Bilbao

10th May 2014

Sat on a bench with the warm Spanish sunshine concealed by shadows. A man plays Bach on an electrified violin and some people leave a sprinkling of cash in his case. We take our first bite of a Spanish ham sandwich. Not any old ham, but 'Viandas de Salamanca', a high quality hams full of old Spanish traditions. And they were good, with a subtle flavour derived from pigs who have eaten acorns and lived in the wild; some may even stored for over six months. A real delight!

All of which struck me as the madness and stupidity of the likes of Farage. We could not have been anywhere but Spain and the Basque country at that. While the streets had much that was familiar in terms of layout and other generalities that has been true for decades. The language was Spanish/Basque, the people largely local and the tourists obvious. But what we can expect is some form of uniformity in terms of protections for the individual in terms of food health, medicine and so on. AS we passed along one of the main streets a tram rumbled by covered in a pale blue of what I took to be the Party Popular and I guess a rightwing anti Europe group. Who knows!

The Guggenheim was …… different! A wonderful building with masses of open space to display lots of modernist art. I saw on a Japanese style memory tree inside the museum a note saying. 'I love modern art….(joke).' I guess he would have found much that was there a challenge, not helped, in my opinion, by the wireless guides that spouted forth dictates on what each piece meant. I soon gave up rather than listen to others tell me what I was seeing and why I was seeing it eg its, that is a set of eight photographs, is all about feminism and women's place in the world. Well it might be the intention but maybe I need to try to make sense of it for myself. One huge painting was a re-working of The Raft of the Medusa' by Juan Manuel Ballester but with the people removed. Well that is what they said and that is right in some respects but I kept on seeing something/somebody in the picture and what that left was a mystery.

Another intriguing installation was a video/film called 'The Matter of Time'. We sat and watched some of it, cuttings from a wide range of films from all over the world including many from Hollywood all based around the same time. That is, the bits are linked by an obsession with the same time eg 15.30 and so on. The film seems to keep pace with the actual time as well. So I sat and watched for the bits to be connected and some forms of links to be achieved. It was promised that the whole film would be showed on several different occasions starting at 10 am in the morning. It then runs for another 34 hours! We did not see it all!!

In addition, Yoko Ono had an exhibition which was typically unusual offering many challenges to the visitor. One exhibit was a short video made about 1965. This interviewed people who had attended a show in New York and demonstrated a glorious mix of responses. Several commentated that they had come to see it but could see nothing! Ah, memories of Cage's 4 mins 38 seconds. One other exhibit which for me was a real challenge was a booth made out of Perspex. It was in the from of a maze. In the middle, if one could get to it was a telephone. Apparently Yoko One calls it from time to time. Walking around its narrow corridors, even though I could see all of the visitors who were watching me, caused a minor sense of panic, of fear at the prospect of being tapped and unable to get out, to escape.

Whilst not seeing any Picassos or any other of the modern greats (Note: when I was at school many people said that any idiot could paint such pictures and that it did not take any skill at all!) it was definitely worth the visit. Getting to Bilbao was easy and cheap. A metro taking about 45 minutes from Sopelana cost about Euro 4.75 return, all day and any number of trips. Oh if London was so generous.