Monday May 31, 2010
After classes on Monday, I went on an IES-guided tour of La Reina Sofia, Madrid’s huge modern art museum. The museum is composed of two buildings, a huge old stone hospital converted into an art museum and a new, slick, red and grey building with interesting architecture that makes you go, “Oh, it WOULD be a contemporary art museum.”
When we walked into the plaza between the old hospital and the new building, we spotted the large art library in the basement through a wall of glass. I teased Nikita with a “You WOULD,” because she made a beeline for it. Our guide pointed out the gigantic Lichtenstein sculpture, Brush Stroke (1965), standing grandly before the entrance of the museum. When the female guide (I don’t recall her name) asked what we thought it was, I totally CALLED IT. Think Colbert style.
The tour guide took us around to see a couple main paintings of the most famous artists of the museum in the two hours IES had planned. Some observations: I’m still not so into postmodern still-life, no matter how much someone can break it down for me. It’s still still-life. Dalí was a crazy, crazy man. I wonder what was going through his head. I loved how we could interpret one of his painting seven different ways, depending on how we see it and whether or not we know what we’re looking for. But once we had directions from the guide, certain things started jumping out at us. It’s like hearing that parents wanted to band “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen when it came out, because it sounded like the band sang “It’s fun to smoke marijuana” if played backwards. Once I knew about this tidbit, all I could hear was “It’s fun to marijuana” whenever I heard the song backwards. And you know, I listen to songs backwards all the time…
And can I say Guernica is fucking big?! Apparently it’s an impossible task to transport it. I would imagine. The guide talked the whole time about its history and the many symbols Picasso used to portray the emotions of the attack and of the war. In front and around the painting, there were many people standing around, listening to audio guides, looking, and trying to sneak pictures, which caused the security guard to sharply shush to stop them. I saw so many things that I didn’t notice before when looking through a computer screen or on Señora Maas’s overheads. *Remember overheads?! And their pens that smelled like fish?!) Like the body of the horse or the cow. Or the characteristic tear-shaped eyes accompanied by the mouths open in a scream in agony. There’s something about the enormity of the painting that made it hard to ignore.
People scattered when the tour ended, but Nikita and I wanted to stay to look at the rest of the museum. We chilled with Alex and Valentina in the museum’s green courtyard for a while, in which stood a Calder sculpture, reminding me of delicious hot breakfast at Lords and Commons. Ah, I can’t wait for Yale oatmeal!!! Don’t get me wrong.The food here with my host family is great! I will do a special blog about it later. Alex and Valentina were lame, so they headed home. Nikita and I got audioguides, because we’re dorks (well, I was, ‘cause I suggested them, then Nikita was, because she thoroughly enjoyed them. Yay, I converted her!). I confess, I listened to the descriptions in English, because I just love the language people use to describe art. l Listening to the background music and the curator is in itself an experience that I didn’t want to miss out on, because I’m focusing so hard to catch the few art words I know in Spanish. Besides, I already had a two-hour real-life guided tour in Spanish before.
We ran from one room to the other, panicking to see everything at once. The museum is way big, and I’m going to have to return another time, because the two additional hours weren’t enough to see the whole thing. It’s also so different looking at contemporary art, because it isn’t immediately allegorical, a lot of it is about how it makes you feel. So it takes quite some time to really look at a piece.
They used to be costumes!
When we were exiting a gallery into a big corridor, we happened upon this stroller that was facing us and sitting on top of the ramp. My first reaction was that it was going to roll backwards, but instead, it wheeled up the ramp toward us. And it kept coming, focusing in on me, ready to run me over. Surprised, I backed away into the corner, but I wasn’t quick enough, so it ran over my feet. That’s when I saw that a little boy shorter than the stroller was blindly pushing it. Nikita and I burst out in laughter. We actually thought that the stroller was automatic.
After being kicked out around 9:00, we headed over to Sol to grab dindin (at a Turkish fast food restaurant; first time eating Turkish fast food, lawlz. And I got free meat! [long story] Yay!) before meeting another group for churros y chocolate at Chocolatería San Ginés. The place is just so cute, you can’t help going there! I split a serving with Nikita, because I just can’t handle the whole thing, because the chocolate is so rich. According to Isabella’s señora, Spaniards commonly eat churros y chocolate around 5 am after a night of partying/discoteca-ing. I guess Chocolatería San Ginés is their Yorkside or A1. Haha.
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