Between Germany and Spain, we managed to get out and see some art this year.
For me, one of the best exhibits was Santi Moix, a native of Barcelona now living in New York. We went to see a show downtown in Barcelona after I saw a flyer somewhere — otherwise I’d not heard of him. His use of color and organic shapes was joyful and inviting. He does abstract painting, but also flowers and people and places. In addition to painting, there were drawings and colorful ceramic pieces, mostly of flowers.
One of Moix’s themes is that of ‘rippling,’ representing how people touch or influence each other even in unknown ways, and thus live beyond death. This is expressed by colorful circles and lines shooting or cascading outwards across a canvas — very beautiful and positive.
In April we saw an exhibit of Marcelo Brodsky, an Argentinian exiled to Barcelona, called Poetic Resistance. This was a terrific show. Brodsky incorporates text and paint/color onto political photographs, a way of “intervening.” This has surprising, vibrant effects.
We also saw an Edvard Munch show in Berlin in early December, the flipside on Santi Moix in its darkness. I learned a little about Munch’s life, which was informative regarding his work. The first room of the exhibit included mostly landscape paintings by other Scandinavian artists, meant as contrast to Munch’s work.
In Barcelona I’m lucky to live close to the Mapfre photography foundation, where this year we saw William Eggleston and Ilse Bing.
In October we went to Madrid to see the three big museums: the Prado, Reina Sofia and Thyssen-Bornemisza, which are all within walking distance of each other. We have to go back to Madrid to actually look at the city!
The Reina Sofia was the first we went to, where they had Picasso, Braque and Juan Gris and so much more. In general, I didn’t think the space showed a lot of the work in an optimal way, though it was a worthwhile collection. The Prado was huge and bursting with old masters, too much for a short trip.
My favorite of the three was the Thyssen, which we visited the last day. It was a great collection, modern and heavy on Americans. When we got there I felt like someone had thrown open a door and blown all the dust away. It had Joseph Cornell, Kurt Schwitters, Georgia O’Keeffe and some great Charles Burchfield (that reminded me of Santi Moix), as well as lots of really good and fun old masters.
Earlier this month we also dropped in rather by accident to the Sala Dalmau in Barcelona and saw a super exhibit of Miguel Peña‘s mixed media work. Peña is a painter who incorporates collage into his work, which I found really exciting and refreshing.
We were considering going over to the Städel today to see the Holbein exhibit, but the museum changed its opening times for the New Year holiday, and is closed. So it looks like we’ll start 2024 with Holbein tomorrow.