Art has the beautiful capacity to encompass everything, to expand, to capture, to welcome, to upset, to possess, to be. He inhabits every corner, heart and auditorium, cinema hall and photo album. It always generates something, it always says, sounds and moves. Its existence is precious and the bond it generates with those who receive it, contemplate it and benefit from it is always different; but it is also always a gift, to be preserved, cared for and shared. For Alejandra Fierro Eleta, art was both a refuge, an escape and a passion from a very young age.
His need to broadcast the songs he discovered found its place in amateur radio, from which he began to show the subjects that fascinated him. They come from Latin music from which their roots draw (his father is Venezuelan, his mother Panamanian and his uncle, Carlos Eleta, the author of the bolero The story of a love). Her predilection for these sounds made her one of the great people responsible for its entry into Spain, thanks to her dedicated work as a collector and on the radio. But for this he had to invent a new identity. When she told her father she wanted to start a Latin music station, his response was, “Not with my name.” This is how Gladys Palmera radio was born in 1999.
Since then, Alejandra has maintained her precious archives, which currently include approximately 54,000 vinyl records and 25,000 CDs that reside at the headquarters of her foundation, located in San Lorenzo de El Escorial (Madrid). His house, little by little possessed by the enormous quantity of sound archives, is a living museum in which music coexists with numerous cinema posters, photographs and even a dress by Celia Cruz, which decorates one of the staircases of the imposing residence. Even the light seems to enter differently through its windows.
There is no wall without shelves filled with works, tables on which the latest acquisitions are not classified, or display cases without objects ranging from the costume worn by the dancer and singer Joséphine Baker to the matchboxes of the years 30.
There are censored CDs, volumes that contain everything from poetry to speeches by Fidel Castro, and a laundry list of figures like Juan Andrés Milanés. Contemporary Cuban artist who has recorded albums containing testimonies of sexual abuse and working on objects related to these affairs, such as an office chair. The house is completely occupied and to make the most of the space, they have even adapted, for CDs, cabinets designed for pharmacies, which in the house, instead of medicines, are used to store melodies.
Interest from the Ministry of Culture
Tommy Meini is the lead curator and responsible for the Gladys Palmera Collection, who in addition to serving as a guide through this particular paradise – Alejandra Fierro was unable to be present for the tour – explains that they neither sell nor want the huge archives that will be auctioned in the future. From there, they are in talks with the Smithsonian Institution of the United States and the Spanish Ministry of Culture. The two public institutions wish to acquire it. “Alejandra wants it to be a donation and we prefer that she stays here,” explains the manager. “One of our requirements is that the collection continues to grow and live. May the Gladys Palmera project not die and all this does not remain in a cellar. We want to keep it like this, in a more central location, so people can come,” he says.
Ministry sources consulted through this means confirm the interest of the Administration led by Ernest Urtasun in the archives, and also hope to close the proposal “soon”, between the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025. Among the negotiations is the determination of its possible location. One of the options considered is the transfer of the collection to one of the buildings that make up the complex of the former Military Pharmacy, located on Embajadores Street, which will be transformed into the new headquarters of INAEM. “The project with the Ministry of Culture is ideal,” recognizes the commissioner. The attempted agreement coincides with Gladys Palmera’s 25th birthday, celebrated on October 11 at the Reina Sofía Museum, with a day of dances and rhythms of African influences such as danzón, chachachá, mambo, rumba, cumbia , salsa and vallenato.
The station must continue to be a platform for young talents, which it also continues to promote through its YouTube channel, which has more than 1,800 artists who have recorded in its facilities or on the radio since its beginnings: “Alejandra supports independent music. A Shakira or Jennifer López already have their radio stations which animate them, she has always wanted to support independent artists. She was a pioneer in not supporting major record labels. “He didn’t let himself be told what he should do.”
Those making concessions are individuals who have contacted them because they have albums in which their family members participated. “There are people who have written to us, for example, because their father was a sound engineer on a specific album and they would like to have it. There, we provide them with a service, we record it and transmit it to them,” he comments about a situation that “happens often.” What they achieve are exchanges with repeated albums. This happened to actor Matt Dillion, who came to the Foundation looking for photographs for his documentary. The great Felloloveand they ended up exchanging other works.
The collection catalog can be consulted publicly, since as soon as the acquisitions are made, they are integrated into its database, after passing through the space that they call the “kitchen” of the Foundation. A room located in one of the buildings that make up the space. There, they place the vinyls in acid-free plastic sleeves and photograph them for archiving.
One of the tasks they outsource is the processing of movie posters, which indicates that these are the most complicated works to obtain. Since they are found in movie theaters, there usually aren’t many copies of them, and those that do exist often have creases or are damaged by the material they were glued together. To restore them, they are glued to neutral, acid-free fabrics and the damaged areas are painted. A job that the commissioner describes as “very delicate”.
As for their price, feature film posters range between 100 and 300 euros, while in the case of vinyl they can be worth between 3,000 and 5,000 euros. “Sometimes restoration costs more, but it can also happen that you find a record for ten euros,” he shares about certain copies that can be found in all kinds of places, including in unsanitary basements. When it comes to classifying them, beyond being listed alphabetically by their creators, they have their own nomenclature with stickers of different colors depending on whether they appeared on the radio, if they are photographed and whether Alejandra has listened to them, which leaves a record of their selections on post-its that they keep next to each vinyl.
During the trips that the curator makes to acquire new pieces, recently to Mexico and Panama, he does not have a fixed budget: “Alejandra gives me 100% confidence and allows me to buy everything I consider useful . The last major addition was designer Izzy Sanabria’s archive, which includes photographs, magazines, posters and negatives. “He gave them to us without filter,” explains Tommy Meini, since among them they even found intimate photographs, among which were pictures of their author, naked.
Women in Latin music, at Casa de América
The oldest register of the Foundation dates back to 1829 and some of the most curious had the objective of learning to dance to Latin rhythms. In addition to the vinyl, they contain templates for where to place your feet on the ground, as well as instructions.
Another room in the house is occupied by the exhibition that Casa de América will host next year, dedicated to Latin women in the music industry. There are photographs, documents and objects. The curator suggests that there will be a corridor dedicated to a controversial subject: sexist records.
“We see to what extent women have been degraded. As male consumers were the ones who mainly bought the records, their image was used a lot,” he describes, pointing to certain copies with sexualized female bodies. One of the most striking is that of Los Pacheco, which depicts a young woman with an open shirt, and on her breasts we can read: “Throw it here” and “sauce and flavor”. They extend from the 1950s to the 1980s. The exhibition will also show new song artists who have managed to carve out a special place for themselves, such as Mercedes Sosa.
If today there are artists who criticize the fact that there are magazines or media that retouch their body to refine it or eliminate wrinkles, at that time this type of practice was already practiced, not painting directly than on the negative. Something that will also be seen in the exhibition at the cultural center located in Madrid next year.
The activity of the Gladys Palmera Foundation coexists with another project launched by Alejandra in 2009, the Escuelita del rhythm, located in Portobelo (Panama). A free center that uses music as a tool for social transformation, where IT and English are also taught, and which has a community space where families can go and do activities like dancing and watching films.
Photographs of the academy hang on the walls of the house. These snapshots are part of the ecosystem of the precious abode in which music appears as a sound, living and immortal abode. A treasure trove of Latin sounds that continues to grow, composing its own history and perpetuating soundtracks that would take more than fifty years to hear in their entirety.
