La Tomatina, Buñol (Valencia)
The sunny Mediterranean city of Valencia in Spain is world-renowned for its tasty and succulent oranges. And just thirty miles away is Buñol, another town just as famous for its produce. But its notoriety comes from the locals' habit of wearing the produce as well as tasting it: every year, Buñol hosts La Tomatina, the world's largest tomato fight. Situated only 30 kilometers inland from the Mediterranean Sea, and well-connected by motorway and rail to Madrid and Valencia, this charming town erupts into a fiery blaze of tomato-hurling on the last Wednesday of every August.
Does it make sense to speak of free markets at all, when so many public and private institutions have a role in shaping what art, careers, and exhibitions? Does it matter that artists mostly never share the benefits?
And the sudden rise and slow relapse
Of the long multitudinous rain.
The 2009 winner of Europe's most valuable art award, the Roswitha Haftmann Prize, is the American artist Vija Celmins.
Brandi Homan is the author of Hard Reds (Shearsman Books, 2008), and Two Kinds of Arson, a chapbook from dancing girl press. She is editor-in-chief of Switchback Books.
Poem in Which I Am My Own Porn Star
Most days I just want to live
in a Crate & Barrel catalog.
I can't stop watching Law & Order.