Postcards from Barton Springs

Traveling around the world via accordion….

September 12, 2015 postcardsfromsanantonio3 Comments

Started in San Antonio on the banks of the river with Santiago Jimenez, Jr. But then, only a short stroll away at the International Accordion Festival in La Villita, Mahala Nola transported us to Bulgaria and Serbia. Then we switched to music sounding as though it was being performed along the Seine by Musette Explosion, a trio based in New York City.

Paused between stages for a Pakistani kebab from Rickshaw Stop.

Buyebongo

Mahala Nola

Flying Balalaika Brothers

Flying Balalaika Brothers

Mahala Nola

Musette Explosion

Mahala Nola

Musette Explosion

Then went back riverside for the ruckus-causing group Buyepongo from Los Angeles. And we ended up listening to Russian-Ukranian-conjunto(?) played by the Flying Balalaika Brothers.

And that was in only four hours. If you are reading this before 8 p.m. on Saturday, September 12, stop and zip over to La Villita before it’s too late. Incredible music rarely heard in one venue, and it’s admission-free.

Postcard from Madrid, Spain: Mentioning a few more museums

September 10, 2015 postcardsfromsanantonio1 Comment

A month in Madrid, and we never ran out of museums. Doing a round-up of a few remaining ones so you can see how inexhaustible the supply.

El Museo del Romanticismo is one of several house museums positioning art and collections as though the owners still were present. A glimpse into gender expectations was provided in the toy room: a display case of toy soldiers for boys, a dollhouse full of nuns for girls.

The ballroom of Museo Cerralbo is over the top even for extravagant residences of the 19th century.

Museo Cerralbo

Museo del Romanticismo “aseo” (toilet) of Ferdinand VII

Museo del Romanticismo

Museo Cerralbo

Goya’s frescoes in San Antonio de la Florida

Museo del Romanticismo

Museo Cerralbo

Museo Sorolla

Museo del Romanticismo

Museo Cerralbo

Museo del Romanticismo

Museo Cerralbo

Goya’s frescoes in San Antonio de la Florida

Museo del Romanticismo

Museo Sorolla

Museo Cerralbo

Goya’s frescoes in San Antonio de la Florida

Museo Cerralbo

Museo del Romanticismo

Goya’s frescoes in San Antonio de la Florida

Museo Cerralbo

Museo del Romanticismo

Museo Cerralbo

Museo del Romanticismo

Museo Cerralbo

Museo del Romanticismo

A glimpse into an artist’s life and work is provided in the Museo Sorolla. Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida (1863-1923) preferred to paint his subjects en plein air, trying to capture sunlight instead of artificial light.

Oh, and then there are Goya’s ceiling frescoes and his tomb in San Antonio de la Florida….

And a large collection of art resides in the Museum of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, or Bellas Artes, because one reason Spain has produced such great artists is the country offered them support. Velazquez painted the royals; Picasso and Dali studied at the academy; and Goya was a director of the Bellas Artes. No photographs were allowed here, but the museum’s labels clearly indicate the politics of art. A Napoleonic tradition of systematically looting art was in play. Many of the pieces hanging on the walls of Bellas Artes are listed as having been retrieved from France after the final eviction of Joseph Bonaparte and the restoration of Ferdinand VII’s rule in the early 1800s.

Postcard from Madrid, Spain: Assembling clutter to stimulate creativity

September 7, 2015 postcardsfromsanantonio2 Comments

When a woman orders fruit salad for two, she perfects the original sin.

from Greguerias by Ramon Gomez de la Serna

He was a figure so influential, a generation of writers and artists working in 1914 in Madrid were lumped together under his name – “Ramon.”

The contents of the study avant-garde writer/artist Ramon Gomez de la Serna (1888-1963) began assembling in 1910, primarily from Madrid’s sprawling flea market, El Rastro, became a monumental installation piece. The encyclopedic “portable” assemblage serving as his inspirational atelier is now viewed through portals and in mirrored reflections as a museum within a museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art.