Last April we had planned to go to Seville to see some Flamenco. We ended up not going because somehow I contracted a virus called Campylobacter and ended up super sick and all dehydrated and in the hospital for three days.
Seeing real Flamenco has always been on my list. I think it is something I inherited from my hispanophile father. Well, at least he was an hispanophile until he went to Spain on a tour after my mother died. Sadly, he was no longer impressed, but actually disappointed. He saw too many swastikas drawn about in the Spanish cities for his own comfort.
Last week, while I was lucky enough to be in Barcelona with Dee and Alexa, I did see some swastikas. Two of them. Near the Miro museum. I was thrown aback though. They had circles drawn around them and lines drawn through them. It was all in the same hand, done by one person. A little odd: Stamp out swastikas by drawing one and then drawing a line through it? Questionably effective at best. I had to ponder that one, albeit is better than the alternative.
I have quite a lot of affection for graffiti and and I really appreciate public art. I see it as an interesting way to learn about the state of the heart of a city. I look at graffiti for hearts and photograph them. I have a running log of hearts from all over the world now.
Some cities have a ton of hearts and some don't. Oddly, despite the fact that there's a ton of graffiti in Barcelona (it's mostly contained to garage doors, kinda of like "obedient graffiti"...) there are very very few hearts. The two cities so far, where I've found the most are hearts are Jerusalem and, of course, Paris. But after being in Barcelona and liking it so much, I now question whether I can judge the amount of love in a city by its amount heart graffiti.
So anyway, Flamenco. We did get to se an impressive late night show in a teeny venue, and absolutely loved it. I was enthralled and I think I loved it more than I thought I could! I think my father would be proud.
Flamenco is like an in your face lesson in "damn right someone's done me wrong but I'm going to feel it and sing and dance about it anyway!!!" The dancing is so heavy. Stamping and stomping and banging. Wood against wood. Like a toddler having a fit. And it's also incredibly light and graceful. The songs are sung so high by men with the deepest of voices. It feels like everyone is straining. But, at the same time, not at all. Despite the songs being so full of angst and loneliness, there they are, in this close group, supporting each other. There they are. Dancing, clapping, singing. It's like they're saying, "if you have a body, you need nothing else because then you'll never be alone."
Flamenco seems like an art of opposites existing at once. Opposites that need each other in order to exist. Maybe you can't fully understand one thing until first you feel it's opposite. I could relate relate to that. After being so mad at life, now I can forgive life and let it be what it is. Embracing it I don't expect one particular thing or another. It is supposed to be a dance of opposites...
I loved the keys we got at our hotel room in Barcelona. They commissioned a number of artist to create designs for their key cards. One of ours was hot pink and said "OBNOXIOUSLY HAPPY" on it. I feel like that sometimes. I took that key home. I'm going to frame it. Obnoxious. I know.
I also keep thinking of the Picasso museum in Barcelona. It's a very fresh and proud perspective of his work. They have the earliest of his paintings there. Self-portrait oil paintings done when he was a young boy of fifteen. They were as moving as Rembrandt. In the exhibit you are able to see him develop through the years as he passes through each period. His Social Realism paintings brought tears to my eyes. He had a heart wrenching ability to depict the sadness of loving a sick person. This is called Science and Charity.
As he changed it seemed clear that he trusted himself. He was able to continually reinvent his approach toward creating art. This exhibit celebrated how he was continually exploring and trying new things.
There is one room at the Picasso museum that is so ornately decorated with gold leaf molding that hardly a painting could stand up to it. The curators were brilliant not to hang anything on the walls. They built beautiful glass cabinets in the center of the room that held the most charming oversized ceramic plates that Picasso made in his very late years. Each plate had a simple asymmetrical portrait etched or built into the center of it.
Childlike and so evolved, much Like Matisse's paper cut outs, I admire so much how these artists were inspired and working up until the last minute. Until they couldn't anymore. They lived very very full lives. Inspirational (to say the least).
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