IT’S one of the coldest, darkest weekends around Spain, where traditionally not much happens and nobody has any money or energy left.
With the festivities finally behind us and Reyes, January 6, marking the official end of Spanish Christmas, most of the country’s locals will be looking for a cheap and quiet weekend.
It’s a good time then to recall a famous artist’s ingenious money-making skills, as well as a leading film-maker and a top footballer.
SALVADOR DALI & GALA
When Andy Warhol said that ‘business is an art and art is a business’, he might have had Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali in mind.
It was on January 11, 1974, that the Catalan painter/sculptor inaugurated the Gala Foundation, which became one of the most successful money-making art enterprises in history.
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Today, nearly four decades after the artist’s death, the Foundation is making more money than ever.
It consists of three ‘museums’ – the Dalí Theatre in Figueres, the Dalí House in Portlligat and the ‘Castle Gala’ in Pübol.
Whether or not you consider Dali a genius or a madman, he knew how to make money.
As fellow artist and leader of the surrealist movement Andre Breton put it, the Gala Foundation made ‘Avida Dollars’ to use a clever anagram.
So what or who exactly was Gala?
Gala Diakanova was actually Dali’s wife and muse. After her death in 1982, he became a recluse, and did not live much longer himself.
His account of how he met and wooed her is enlightening.
He bought the most expensive red silk shirt that he could find, then ripped out the left chest area, corresponding to where his heart was located.
Proudly, he smeared his own ‘perfume’, which mainly consisted of donkey excrement, across his left nipple, and went to call on her.
Unsurprisingly, she shunned him in no uncertain terms. Dali, though, took this as a triumph.
Well, he must have done something right, because she married him in 1931, and they were separated only by death, 50 years later.
LUIS BUÑUEL
Do you loathe dinner parties, those dreadful middle-class events where everyone is vying to keep up appearances?
If so, you will enjoy Luis Buñuel’s film, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. On January 10, 1972, it won the Oscar for the Best Foreign-Language film.
The Spanish director is arguably the most sarcastic human being who ever lived, satirizing the dinner party mercilessly.
A group of ‘nice’ people (lawyers, architects) led by ‘Fernando Rey’ keep trying to hold a posh meal, but things continually go wrong.
Buñuel died in 1983. As a young man, he had been a surrealist film maker and knew Salvador Dalí and Federico Garcia Lorca well.
He attributed his wry outlook on life to his Aragonite upbringing. Aragon, he used to say, is stuck between Catalunya and Castile, and also very much part of ‘Old Spain’.
Being neither one nor the other, there was only one imperative – to laugh at both.
Buñuel lived and worked in various countries, including France, Mexico and the USA, but never lost his wholly Spanish outlook.
Today he is recognised as one of the truly great movie directors and famous internationally.
DANI CARVAJAL
This Sunday, Dani Carvajal will celebrate his 34th birthday.
The Real Madrid star and captain came up through the club’s youth system, but was surprisingly suddenly sold to the German club, Bayer Leverkusen at the age of 20.
A year later, the Madrileno rejoined Real for 6.5m euros, and has played for the first team ever since.
The full-back made his debut in the Champions’ League in September 2013, against Galatasaray, a game which Madrid won 6-1.
That first season as a senior player was a memorable one: Carvajal played 45 times, and scored two goals.
The campaign’s highlight was undoubtedly the Champions League Final.
The match, played in Lisbon, was an all-Madrid affair, Real versus Atletico and it looked like Real were going to lose, until an equalising goal forced extra time.
The Merengues scored three times in the added half-hour, eventually winning easily.
The Real legend made himself a local favourite when he gave Barcelona fans the ‘middle finger’ in 2016 and was quick to apologise.
The opening game of the 2018 season saw Carvajal on the scoresheet, netting the club’s first goal of the campaign.
It was particularly enjoyable for him, because the opponents were Getafe (and Dani is a native of the rival Madrid suburb, Leganes).
Everything went smoothly until 2024 when he suffered a serious injury tearing the cruciate ligament in his right knee, putting him out of the team for a year.
But incredibly he came back in July 2025, and looks like he’s got plenty more to give this season.
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