2023 may be the year of many artists—there’s still time to see some real hits—but it’s definitely the year of Lola Flores. The centenary of his birth was celebrated on January 21 and, just two months later, a museum dedicated to his figure was inaugurated in his native Jerez.
The presentation ceremony – which took place at the González Byass winery – was attended by the girls of La Faraona, Lolita and Rosario Floreswho has already anticipated the great expectation of the Cultural Center: “Maybe tomorrow there is no place for the inauguration and I will not say ‘go’, but ‘go away'”, said the Flores clan elder.
Together with the mayor of the municipality of Cádiz, Mamen Sánchez, the two artists shared with emotion some words about their mother on this very special day: “She was a woman from the city, from Calle del Sol, to stand l with each other. He said she looked like the Virgen del Rocío, because people brought their children closer to her so she could touch them.“, said Lolita.
Lolita and Rosario Flores with the Mayor of Jerez, Mamen Sánchez, at the inauguration of the Lola Flores Cultural Center. / John Charles Bull/Getty Images
“These are her experiences,” she added of the museum, “although she would have liked it to be in her birthplace, but there are only five rooms there. She wasn’t aware of the size of the museum.”
Rosario, for her part, claimed that “my mother was an explosive bomb.” And, about this place, which is already a precious eternal tribute to Lola that “my sister and I are going to lose our hearts, because my whole life is also there”.
A museum equipped with the latest technologies
The Lola Flores Cultural Center, in addition to having the future flamenco interpretation center, will be equipped with state-of-the-art technology to recreate the figure of La Faraona. Thus, those who visit this space will be able to see her sing and dance again, while she accompanies them through the different exhibition rooms.
Nearly two hundred items and pieces as remarkable as his clothes, his drawings, his various awards and his films were donated to the museum. Examples that prove that she was a woman ahead of her time, transgressive and who brought great modernity to an art as traditional as flamenco through fashion and design.
Since there is no physical space for all of the objects that have been collected, the exhibit will change over time.