art and war

So on Friday I visited two different exhibits related to the Spanish civil war. The first was in the Reina Sofia museum, which is part of the trifecta of the major art museums in Madrid (the Prado and the Thyssen-Bornemisza are the other two), and was called "Revistas y Guerra, 1936-1939." The primary thrust of the exhibit was to show the art of propaganda materials in magazines, newspapers and other kinds of popular literature put out by all sides of the war. What this means is you get a kind of distillation of almost all major political movements at the time (communism, anarchism, fascism, bourgeois liberalism) and more regionally-specific movements (i.e. Catalan separatism) into visual propaganda. What was most interesting to me were the competing images of women in the exhibit and the apparent importance of these images to the production of propaganda. Communist propaganda was almost exclusively the image of a male countryside worker or a strong woman posing as a worker / possible soldier, while the fascist propaganda was all about the woman as a mother and protector of the traditional family (the "sagrada familia" if you will). In a war that became so much about proxy armies for different world powers and asinine infighting among different supposedly ideological movements, the power of this ideologically-oriented propaganda was pretty interesting to see.

The second exhibit about foreign newspaper reportage on the war was at the Cervantes Institute. It featured articles by reporters from Portugal, England, Russia and the United States and it was most interesting to see how the reporters were able to get much closer to the battles than reporters in the current war in Iraq, for example. On the other hand, much of the writing was unabashedly written from the bubble of the journalist corps, with a number of pieces describing life in fancy hotels in Madrid as bombs fall and fighting takes place just outside. The exhibit featured writers such as Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell, along with a fascinating piece by Langston Hughes written for a black newspaper based out of Baltimore about the plight of Moorish fighters on the fascist side (Franco enlisted a number of African troops to fight for his side). What the exhibit makes clear is how each foreign writer is perhaps most interested in reporting the facts of the war in a way most relevant to their audience. Relevance rather than pure objectivity seems to be the order of the day. I can't say I necessarily have a problem with that, but it's interesting to see the effect of those kinds of interests in such vivid display.

An unrelated exhibit that I also visited was a retrospective Roy Lichtenstein at the Fundación Juan March, which is about a five minute walk from my apartment. What was really awesome about this exhibit was the way it was laid out so that you can see how Lichtenstein drew direct inspiration for his work from painters like Matisse, Picasso (a lot) and Van Gogh, among others. His annotated books about works by these painters, along with studies for various paintings, show how he put his unmistakeable imprint on his own reenvisioning of these works. I've always liked what I've seen of his paintings, but this gave me an even greater appreciation for an artist who clearly values using the art of the past to create something entirely his own. Haha, look no further than Bob Dylan for the best example of that! Yeah, so I guess what I'm saying is Lichtenstein = Dylan.

Anyway, maybe I should start doing my first writing assignment for class this semester...

¡que pena!

Alright, sorry about the long break between posts to anyone who might have been following this blog with bated breath. Just trying to learn the big city is all!

Anyway, I've spent the past week and a half trying to figure out what exactly is going on in this city. What does that consist of, you might ask. A couple of concerts, a fair number of bars, a few museum exhibits have been the order of business thus far. Last Thursday I ended up talking to a guy from Barcelona who puts on some form of clown performance about Spanish politics and the lives of Spanish artists. I won't comment on the coherence of that conversation (on the part of either participant), but the fact remains that the conversation happened. I think it ended with both of us shaking our hands muttering "¡Que pena!" ("What a shame"). On Saturday I saw a concert put on by Howe Gelb, the leader of the Tuscon, AZ - based band Giant Sand. While he could be criticized for being a little too weird for the mere sake of being weird, he is clearly a talented musician and performer. The concert, which was at this place called Neu!Club (from what I understand Neu! is a German kraut-rock band from the 70s), definitely had the highest concentration of Spanish hipsters I've seen thus far. The whole scene was kind of awkward, with the language barrier impeding some of the give and take that might have taken place with an English-speaking audience. The crowd was a lot more quiet and respectful than similar American audiences, but I have to wonder how much of that was just that people couldn't figure out what to say in their limited English.

I've managed to begin to check out the bars in neighborhoods beyond the hyper-touristy Sol area, which are a lot more to my liking. Both La Latina (that's where the clown was) and the whole Chueca/Tribunal area seem to have some fun places. I'm still exploring so hopefully I'll get more of a sense of what the city has to offer in that regard.

In somewhat unrelated news, I've started writing CD reviews for a music website based in DC called BigYawn. You can find my first review here. I also wrote a couple of blurbs for the site's top 50 of 2006. #31 and #18 are mine. I see their latest interview with a band on the homepage (link is on the right) is with The Harlem Shakes, who opened up an Olde Club show last semester and proceeded to trash my apartment after the show. They stole our paprika! Don't you worry, we ended up recovering all of our stolen spices, sheets, etc.