Apart from being an amazing building, the Guggenheim gallery contains some artworks that I saw a few weeks ago.

Here are some of those things…

Pako Aristi
I Am On Earth, And I Partake Of Every Ritual Of Life

(… However half-heartedly)

This poem was in the Guggenheim because it had been proposed by Jenny Holzer for an installation. I don’t know if it’s online…

She wanted to project it onto the underside of a bridge that joins the gallery to the other side of the river that lies alongside the building. It would be mirrored in the lapping water beneath.

At the show that night, I dedicated Going Missing to the poem, which is an odd thing to do, I suppose.

I saw some paintings by Anselm Keifer:

Such Dark Light Falling From The Stars.
Made from shellac, sunflower seeds, emulsion, and acrylic.

The seeds form a swarm above a desert peak. They are suspended in the pale sky, but they could be about to fall. The ripples in the sand seems carved from wood; indelible. The canvas is warped, like it’s been abused. The use of the seeds keeps it light, though. They are glued to the surface, but the plane still seems like the main event.

Seraphim
Volcanic, charred. This painting has been left for dead. Lovingly embroidered with its title in the top right-hand corner, a plastered ladder bends towards the word. A grey snake shifts and coils at the bottom of the picture; a slow writhe in the aggressive murk. Five flat, black shapes dive across the picture.

Although amorphous, I see them as hawk-like, or even like fish escaping from the water momentarily. They are trapped in the arid, scabby landscape, never to inhabit the cool, icy-grey sky that peels and shimmers with beige linseed oil.
The ladder seems not to offer hope, but rather to invite the viewer back down into the dominant scrub of earth. It’s somehow very physical despite the blankness.

In Valencia now.

My hotel looks down on a small artificial football pitch. The roof of the adjacent building displays a parade of lost footballs, some with the traditional spotted design, some with wild colours making them look like basketballs. All queueing up like spheres on an abacus

We drove under a bridge and found some gypsies playing volleyball.
They looked suspicious of us, especially because it was dark, I thought. No wonder.
Young men craned ’round whilst still playing, swatting the ball over the net half-heartedly. Dust tumbled around their bare feet. An older woman was sat watching, cradling a baby swathed in blankets.
I felt like an intruder.

We turned around and let them get on with their lives amongst the torn and cracked posters clinging to the concrete pillar of the flyover.

Take care,
Paul And The Park