Chillida sculptures at Chillida Leku in San Sebastián
Now what? Chillida Leku was our target, the pièce de la résistance of our trip to Spain. We did not imagine it would be as good as it was. How could we have? We were in the master’s garden for most of today. Near the end of his life Chillida bought an estate on a gently rolling hillside just outside of San Sebastián. He situated his sculptures in this gorgeous, natural setting so they have a dramatic dialogue with their surroundings.
We too carried on a dialog with the pieces as we walked from one to the next. Some were thirty yards or more apart so your perspective and vantage point continually changes as you approach. And when you’re near, your instincts take over. You get close enough to touch (you are allowed to) or walk around the piece or maybe back off to find your sweet spot for dialog. It was exhilarating.
We took a train up to San Sebastián yesterday and found it warmer than Madrid for some reason. Eighty degrees Fahrenheit called for a walk along the beach. We found a Chillida sculpture overlooking the bathers and then had some calamari at an outdoor restaurant.
This morning we did some exercises in our room and had our coffee and yogurt then headed across the street to a café for more coffee. We walked to Monte Orgul, the park at the end of the peninsula that wraps around La Concha. It is a good climb with many paths to chose from and lots of steps, a cemetery and the remains of old forts.
There was a Oteiza sculpture at the base of the mount. We chatted with a couple from Vancouver and stopped for a beer at the “Secret Bar” near the summit. The park was gorgeous with plenty of stunning views of the bay, the city and the mountains beyond. We ended our hike in the old section of San Sebastián and we stopped at the first place we saw for lunch. It was so crowded we had to stand but it was fabulous. We split three tapas and had a glass of Rioja.
Just a few blocks away was the Garry Winogrand “Women Are Beautiful” show we had seen advertised at our hotel. But when we got to San Telmo Museoa they told us that show had ended in January. We went in anyway and saw their permanent collection, mostly historical in nature. I copied this passage from a wall tag, “In a Europe ever more intolerant and immersed in religious wars, the witch-hunting processes revealed the extent to which the social limelight of Basque women came up against the Official Church Rites that were pagan in nature, quarrels between neighbours, and even childhood fantasies, were interpreted as acts of the devil. The result: scores of people were either burned alive or hanged, and hundreds were jailed, exiled and humiliated. The most notorious witchcraft trials in the Basque Country took place from 1609 to 1612.” We picked up a bocadillo on the way back to our place and arrived as the sun was going down.
Years ago we saw a performance of a Lorca piece in a bookstore near Plaza Santa Ana. They closed that location during the pandemic but kept their other store on Calle de Magdelana open. We stopped in that store and learned this location would soon close as we because the owner of the building planned to turn into a disco-tech.. While in the Embajadores area of Madrid we stumbled on an exhibit at Filmoteca Espanola entitled “El siglo de Margarita Alexandre, Lola Flores y Ana Mariscal.” The three women ruled Spanish cinema in the middle part of the twentieth century. Lola Flores was a revelation!
Ben Shahn’s “The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti” 1931-32 at Museo de Reina Sofia in Madrid
We are taking in as much of Centro Madrid as possible before moving on to San Sebastián. We walk in a different direction everyday, usually with an art exhibit in mind. We stop for coffee, pop in book stores, have a midday meal somewhere and stroll some more before stopping for a cerveza.
I went home with 60 Euros and some change four years ago, our last visit, and I brought it back with me this time. The smallest cafes, the Metro and even the holy card store take Apple Pay so I’m still hanging onto most of it. Years ago we would go from one Telebanco to the next.
The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres says “Even wars have rules.” How about, don’t start one? Which brings me to “Ben Shahn: De la no conformidad“ at Museo de Riena Sofia. This is a laugh out loud show. – if you take delight in Shahn’s skewering of the opposition. Shahn’s wit is fully employed in a series of paintings, photos, posters, book covers and murals. He steered clear of art movements and stayed true to the human heart as he championed the fight for a free world.
My father would have loved this show. He made sure I had a copy of Shahn’s 1957 book, “The Shape of Content,” a credo of nonconformity which he saw as a precondition for all significant artistic production and great social change.
His watercolors of the Dreyfus Affair, two paintings from the Sacco and Vanzetti series (his mural of Sacco and Vanzetti on Syracuse University’s campus is a must see), 15 gouaches on Tom Mooney, and a scathing caricature of Father Coughlin. It’s all here. He assisted Diego Rivera on his ill-fated Rockefeller Center fresco. Shahn is America’s Diego Rivera and he might just be a better artist.
Medardo Rosso “Carne altrui” [Flesh of Others], 1883–1884 in Madrid
During our time with Duane in New York I devoured as much as I could of two Brancusi books. One featured Brancusi’s photos of his sculpture (the catalog from a show we saw in Chelsea) and the other his relationship with Duchamp. With photography Brancusi brought new beauty and mystery to his work. His photography was a full fledged part of his work, presenting sculpture in a two dimensional space. As Duane pointed out – no studio photographer, no matter how skilled, could bring as as much mood and feeling to his work.
“Medardo Rosso. Pionero de la escultura moderna” at Sala Recoletos in Madrid dramatically illustrates that Medardo Rosso was way ahead of his time. Working at the turn of the century in Italy and then France he was profoundly misunderstood in his time although appreciated by Rodin, Giacometti and Brancusi. Rossi and Brancusi even traded pieces before having a falling out. Like his god-like successors Rossi doesn’t hide the heroic effort involved with creation from a lump of clay. “Carne altrui” [Flesh of Others], above, features a French prostitute.
Photography was a brand new medium in Rosso’s time and like Brancusi Rosso photographed his sculptures in a manner that transformed the sculptures. The photographs look mysterious and unreal or sometimes more real than the sculpture. Rosso’s time has come.
Group show at el Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid entitled “Common Vibrations”
I’ve borrowed my neighbor’s cajon a few times. And I hang onto it as long as I can. So this installation at the Círculo de Bellas Artes building in Madrid caught my attention. We learned the Spanish guitarist Paco de Lucía and his Brazilian percussionist were touring Peru in 1977 when they first heard the Peruvian cajon. Paco de Lucía decided to incorporate it into his music and the cajon became a feature of flamenco. We were not allowed to play these. They had speakers in them and the arrangement was surrounded by video displays of musicians playing cajones. Their sounds were coming out of the cajones. A guard was standing by.
Dos Margaritas in front of Jose Guerrero at Antonio Machón Gallery in Madrid
We are surrounded by churches in this old section of Madrid. Our place is on the fourth floor and we can see the tops of three churches, one basilica and one cathedral. We are quite happy with the place. It’s quiet at night, there are cafes nearby and grocery stores. When we step outside in the morning we hear tour guides pointing out the “oldest church in Madrid, San Nicolas.” We have not seen the inside of it yet, it always seems to be closed. We will head up to San Sebastián in a few days and eventually return to Madrid so we’ve been scoping out other neighborhoods. We walked up to Universidad, the college section, and then Malasaña, both felt really comfortable. We found too many young people in Chueca. Salesas and Justicia were low key and just right so we’ll look into renting a place there when we return.
Years ago we bought a Jose Guerrero print at Antonio Machón Gallery and we stop back whenever we are in town. Antonio recently passed and his wife, Margarita, is in the process of retiring. She was boxing up the artwork when we stopped in today. We chatted (Margarita y Margarita en Español while I watched the animation) for an hour or so and then she invited us to her art filled place for coffee and pastry and more conversation. In our last visit Margarita recommended the Abstract Art Museum in Cuenca and we loved that. We told her we were headed up to San Sebastián to see the Chillida Museum and she showed us her Chillida pieces and then gave us the catalog for Chillida’s last show (while he was still alive) which was in her gallery. She highly recommended the sculpture museum in Valladolid so that city has been added to our agenda.
Margarita told us Chillida was a goalie for a team in San Sebastián before turning to sculpture.
A plane flew low over our place in Madrid this morning. It was so loud my instinct was to hide rather than check it out. That should have been the first clue. While we were having coffee a fleet of planes flew over in formation. And then a string of clunky helicopters. We remembered that tomorrow was Día de la Hispanidad, we had it marked on our calendar, and we assumed they were warming up.
We planned to just wander today and thought we’d pop in and out of the galleries in the Doctor Fourquet area so we headed down through La Latina and stopped for another café con leche. The streets were packed with people. The first gallery and then the second were closed and only then did we put it together. Today is Día de la Hispanidad and the feast day of the Virgen del Pilar!
The parade along Paseo del Prada had finished and families with children carrying Spanish flags were settling in the restaurants. The Royal family was presiding over an official event in Palacio Royal, just a few blocks from our AirBnB so we walked back over there, stopping for tapas along the way. Crowds were gathered out front to catch a glimpse.
In the US we have mostly stripped Columbus of his renown. Spain celebrates much more on the 12th. The Spanish Empire was the first global power in world history and what is now the US was just a small part. They say the holiday is a celebration of Hispanic heritage but it comes off like a patriotic show of military might.
The Holy Day though is something else. This is the anniversary of the day the Virgin Mary’s apparition “in flesh and blood” in Zaragoza to Santiago, the apostle Saint James in AD 40.
To say that we’ve made plans for a month in Spain is not entirely accurate. We will be in Spain for a month but have only the first week planned out. That and a La Liga match with Atletico at the end of the month. We bought tickets to that last night. We’ve been reviewing notes from our past trips to Spain and, of course, looking at old pictures. This hotel in Comillas up on the Bay of Biscayne was nice. And then again we have not been down to the southern coast since since the middle 80s.
Peggi and Paul near beach in southern Spain
We came across an entry from our first trip that described how we caught someone trying to break into our rental car while it was parked in front of an historic church. It was one of first stops and they damaged the locks on both doors so we were unable to open them. Rather than return to the rental company I climbed in through the trunk for the rest of the trip. We don’t rent cars anymore. We take public transportation, look out the windows and dream.
We stayed at Duane’s place near Prospect Park for two nights and divided the bulk of our waking hours between two big box museums, the Whitney and MoMA. Outside the museums we walked seven miles or so each day with Duane (in his orange hat) as our guide. We walked the length of the High Line after the Whitney and all the way downtown after MoMA. We found “restaurants nearby” with Apple’s map and ate Mexican and Indian. My brother, Mark, came in from New Jersey and met us at the Picasso show.
I had a crazy nightmare the first night and woke Peggi with my cry for help. Sea lions, like the ones we saw in Maine when we rented a boat, were climbing onto the bed (Duane’s coach) and one of them had three long claws wrapped around my wrist. The second night there was a fire at 1:30 in the morning at the 24 hour car wash on the next block. Peggi woke up to the sirens and the flashing lights. I was aware of the disturbance and had a restless night’s sleep.
Ed Ruscha is mostly fun. Once a commercial artist, he found a way into fine art by doing uncommercial projects. Playing art director he gave himself wacky projects like photographing every building on Sunset Boulevard. Also, he was from California, an outsider to New York cool school. His paintings look like comps for ads.
Ruscha revisited his Course of Empire, a ten-painting installation originally created for the 2005 Venice Biennale, repainting the buildings a decade later with signs of dubious progress (international logos, barb wire). I saw them all at the old Whitney a decade ago. MoMA had three of the pairs in their “Ruscha: Now Then” roundup. They were my favorites.
Henry Taylor’s “B Side” show at the Whitney was a real trip for me. A trip because I went in knowing only “I’ve seen a few reproductions of his paintings that really caught my eye” but here those paintings, large and on display in the first room, struck me as blown up reproductions. I spent the first half hour or so looking for others to like. I scanned the rooms instead of proceeding one by one, following my eye and I slowly discovered Taylor could pull off more than a few good paintings.
He paints quickly with exuberance. His brushwork is like Guston’s. His portraits have real personality, real likenesses if they are someone famous. They bring Alice Neel to mind. He is playful like Basquiat, he riffs on famous paintings, adapting Whistler’s mother in his portrait of the Black Panther Party Minister, Eldridge Cleaver (above) and giving him somewhat of a dandy appearance.
With time I was laughing out loud as I found one thoroughly enjoyable painting after another. Paintings that looked simple at first looked rich and expressive. Rewarding! Henry Taylor is now one of my favorite painters.
Margaret Explosion performing at at RCTV4 in Rochester, New York
It was so good to have Jack back in the fold at our record release party on Wednesday. He says he would join every night if he could the bagel business hard core. The is a help wanted sign out front every time we stop by. We played as a five piece with Peggi’s sax and Jack’s bass clarinet to right and Ken’s unmiced double bass in the corner (that acts like a giant speaker cabinet) and Phil guitar amp and pedalboard to my left. Both Pete LaBonne, shown at the left of the photo above and Bob Martin, shown at the right, live out town now but they are both on the album. And Melissa Davies, who has been playing cello with us for the last year, was spending the night with her kids.
Because we billed the night as a Record Release Party we expected a noisy crowd but it was just the opposite. The room was full and all eyes and ears were focused on the band as we stumbled our way through an improvised set of thirteen songs. The Zoom recorder and mic, in the foreground above, captured the night for us. Here is song number 3.
listen to a live song from Margaret Explosion at the Little Theatre Cafe on 10.04.23Leave a comment
We sold quite a few records at the release party but I surprised how many people told us they didn’t have a turntable. And when I told those people that Per la Prima! is available on all the streaming services I was surprised again that they didn’t belong to any of those. So I promised I would make the songs available here as free downloads. It’s not like there is a whole lot of money in this business.
The album is getting some airplay as well and it’s interesting which song they chose to play.. Scott Regan on WXXI followed a Clash song with “Yard Bard.” Rick Simpson on WITR chose “Edge of Town,” the last song on side two and Cal Zone on WAYO’s “Magic Records” played ” played “Pungi Pie.” He followed that up with Pharaoh Sander’s new Luaka Bop release.
listen to Rosary from Margaret Explosion lp “Per la Prima!”Leave a comment
It is still a mystery as to why oak trees yield a small acorn crop some years and then a bountiful one. This year the squirrels, chipmunks, birds and deer have struck gold. This bonanza is botanically referred to as a ‘mast’ year. We have had a long stretch of unusually warm dry weather and the slightest breeze releases the nuts. We’re still sleeping with the windows open and when the nut clusters hit the metal roof of our house we get a riotous cacophony and some crazy dreams.
Peggi Fournier, Jeff Munson and Nina Gaby at RL Thomas Reunion in 2023
I go on Facebook to post Margaret Explosion gigs and this time I found some photos from last weekend’s reunion of RL Thomas high school. I snatched these two of Peggi and Jeff Munson. They’re shown talking to Nina Gaby (in the foreground.) I was sitting to Nina’s right and am thankfully out of the frame.
The reunion was a two part affair and we went to the first half, in the dismal upstairs room of the American Legion on Ridge Road. There were plenty of complaints about the stairs during the cocktail hour but it was mostly joyous, “happy to be alive” conversation. It was another opportunity for Doug Click, one of the first friends I made when I moved to Webster in the middle of fifth grade, to remind me how we used to hit balls over the hedge in right field to catch a glimpse of Wendy Williams (eventually the vocalist for the Plasmatics) sunbathing in her back yard. According to Wikipedia “She had her first run-in with the law at the age of 15, when she was arrested for sunbathing nude. Williams attended R. L. Thomas High School in Webster at least partway through the 10th grade, but left school before graduating.”
When the food came out Peggi and I sat down with Nina and Lauri Bortle. I have reconnected with Nina because we run in the same art circles. As I vaguely remember Nina was one of those girls in high school who were too cool or self assured for me to approach. Come to find out she lived near and hung out with Charlie Coco, later one of my best friends. Charlie was always surrounded by girls, not because he was a ladies man or anything but because he sort of was one of the girls. I remember Lauri fondly from Mrs. Sweeney’s class but I was struggling to remember anything else about her. Back home I looked her up in my yearbook and found this note, written at a 45 degree angle across her senior picture, carefully avoiding her features.
“Paul, Only you could come into class late every day and always make the wrong comment and still remain so innocent. Your personality is so perfective, it’s darling. Best of everything, Lauri
When I transferred from Bishop Kearney to R.L. at the start of 11th grade a guidance counsoler told me if I took Senior English the next summer school I could graduate after my junior year. But no way. I was having too much fun. So many of the notes from my classmates were about “ball-busting” or soccer. I shudder to think what I wrote in their yearbooks. Of course, these are all revisionist memories but I found the notes from my teachers to be the most informative. An eye-opening glimpse of immaturity, something I am still working on.
From my Physics teacher – “Paul, It’s been a struggle, but we’ve almost made it. Here’s hoping. Best wishes and rots of ruck, G. Ross
From Mrs. Clapp, an English honors teacher – “You seem charming in your myopic way. I thought you were great in “Teahouse” (Teahouse of the August Moon play)
I wish I had asked all my teachers to sign my yearbook especially my favorite, Miss Gertrude Wilder (math). She was so quick and witty. She would outsmart the smart Alecs and she made an heroic effort, in a meeting after class, to get me to apply myself.
Poster for Margaret Explosion “per la Prima!” record release party Wednesday, October. 4, 7-9pm at Little Theatre Café
After twenty five years, seven cds and one 45, Margaret Explosion is releasing our first vinyl lp. Entitled “per la prima!” it was recorded in the Café over the past few years. Your voices may be on this record! The espresso maker is there and Pete Monacelli can be heard saying “Yeh” at the end of the second song.
Margaret Explosion album “per la prima”
The album features Peggi Fournier on soprano sax, Ken Frank on upright bass, Phil Marshall on guitar and Paul Dodd on drums. Also included are three songs with Jack Schaefer on tenor sax, bass clarinet or guitar, two songs with Melissa Davies on cello and two songs with Bob Martin on guitar. It is jam packed!
We hope you can join us at the The Little Theatre Café on Wednesday, October 4, 7-9pm as we celebrate its official release. We won’t be playing any of these songs on Wednesday (we try not to repeat ourselves) but this will be a special performance. Albums will be available for $20 at the show. The songs on the lp are available now on the steaming services.
Listen to “Rosary” from Margaret Explosion lp “per la prima!!” Pete LaBonne plays piano.2 Comments
We spent the night in Buffalo after spending most of the day in the new Albright Knox. We stopped by Big Ditch after the gallery and then had dinner on the rooftop of an Italian place downtown. We didn’t have to checkout til eleven so we took a walk up to Allentown and wandered around. Buffalo is such a cool city. It’s bigger than Rochester, at least it used to be, and it has more history. We walked by the Buffalo Club. The sign out front said Millard Fillmore was president before becoming President and Glover Cleveland was a member. And when President McKinley was assassinated (in Buffalo) the club was used as headquarters by his cabinet and Vice President Theodore Roosevelt.
We checked out and drove across Grand Island to where my uncle lives in Niagara Falls. He’s 96, living alone in his house and still driving. My cousin lives next door and was working from home that day so all met for lunch. My uncle has lived in Niagara Falls his whole life. He show me a picture of his old girlfriend and told me she had recently died.
I showed him the picture above that I had taken just a few blocks from his house and I asked what the industry was that used to be there. It attracted our attention because their railroad track lining both sides of the street. He struggled to recognize the place. My cousin couldn’t either. We told them what route we had taken and they put it together. There are industrial leftovers scattered all through this area.
I had come prepared to ask the big question. I had asked my father the question shortly before he passed and his response stuck with me. “Would you say that in your lifetime things are getting better or worse?” My uncle paused for quite a while before saying he was worried that people want to bring the government down. So I rephrased my question. “Would say in general that the world is better place today than it was when you were born?” His response was very pragmatic. “For some people it is a lot better. For many it is worse. This area was hit particularly hard when the manufacturing industries moved out.”
My father, an engineer for Kodak, was always excited about the next big thing. He jumped onto computers before we did and welcomed every new innovation. When I asked him this question he said the world was a better place now but then he started reminiscing about how when he was growing up the parish priest knew what every kid was up to. He kept you in line and there is nothing like that anymore. If I let him go on I’m pretty sure he would have come down on the side of “this place is going down the tubes.”
Everybody thinks the music from their time was better than it is now but I guess I always assumed that the advance of civilization was moving in a positive direction. I assumed it and now I’m looking for proof. I wondering where I got this notion in the first place.
Philip Guston, Jimmy Ernst, Seymour H. Knox, Jr., Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, and Mark Rothko May 15, 1957 at Albright Knox Gallery in Buffalo
There are three generations of Seymour Knoxes. The first made his money with the Woolworth’s chain. The second, pictured above, played polo around the world and bought art from the modern masters as they were making it. The third owns the Buffalo Sabres. Seymour H. Knox (the 2nd) is seen (above) in 1957 holding court at the Albright Knox in Buffalo with Philip Guston, Jimmy Ernst, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell and Mark Rothko. Now, whose hand is that on Jimmy Ernst’s shoulder?
Robert Irwin installation “Niagara 2012” created for Albright Knox in Buffalo, New York
The Albright Knox has one of the best collections of modern art in the world and it is largely due to Seymour’s eye. The gallery/museum has continued to buy choice contemporary art so it is in good hands and with its new expansion now open they call themselves “Buffalo AKG Museum.” Boosting Buffalo is a good thing, demoting Knox to a K is kinda sad and do they have to be both a Gallery and a Museum?
Anslem Keifer “Morganthau Plan” at Buffalo AKG Museum
The collection is all that matters and it is a feast for the eyes. We started with a gorgeous Gottlieb, Rodin’s life-size Adam and Eve sculptures, Gauguin’s “Yellow Christ” where put himself on the cross. I then spent considerable time studying Gaston LaChaise’s “Standing Woman” from all sides. LaChaise considered Standing Woman to be his best work and the piece dominates the Sculpture Court. Knox bought a pivotal Pollack, a gorgeous DeKooning, my favorite Rothko, a knockout Bacon, Motherwell’s “Elegy to the Spanish Republic,” one of Horace Pippin’s two self portraits and three Gustons. We have been here so many times and I love how my favorite pieces change with each visit.
We drained the street pool, not for the season, we need to keep water in there in the winter. We drained it so someone could paint it. Only the second time since it was put in in 1960. Our neighbors on the street usually split the pool maintenance but no one wanted to go down there and breathe the epoxy fumes. It is blindingly white now and no where near as photogenic as it was.
My “Portals & Planes” show comes down tomorrow afternoon after a one month run. We plan to stay home tonight and watch yesterday’s Madrid derby. Two of our three favorite teams face each other and we must decide between the Madrid teams. We’re going Atletico over Real Madrid.
Nod was playing “Summertime,” the first song from their 1992 debut as we entered Abilene on Tuesday night, one the last official summer nights. We hear Carbon Records is planning an lp release of that classic. Nod has added other players over the years, Hugh, Larry, Chris, Jack but they have always sounded best as a trio, the essential parts. Better to hear their unique brew off off kilter rock and roll.
Margaret Explosion “Nude” September 13 2023 at Little Theatre Café
Speaking of off kilter, Peggi and I listened a 45 minute, edited version of Wednesday’s Margaret Explosion gig on the way downtown. The last time Ken couldn’t make it on bass we played with Tim (pictured above with Nod.) This time we went without a bass player and were at first alarmed by the void. But by the end of the gig we were enjoying ourselves. It is always more fun out on the edge. I made a cover for the mp3 and posted it here.”
![Medardo Rosso “Carne altrui” [Flesh of Others], 1883–1884 in Madrid](https://www.popwars.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IMG_2023-10-15-190403.jpeg)
