
Autumn Fair 2017
The cultural activity in the bullring of Las Ventas was resumed on the occasion of the Autumn Fair that, in 2017, was developed between the 23 in September and the 1 in October.
Exhibition "Iván Fandiño en Las Ventas"
The Center for Bullfighting Affairs of the Community of Madrid coordinated and produced an exhibition-tribute in memory of Iván Fandiño, an emotional retrospective that had more than a hundred photographs, in which the career of the Basque bullfighter was reviewed since his presentation in the capital, on September 12, 2004, until its last afternoon, on May 29, 2017. Almost twenty photographers collaborated in the exhibition, giving their images and memories of Fandiño, managing to fill the Antonio Bienvenida Room and the showcases of the line 1 The inauguration was attended by one of Fandiño's friends and colleagues, the bullfighter David Fandila “El Fandi”.
What remains of a man is memory. The true knowledge of people, also of bullfighters, is posthumous; and the memory of Iván Fandiño leads to the exemplary life of a life without concessions. No other Fandiño will be born again, not even one with a more or less superficial resemblance. Fandiño was pursuing the glory of bullfighting, the summit, with the possibility of death and defeat assumed from the first slopes. The heroic deeds do not always have a happy ending, and this does not degrade their human and heroic qualities, quite the contrary. We also learned that from Fandiño: to overcome inevitable disappointments and to look our own demons in the eye. Fandiño's personality would not have allowed another death other than his own, on the banks of the Adour river (which in Basque means luck or otherwise), by a bull that was not his and that he could not let pass. Fandiño used up the bull of death every afternoon, the bull of his own death, to the last drop. That trait, which he demonstrated several times in Las Ventas and which allowed him to open wide the Puerta Grande, made him unique and now, here and so far, from where he was his plaza we remember and honor him. Thanks a lot".
Exhibition "Instant beauty"
The Antoñete room of the Las Ventas bullring, hosted another photo exhibition throughout the Autumn Fair, that of the British Andrew Moore, fan and subscriber of the lower front of the line 9, entitled "Instant beauty", in the that an original collection of images of this season was collected in Madrid.
Other cultural events in Autumn
Also presented were the books titled "Manolete, yo me mando" by José María Lara and "Poderío y mando. Solo Joselito only "by Vicent Climent and Javier Vellón, as well as a special issue of the magazine" 6Toros6 "dedicated to the figure of" Manolete "on the centenary of his birth.
Finally, the Bullfight Club of Russia was also presented, chaired by Xenia Tenyakova, one of the youngest of the group of founders, a practical amateur who has just finished a master's degree in bullfighting journalism. "It is still curious to hear about bulls in Russian," said Manuel Ángel Fernández, manager of the Bullfighting Center of the Community of Madrid, also present at the event that closed with the performance of the Spanish dancer Mónica Fernández, a student of the Russian Ballet School, which interpreted a fragment of "The Swan Lake".