Trippy Reina Sofia!!

This past week has surprised me with the amount of fun things we are still able to find and entertain ourselves with. On Wednesday, Ashley and I went for a run on the perimeter of the park. Despite the fact it was freezing all day, the sun had come out and the trail we went on reminds me so much of Waveny. We sat on this grass patch for a while enjoying the warm sun and hurried over to Alcalingua (our school) for a flamenco class! None of us took it seriously so it was a lot of fun. It really helped me appreciate the show we went to last week and how incredibly talented the performers were! In class we started to put a routine together so maybe by the end of our stay we’ll have a performance or something!

Thursday: The missionaries came over for almuerzo which was a fun experience. It was nice to see how Nieves can connect with us through the church and how we can see that we have a lot in common. We asked how talking to people here must be and they said it was quite hard. After, Ashley, Kip and I went to the REINA SOFIA. On our way, I saw my first group of protesters in Madrid. They were gathered outside of the McDonalds and were preparing to march up the street. There were tons of Police cars around and we stood around for a bit to try and figure out who they were. Our theory is that it was the “communist” political party ironically standing outside of a capitalist business. But who knows what it actually was. After we hopped in line to go to the Sofia. I knew I wanted to see Guernica by Picasso and I heard from some other students that there was a 9/11 exhibition. We didn’t know where everything was so we figured we could start on the top floor and work our way down. The elevators were cool enough to tide us over because they were on the outside of the building so you could look out over the square as you were climbing up the building. The theme of the fourth floor was work from the end of World War II until the 1980s. These exhibitions were far from the work displayed at the Prado. Each painting was obscure and unique – you really need to have an open-mind going into the Reina Sofia. It blew me away how real an author could be – there were no limits. For example, in some of the rooms a movie would be playing on the wall and the first thing we saw was footage from a concentration camp of a bulldozer piling bodies – definitely not my initial expectation walking into the Reina Sofia.

I must admit that I am not an art major or anything but I do try my best to appreciate all the artwork displayed by taking several minutes out to analyze the paintings. I found myself asking, “What qualities does this have over my 7 year old cousins’ drawings?” Because a lot of the art was like that! But anyway, I really enjoyed that though. The fact that the artist can get you to question the meaning and origin of his work shows that it has power and it is a successful. Sometimes you can find detail in something that appears to be incredibly random at first glance. A lot of the art displayed wasn’t necessarily paintings; there were movies, collages, sculptures, newspaper clippings, photography, displays of items artists had put together. Some were colorful, others were funny and a few had political statements behind them. There was one collage comprised of newspaper clippings of Kennedy’s assassination with other drawings and colors added to it. There was another display that was a map which was adjusted so that Miami and Havana were touching. It was made in 1969 so possibly referring to the Bay of Pigs scandal etc. We worked our way downstairs which had these separate rooms with curtains where it would be completely dark and you could sit and watch a movie. If you thought some of the art was obscure, then the movie were indescribable. Kip was saying that one of the rooms literally filmed a tree for hours and the voice-over said “tree” with an echo over and over again…. There was another movie we sat down to watch that was projected onto a screen but some clips somehow projected onto all the walls of the room – it was similar to a 3D effect. Finally, we found the 9/11 exhibition. I don’t think anyone can be emotionally prepared for it. At first you look at the first several cover pages and you nod your head in an appreciative manner. But as you continue to walk and look at the cover pages throughout the world, it begins to jog your memory of that horrific day. You begin to realize what an effect it had internationally. You see different language prints but the same pictures on the cover pages. It was the most powerful art exhibition I have every been to. Although we think that the world is very divided at times, a display like this truly shows that certain crises and tragedies are things that the world can recognize, mourn and agree on the devastating nature of the event together. After that display, we were all kind of worn out (and running out of time). There is no doubt that we will be back to Reina – we didn’t even get a chance to see Guernica!