Madrid

So much i could talk about one of my favourite cities in the world (No3) Madrid, the buildings, history, nightlife, food, the great parks - Instead I will focus on just one the Sofia. . It is housed in a towering palace of art that looks like it’s back is being invaded by a spaceship al a independence day. A mind-blowing collection of some of my favourites like Dali, Picasso, Miro, Domínguez, and many other 1900 era painters that make one wonder what the temporary exhibits will hold.
And wonder i did...


Included was a display of strange boxes (in hindsight cupboard shaped) behind one was a passage.. I snuck stealthily into the pitch black room which was bare-brick and vaulted ceilings holding fans, which remained me of underground at work, unlike work after a few moments shapes emerged from the darkness and then i could see something a small white thing in the corner, I got close and realised it was a motion sensor alarm. I returned to the ante-chamber and leaned conspiratorially toward the guard and asked him whether this was art, he smiled politely and said yes. I mused “and people pay for this?” (though due to my limited Spanish I said this in) English to a once again mute guard who shrugged through understanding or not. And before i wondered back to the main galleries as I read the manifesto of MIROSŁAW BALKA’s work “Like the other elements in this charged installation the wardrobe, too, may be read in diverse ways. For the artist, it brings to mind the closet used by Anne Frank’s family to conceal the secret place in which they hid from Nazi sympathizers” to me it seems like a day at work what does that say?


Later i walked into a blank gallery with only spaces for artwork to be hung, an i nodded self-assuredly to the blank wall thinking, “ah ha a statement about that the space in which art is exhibited is itself art, a quintessential message about emptiness which...” at this point my thoughts were interrupted by a sign which said “gallery closed for refurbishment to re-open march 2010”... woops!

I could give many more examples of this sort of thing but i prefer not to, when this gallery holds so many great works, dwell on the decline of art. Suffice it to say that in my opinion after the height of early-cubism and impressionist avent-grad styling’s we descended (in madness) to the sort of post modernist abstract expressionist crap that wastes our time money and art-materials. What was it after 1930s that made artistic talent fade like phantoms in a fishbowl. I’m not sure if that makes any sense but i have had not enough sleep and too much art for my own good.

As an afterthought I would feel more confident in my view of late modernism if my sentiment wasn’t shared by Hitler and Stalin – but then maybe there is a little of that in all of us... seriously? Red square on white?? Dripping paint on a canvas? Painting with a blindfold on while on crack? We pay for this??