The Reina Sofia, Madrid

Statue outside the museum.

The Reina Sofia is Madrid's biggest modern art museum, a disarmingly huge building filled up with Spain (and the world's) finest creations. It is best known, of course, for the Guernica, Picasso's strangled and horrifying rendition of the brutal bombing attack upon a small Basque town. The Reina Sofia has one of the world's most extensive assortment of the works of Picasso, Dali, Miro, Juan Gris, Julio Gonzalez, and Jorge Oteiza, among other well known names. But it also boasts other fine, fine works - in particular an excellent assortment of Spanish photography from the early 20th century, Goya's lithographs of the Napoleonic years, cubists paintings, bizarre installations, and other good stuff. I am not a student of art, merely an observer, an appreciator: I approach modern art museums rather like funhouses. I am looking for something to titillate me and hold my interest. In that respect the Reina Sofia succeeds admirably.



Built out of a 18th century hospital, around a large courtyard, it's a rather linear way to lay out a musem. You wander around the columns then keep on taking the elevators up. Outdoor patios provide a good venue for large installation works.



This is the Guernica. Please tell me you've seen it. Picasso created the mural for Spain's entry into the 1937 World's Fair, in an effort to draw attention to the wholesale slaughter of civilians by combined German and Italian forces. It is an emotional flashpoint for the Basques: they have put forth multiple demands to rehouse the painting in Bilbao's Guggenheim, with no success. Picasso's statement about the painting went like this: " In the panel on which I am working, which I shall call Guernica, and in all my recent works of art, I clearly express my abhorrence of the military caste which has sunk Spain in an ocean of pain and death.[4]" The painting provided a gut-wrenchingly emotional portrayal of the horror that gripped the Iberian peninsula, and has loomed large in the Spanish pysche ever since.



This is a great story about Picasso and the Guernica, via the ever-useful Wikipedia: "While living in Nazi-occupied Paris during World War II, Picasso suffered harassment from the Gestapo. One officer allegedly asked him, upon seeing a photo of Guernica in his apartment, "Did you do that?" Picasso responded, "No, you did."



One of the temporary installations is entitled, "Are Animals People?" by Peter Fischli and David Weis. The exhibit features surrealist videos of a rat and a bear chasing each other around a cavernous palace, occasionally floating through space, choking one another, or coming upon a sow and piglets (among other occurences). The videos are sort of what I imagine a furry fans lucid nightmare to be like.



There was also a retrospective on the late Juan Munoz, a Spanish artist of near-unfathomable weirdness. The late gentleman had a penchant for mannequins, large bulbous figures, and sniggering idiots in situations of profound discomfit. I didn't like him but he did succeed in mildly wigging me out. Which I guess is why we have modern art museums. (He has this mannequin, right - it's like leaning against a wall, there's a spotlight so it casts a shadow. everyone walks around, the mannequins mouth is moving soundlessly, WHAT NO STOP THAT).

One of his installation pieces is a dark room with a mousehole in the corner, the "Tom and Jerry" theme music playing non-stop. It is kind of brilliant.


"The Wasteland." Brrr.



So this guy was hanging in the stairwells. You're thomping down the stairs in an effort to bypass the super modern but slow hotel, and hello, hanging guy in the stairwell. THANK YOU, SIR.