I had a bit of a lie in this morning and decided to take the car since I was going to visit the Automobile Museum which I thought would be interesting after seeing Cars at the V&A earlier this month. By a miracle my worst fears about parking the car on arrival were swept away by the fact that it has free parking in front – well I suppose they are all about cars. But first I went to see the other collection on the same site in a disused tobacco factory – an even more impressive building than Carmen’s in Seville. This was the Russian Museum which had three exhibitions. The first was devoted to the depiction of women in Russian art over the last two centuries and was more interesting for the social observation of costumes and customs than for the intrinsic merit of the canvases displayed – far too many in my humble opinion. Eyes started glazing over by room 5, beautifully displayed and labelled though they were. Given some of the obvious disparities between the have and have not classes it was pretty obvious why the Revolution happened. The next exhibit was the work of Nicholas Roehrich of whom I’d never heard. There were some amazing landscapes and allegorical paintings in alternately sombre and vibrant colours. He travelled a lot and ended his life in India where a wall full of square oils showed the Himalayas in all the variety of lighting stages that mountains pass through. He was a revelation but cars called so I’m afraid I skipped the third show featuring the life and works of the poet Anna Akhmatova.
The Automobile Museum was just fabulous, charting the history of vehicles from earliest steam driven carriages through the vintage cars from the USA and Europe to future concept studies. It’s massive but very engaging as the official title is Museum of Automobiles and Fashion and beside each vehicle was a designer dress or outfit from the era so you could imagine these elegant folk installed behind their chauffeurs or later taking the wheel themselves. One car reminded me of Peter Blake’s painted Mersey Ferry, Everybody Razzle Dazzle, that I’d seen last week only to discover that it was painted by Sonia Delaunay in 1928.
There were a lot of very sleek and beautiful beasts on show but I was left feeling very proud of Jaguar’s contribution to motor car design. And they had some funny ideas at Rolls-Royce too!
I then stopped off at the bus station to get a ticket for tomorrow’s planned trip to Torrox to share the Fiesta de Migas and watch Watford v Man United with an expat Watford friend. Sadly the first bus on a Sunday was at one and takes an hour and a half which would leave no time for fiesta and the last one back was at five which would leave no time after football so after a WhatsApp exchange I concluded that I’d do abstemious fiesta-ing and drive for convenience. Thence to my next port of call which was the outpost of the Paris Centre Pompidou which opened here last March. It’s an underground structure with a glitzy glazed Rubik’s cube on top. I can see it clearly from my balcony and thought it would be worth a visit.
Inside it’s a vast space with equally vast canvases and installations which appealed in varying measure. The highlights for me were a massive Miro and an equally large scale Peter Doig but I was also amused by the sheep installation that filled the first room. Sadly they wouldn’t let us sit on them despite their destiny as stools.
When I got back outside I could see my balcony up on the Gibralfaro Hill, providing a nice symmetry. The Centre is on a newish (2011) development of the waterfront in Malaga called Muelle Uno. It has trendy shops and restaurants – chain and individual and I decided it was time for some seafood and a glass of Verdejo a favourite white from next to La Rioja (will that count Les?).
I retrieved the car from the parking under Centre Pompidou with some distress. As I descended in the lift I saw no pay station and assumed it would be near the exit. It wasn’t so I had a stream of three needing to reverse so that I could go back to the machine – hidden behind the lift – and then emerge. Much tooting and muttering about Los Ingleses – expect more in future. I returned to the hotel and parked up and then started the walk back down when a convenient bus arrived to save me the trouble. However I very nearly had to arm wrestle a huge French woman to get on board. She was determined to be first despite her lowly rank in the queue and had the bulk to determine the outcome. At the city centre bus stop I walked to the Museo Carmen Thyssen to admire the work of Spain’s eighteenth and nineteenth century painters. I recognised two or three from the recent Sorolla exhibition in London now back home and was struck by how art movements seemed to move across countries with similar preoccupations in Russia and Spain in the same periods. I was warned on entry that there was to be a concert at 19.00 so my visit was enhanced by the sound check for the orchestra and warm up exercises of the choir. I didn’t stay as there were few tickets left.
My friend Graham was in Malaga a few weeks ago and had recommended the restaurant Batik – if I could find it. I wandered through a few streets, stopping for the occasional beer in the odd neighbourhood bar and discovered that Batik was close to the Plaza de la Merced and the Teatro Romano. It was great recommendation with super carpaccio de jurado and tuna tatziki all washed down by a good Marques de Riscal. While I was there a couple of young ladies asked me to take their photo and we then got chatting. One of them worked in PR for Malaga Tourism so I offered my services should they need English copywriting or proofing. While we were conversing (pitching?) the most spectacular light show took place against the backdrop of the Alcazaba which in one sequence appeared to be self-destructing stone by stone. Something similar happens every year it seems. My homeward saunter was enlivened by superb temporary Christmas light displays:
and groups of musicians at seemingly every corner. One of them appeared to me to be the Andaluz equivalent of Morris (pace Pete and Richard) while another was an energetic jazz group none of whom could have been more than twenty five, a promising sign for live music in the south. Then it was a taxi up the hill, a glass of brandy and some light blogging.
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