Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía

By -
I decided to run over to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reine Sofia Saturday afternoon while I was in Madrid.  It is very close to the hotel we stayed in and I really did want to see Picasso's Guernica, which is the highlight of their collection.

 The art museum has a number of temporary exhibits, but the main permanent collection is on the 2nd floor.  The museum is focused on themes like "From Revolt to Postmodernity" and "The Interruption of the 20th Century: Utopias and Conflicts."  I am not sure I completely understood the themes.  They seemed rather arbitrary given the chronological aspects as well.  

 The collection has some strong, stand-out masterpieces, of which Guernica is the star.  I had no idea it was so large (11 x ~26 ft).  The museum dedicated ample space to it, which was fantastic.  Given the size of the painting and the crowd looking at it, Guernica has a room to itself.  The materials to learn about the painting were helpful too.  They had some photographs of Picasso and the work-in-progress masterpiece.  I had not realized it had only somewhat recently returned to Spain (1981) and had been in MoMA before that.   I can understand (although they needed to) why MoMA were reluctant to give it up!

 I enjoyed the rest of the collection -- I was very happy to see some Dalis and Picassos in Spain!  I found it well edited.  I was not as impressed with some of the exhibits not on the second floor.





I also loved their Calder mobile!


 I was very happy I dragged my tired feet to el museo!  Guernica alone was worth it!

 Time in museum: 1.5 hrs
Times visited: 1
Overall: A-
Location: Calle de Santa Isabel, 52, 28012 Madrid, Spain

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

detroit institute of arts

By -
i went to the detroit institute of arts museum to see the rembrandt and the face of jesus exhibit.  it was really great. we bought tickets online the night before to reserve our viewing time.  our biggest gripe about the entire experience was the $3.50 "convenience fee" that was tacked onto each ticket purchased.  the ticket price was $16, so this "convenience fee" was almost 22% of the ticket price.  at this point, purchasing tickets online is cheaper for the museum since they do not have to employee someone to speak to me and they don't even have to print the ticket!  if they are really counting on this fee, just roll it into my admission price please; it would make me a little less grumpy while still getting the same amount of money out of me! we arrived a little early to the exhibit, which ended up being a good move since they had completely sold the exhibit out for the day.  they let people into the exhibit in batches, so it was fine that we got ther
Read more

neue gallery

By -
i went to the neue gallery with my college sister. i had wanted to go for a while. the first time i wanted to go, there was a line out the door and i ended up going to the whitney instead. i found out later it was one of the first weekends for a new exhibit. well, this time we went, unbeknownst to us, but a new exhibit on klimt was opening the weekend we were there as well. we were able to get in no problems, but as we were leaving we noticed that a line (again) out the door had developed. the museum itself is quite small, which i think causes this out the door problem. we really enjoyed the museum. it was just about the right size and pretty easy to navigate. they limit the number of people in it because it just would get to hard to move. the klimt exhibit itself was quite nice. my sister knew a lot more about klimt than i did. i recognized some of the paintings, but my sister knew much more about his background. the museum did a nice job putting the exhibit together
Read more

metropolitan museum of art

By -
i went to the metropolitan museum of art today to see the art of the samurai: japanese arms and armor, 1156-1868 . this exhibit was in the typical special exhibit location....second floor to the left passing through the marble statues. the exhibit was fantastic. as described in the introduction to the exhibit, it is the most comprehensive exhibit ever devoted to samurai art. most of the art were designated as "national treasure" and "important cultural property." i found quite a few of the items on the wikipedia page for japanese national treasures . the exhibit had a number of swords, sword mountings and armor. a number of the items (~60) will be switched out in the next week with new items. most of the items cannot handle light for such long periods. some of the armor was fantastic, in particular one. this particular armor was replicated 100 years later for a child in the same family. this helmet was absolutely fantastic. i cannot believe that i spent
Read more