.
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25 years of ‘Matador’, the legendary Spanish magazine that will say goodbye in 2023