To Be Looked at (from the Other Side of the Glass)

“But where to turn? Earth endures After the passing, necessary shame Of winter, and the old lie Of green places beckons me still From the new world, ugly and evil, That men pry for in truth's name.” ― R.S. Thomas , Song at the Year's Turning Descend the stairs of the ‘Centre Pompidou Malaga’ and you enter a counterintuitive space that detaches itself from any natural light, which for a gallery you’d think to be essential. However, this subterraneous architectural decision creates a kind of liminal space, initially capturing a sterility before it transforms into a message concerning the nature of modern society. Nothing bursts out, seizes or ‘hits you hard’; all is synthetic and appeals to a cold linearity. The exhibition is uninterested in historical or stylistic compartmentalisation as the favourable method of many gallery spaces; the guidance it provides for visitors is wholly sensory. It demonstrates a hybridity of cinematography, auditory and static art ...

  “My object is merely to give the reader a general introduction into an abode where, if so disposed, he may linger and loiter with me day by day until we gradually become familiar with all its localities.”- (Washington Irving, Tales of the Alhambra)    “Coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain”- (John Masefield, Beauty)                                                  Resettled from Russia: Kadinksy alongside Malevich's Suprematism in Malaga's new modern art museum                                                      Granada's own, lost and found     ...