First stop: Alcázar. For a good sense of what it is like, especially the architecture, which is stunning, look here:
In addition, here are two iPhone shots of gardens:
and with palm tree in front:
My favorite spot de todo was this window The green you see is not stained glass, but trees!
Of course, there were lots of colorful mosaics. Even ceilings were decorated with tiles:
Some made of lace, or even feathers:
Next stop, after a 45 minute walk, was the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo. Just for starters, the site of this museum is a former monastery! Is that the best setting for state-of-the-art art or what!
As you enter, you are greeted, as well you should be:
Some of the pieces may have been left—or not— from when the monastery was used as a monastery, like these marble people lying atop caskets (tombs?):
¡Sean dos! (make that two):
This installation of open doors is more than meets the eye. These are not simply doors for looking at. No. Every now and then, they start slamming at random! It makes quite a racket. And then..... they stop.
And this is the curator's story:
"In this work, the artist displays a bust with a necklace under a case, emulating the windows of jewelry shops. But what looks like a precious and decorative object, reveals an organic presence when examined more closely. The beads of which the necklace is composed have been created by the artist by rolling up human hair. Locks of hair are sensual and seductive material when they belong to a feminine body, but they can easily become disturbing and disgusting elements. The matter of the body, especially her own one, is inseparable from Mona Hatoum's work; in Hair Necklace she uses the oscillation between the attraction and repulsion caused by hair in order to turn its residual status into a new form."
Whoah: that is heavy!
Some installations were huge, as in whole rooms, and some very dark as in you could not see, some were cheezy political films.
One exhibit was of a glass table with a variety of glass vessels on top that had ink in them. It was supposed to mimic a chemistry lab. The art part was that the glass vessels on the glass table were connected by glass tubes that ran under the table, and, Oh Ho! Though you cannot see it happening, the ink is moving v e r y s l o w l y from one vessel to another through the tubes, so if you go back in say, six months, it may look different.
Then it was off to the Castillo de San Jorge or the Museum of the Inquisition. It was closed!! I was almost relieved.
Finally, I went to a Flamenco show because how can you come to southern Spain and not go?
It was not the best, but then again I may not the best judge.
Day ended with final packing decisions. I don't even want to think about what I threw out, including my boots! I evoke the principle of Sunk Costs! Or, in the case of the boots, Rationalization: To resole the boots, costs about 50% of a new pair and they don't come out the same. What is done is done!
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