This Thursday, the Los Llanos de Pozoblanco arena hosted the inauguration of two exhibitions photographs in tribute to Francisco Rivera ‘Paquirri’, whose death after being arrested in these same bullrings will mark his 40th birthday next week.
Pozoblanco Mayor Santiago Cabello chaired an event attended by dozens of supporters that served as a preamble to the fair proclamationwhich will take place this Friday with the bullfighter Vicente Ruiz ‘El Soro’ as protagonist, the last survivor of the shortlist of the 1984 celebration.
As Cabello explains, “to remember Paquirri is to remember a legend whose name will always be linked to Pozoblanco and whose memory we must keep alive because he was a unforgettable bullfighter and exemplary for its bullfighting but also for its values.
The first of the exhibitions, promoted by the City Hall itself, includes 18 photographs by Paquirri from the personal archives of Pozoalbense photographer Teodoro García Muñoz, known as Rafael de Los Pedrochesdied at age 77 in 2015.
As a journalist and bullfighting reporter, Rafael followed in Paquirri’s footsteps in very important places and cultivated a bond with him until his death. The images come from different eras and are taken in historic squares such as Las Ventas, La Maestranza, Valencia, Toledo or the Pozoblanco bullring itself.
The exhibition is called “Paquirri: a legend in time” and the curator is the bullfighting photographer Juan Carlos Muñoz, son of Rafael de Los Pedroches. The digitization and production work was carried out by the photographer José María Sánchez, from Studio Foto Arte.
Your first steps
The other sample is the result of a collaboration between the Pozoblanco City Council and the Bullfighting Studies Center of the Community of Madrid. The exhibition is entitled in this case “Paquirri always in memory” and is composed of 37 photographs who cross the the life of the right-hander since childhood -when he started as a bullfighter- until his last afternoons. These are images from different photographic archives such as Agencia EFE or Espasa and some of them captured by great bullfighting photographers of the time such as Fernando Botán or members of the Sevillian saga Arjona.
The councilor for celebrations, Lola García, presented the event, in which Juan Carlos Muñoz also participated and in which the mayor presented a plaque to the widow of Rafael de los Pedroches in tribute to the photographer and in recognition of the generosity of the family who selflessly donated the photographic archives.
García indicated that the two exhibitions, located in the Sol and Sombra galleries of the Los Llanos bullring, will be open from this Friday and throughout the duration of the Fair. calendar The opening is on Friday 20 and Saturday 21, from 11:00 to 13:00 and from 18:00 to 20:00. Monday 22, from 11:00 to 13:00 and from 18:00 to 20:00. From Tuesday 23 to Saturday 28, from 11:00 to 13:00 You can also see the exhibitions during the opening hours of the square for the celebration of bullfighting festivities and for various fairground activities.
