Meanwhile Back In Málaga

And on the…sixth day, we rested, worn out by toing and froing with Ms. Boyes. (This was Saturday, March 4 – I'm still playing catch-up here.) It was cool and a bit rainy in Málaga. We spent most of the day indoors, but did sally out briefly twice.

In the morning, we walked up the street to the small produce market near us. It’s in a lovely old, slightly down-at-heels building that on this morning was very crowded and busy. It’s almost entirely fishmongers and butchers, though, which was disappointing as we were looking for apples. We didn’t find any we couldn’t get at the Mercadona.

In the middle of the day, we had a long Skype with Caitlin, then in the afternoon, did our shopping at the Mercadona. And that was it for outings. Scrabble, dinner and TV rounded out the day.

On the Sunday, we had a two-museum day. Museums in Spain are often free all or part of Sunday.

In the morning, we went to the Museo Revello de Toro. It’s a gallery devoted to the work of Felíx Revello de Toro, a mid-20th century Málaga-based artist, still living, who made his name as a society portraitist in the 1960s and 70s. He’s also, or was, a professor of drawing at a local art school. He is apparently highly regarded in Spain, or at least in Málaga, but doesn’t even rate an article in the English-language Wikipedia.

Self-portrait of Revello de Toro

The work is very skilled, but not terribly original. At first I thought it was a waste of space, but gradually began to see what a tremendously skilled draftsman he is, and how keen an eye he had for feminine beauty. Many of his subjects were family members, including his wives – both classic Spanish beauties – and daughters.

The museum is housed in the renovated home and workshop of a famous 17th century religious carver, Pedro de Mena. None of his work is on display here, but there is an exhibition of it at the ArsMálaga gallery in the Palacio Episcopal, the Bishop of Málaga’s residence across from the cathedral. The Revello de Toro has a video about the man. Judging by the carvings shown in the video, he was a great sculptor – albeit of mostly boring subject matter.

We wandered around the historic centre some more. Pictures, naturally, ensued. They include shots of some pretty good street art, although the city is not the open-air art gallery that Valencia is.

Main entrance to Mercado Centrale

Plaza de la Constitución

In the afternoon, after lunch at home, we walked down to the harbour to the Centre Pompidou Málaga. It’s a branch plant of the Parisian contemporary/modern art museum. It reportedly costs the city (or province?) €1 million a year to have it here.

Pompidou Centre cube from inside

Karen doesn’t much like contemporary art or art of the second half of the 20th century, but even she was impressed by this place. It’s organized by themes. One section, for example, explores how and why artists found new ways to represent the human form after Cubism broke the mold. The commentaries in the free audio guide are very good. They helped me appreciate and understand a little better, if not necessarily like, works on which I normally wouldn’t waste a second glance.

I’m not a huge fan of art video, but there were two installations here that I liked. One by the French artist, Pierrick Sorrin, includes 32 screens showing full motion video of faces created by electronically combining elements from people of different races, ethnicities and genders. I have no clear idea how the artist achieved this. The resulting composites are convincing, at least at first glance, if sometimes a little grotesque. The mouths speak words or make sounds, which you can hear when you’re standing in the room, although I couldn’t make out the words.

The other work is a series of installations dotted around the museum, created by the British artist, Tony Oursler. He creates scarecrow-like dolls with clothes for bodies and oval, cloth-covered faces that serve as screens for video projections of faces talking. They’re again, strangely convincing, and a little eerie. The first one was a guy talking about some kind of theatrical production. He’s mounted high up on the wall, and if you stop to look up, you find yourself engaged, as if listening to a real person.

There are some major artists represented here, though not often by major works. The Frida Kalo portrait, for example, is tiny. The Picasso is not top calibre. A Joan Miro sculpture is unlike anything of his I’ve seen before. The Chagal is a very nice one, and quite typical of him.

The most often mentioned piece in the collection is “Ghost,” a 2007 installation by Kader Attia, a French-Algerian artist. It depicts Muslim women bowing in prayer. Attia created the hollow figures using rolls of tinfoil, wrapping them around models. There are 133 figures, each different.

For the Monday, we had two ideas: visit the interpretive centre at the Roman Theatre and walk up Monte Gibralfaro, the spine of hill between the harbour and the northeast end of the city. The Castillo Gibralfaro, the Moorish castle at the top, was according to the information we had, closed. But it would be a walk. We had to nix the theatre idea because it was closed – cerrado – as many of the city’s tourist attractions are on Monday.

We walked up Calle Mundo Nuevo (New World Street), a now pedestrian-only street that winds up the city side of Gibralfaro through mostly coniferous forests. It’s surprisingly quiet and peaceful. I’m sure it’s busier in the season, but we saw nobody except some school kids doing a cross-country run. (It was like a flashback to school in England, with the inevitable fat boy bringing up the rear all on his own, looking miserable.)

When we got to the top, we weren’t sure at first where we’d come to, or whether we’d be able to get back down by a different route. We’d in fact come out just below the castillo. We walked up towards it, towards the harbour side of the hill, and came to a mirador, with some nice but tree-obstructed views over the harbour and the bullring directly below.

Then we walked up to the castillo itself which was open. We’d read somewhere that it wasn’t open until April. We could see people walking on the battlements, from which I assumed, correctly, that there were more good views to be had. The entry fee was only €1.20 for both of us, so in we went.

There is very little there, except a small military museum with manequins dressed in uniforms of different periods, a lot of text in Spanish and some artifacts – mostly weapons. Not of huge interest. Otherwise, it’s just the heavily restored walls. But they do give great views, out over the city and distant mountains in one direction, over the harbour and sea in the other.

You could circumnavigate the fort walking along the battlements. We walked about three quarters of the way. Then headed back down to the city by a fairly steep footpath on the front – or harbour side – of the hill. There were more great views along the way.

And that was pretty much our day. It wasn’t a long walk, but it was a fairly hard walk with the hills. The downhill portion was almost as hard because so steep.