Visiting the Picasso Museum
So I thought I would bring a little culture to my life and visit the Museo Picasso in Malaga. I opened up Google maps and put in the location of the museum.
As it wasn’t that far from where I was staying I decided to walk rather than take a bus or taxi. I always like to see the local area and so I packed my rucksack and my camera and off I went.
I wasn’t more than 100 metres from my apartment when I noticed the Google maps app on my iphone had stopped working. Apparently I had no mobile data on my sim card. It seems that when I bought my new Lycamobile (do I get paid for product placement?) sim card earlier, it didn’t include a data plan. Maybe I need to brush up on my Spanish.
Time for me to use my extraordinary fifty-something year old memory and see if I can remember the route from my laptop. Left out the door, take the first right, left at the end of that road, left at Calle Puerto Nueva. I think after that this fifty-something will have to make do with “Donde Esta el Museo Picasso, por favor”.
One thing I noticed along the way was the number of strikingly beautiful churches and buildings in Malaga. No doubt, the Catholic faith is alive and thriving in Spain.
On arriving at the museum I had to check in my rucksack at reception where I was told that I would not be allowed to take any photos of the Picasso art but could take pictures of the information plates and any pictures I wanted of the exhibition of Women’s Art that was being staged at the same time. I know I got a good grade in Art when I was in school but I don’t think that even my talents would stretch to passing off a piece as a Picasso.
I started out going through viewing Picasso’s work and reading the information provided. I have to admit that it was amazing. My view of Picasso was of surrealist oil paintings but he is so much more than that. Not only was he a magnificent painter, but also a sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright of immense talent. In my eyes, the George Best of the art world.
With such genius, no doubt comes a darker side and to me, the way he treated his muses, he certainly wasn’t the best of men when it came to the affairs of the heart or being faithful.
The fact that he was alleged to have said “For me, there are only two kinds of women, goddesses and doormats”, it was no surprise that some of them had mental problems.
Before I left, I made sure to buy a book called “Picasso, the artist and his muses” from the bookshop to gain a bit more insight into the man and his inspirations.
The Women’s Artist & Surrealism exhibition was amazing and it was fantastic to have my eyes opened to the strength of much of the exhibits from the women, all of whom are now no longer with us. Featured were artists such as Unica Zurn, Toyen, Angeles Santos, Meret Oppenheim, Nadja, Maruja Mallo, Lee Miller, Frida Kahlo, Dora Maar and Claude Cahun.
[su_slider source=”media: 1285,1290,1289,1288,1287,1286″ width=”1280″ height=”960″]
Overall I would give this a thumbs up even if like me you are not that knowledgeable when it comes to art and artists. You can find the latest exhibition information on the Museums Malaga website here