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Georgina Oliver
Malaga
Friday, 9 May 2025, 12:03
In contrast with the sorrowful sound of church bells tolling throughout the diocese to announce the passing of Pope Francis, and heralding the highly symbolic appearance of white smoke... Picasso's place of birth (Malaga, 1881) rings in the spring/summer season with a trilogy of bright-hued exhibitions that bring an extra splash of artistic modernity to the city.
Catch Vassily Kandinsky, Pioneer of Abstract Art, at the Pompidou Centre aka "El Cubo" and the New Figuration of Spain's "Swinging Eighties" at the Museo Carmen Thyssen (both until September), then head west to La Térmica, where an additional dollop of - more contemporary - creative serendipity awaits fans of art objects with a playful twist.
Hundreds of eager museumgoers flocked into the opening of Pompidou-Malaga's latest temporary show, many surprised to discover that admission was free on that evening. Only the early-birds in the first row were able to hear curator Angela Lampe's introductory speech and words of welcome from mayor Francisco de la Torre, who drew attention to the "dual significance" of this celebratory event, marking both the tenth anniversary of the centre's inauguration at the entrance of the Muelle Uno - a "thriving" portside promenade, proffering a profusion of trendy shops and dining, and the renewal "for a further ten years" of the city council's partnership with its Parisian precursor.
Pompidou Paris president, Laurent Le Bon, had flown into "AGP" especially for what he too considered to be a multifaceted celebration. In a flight of poetic inspiration, he described "El Cubo" as "the most beautiful star" in the "constellation" of the French capital's iconic museum (completely closed to the public for a five-year renovation period, as of next autumn).
Himself a star in the curatorial field, formerly at the helm of the Musée national Picasso-Paris, Le Bon saw what would turn out to be a life-changing exhibition at the age of 15, focusing on... Guess who? Kandinsky... Guess where? At the Pompidou Centre, also known as "Beaubourg"... and never looked back.
Beyond the cultural politics and the evident touristic appeal of a tribute to a world-renowned painter, this gourmet retrospective, presented in a succession of subtle-toned contemplative spaces, constitutes a visual feast, charting the trajectory of a "fusion artist" with an exceptional destiny.
Born Russian in 1866, Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was aged 30, when he decided to spread his wings, foregoing a promising career as a lecturer in law and economics in order to study the fine arts in Munich, where he established himself until the outbreak of WWI; having returned to his native land, he played a vital role in the revolutionary avant-garde, before heading back to Germany during the exuberantly "Brechtian" Roaring Twenties, and taking part in the Bauhaus arts and design adventure, brought to a grinding halt by the Nazi regime.
Almost all, if not all, of the 45 works in this chronological overview fall into the "K for k-olour" category. Not so, the last exhibit: a colourless composition, unfinished in 1944, year of the modern trailblazer's death. Very much so, three previous masterpieces with a personal angle: two that were part of his everyday existence (the first of these, displayed in his dining room; the second, an oval oil painting given to his wife as a birthday present); yet another, having accompanied him in his passage towards eternal life (deployed as a headboard at his wake).
Much as Vassily Kandinsky had some difficulty in finding his feet in Cubism-infatuated 1930s Paris (his final port of call), the flamboyant proponents of a new wave of bold realism known as "la Nouvelle Figuration espagnole" were initially caught between two fires: the continuing hegemony of France's "Abstraction Lyrique" movement and the irresistible rise of two "isms" - minimalism and conceptualism.
Although most of the mainstreamers featured in the Thyssen Museum's Pintura Liberada - Young Painters of the 1980s must-see - notably, Paris-based anti-Franco activist Eduardo Arroyo (1937-2018) - had started to develop a fresh approach to representational subject matter long before the free 'n' easy post-dictatorship transition period, they are often associated with the "Movida" on account of their rock-and-roll attitude to colour contrasts, à la Almodóvar.
Amusingly enough, the Thyssen selection includes a double portrait of the Kandinsky couple painted by Herminio Molero in 1988. What could be more on target than this pop-surrealist acrylic-on-canvas "fantasia" alluding to the common ground shared by those arty trendsetters and the co-founder of "Der Blaue Reiter" (The Blue Rider), a colour-driven multidisciplinary community created in 1909? Famously, from an early age, young Vassily showed signs of possessing a gift for tonal "synaesthesia" (sensorial overlap), which prompted him to elaborate a vibrant palette derived from musical sources of inspiration.
Cognitive overlap between a duo of sensory stimuli (colour + letters or music; smell or taste + geometric shapes...) seems like no big deal compared to the quantity of mixed messages, which "yer typical" Generation Alpha kid has to process, at once on and off screen: watching cartoons non-stop on his or her tablet, in a bedroom packed with merchandising-related clothes and toys.
"It's art, not 'art toys'," insists Mathieu Van Damme, the bright spark behind Case Studyo, a Belgian brand that commissions leading international artists to produce quirky objects in limited editions: by Parra, a vase shaped like a bottom; by Javier Calleja, a mushroom lamp; by Jean Jullien, a book-inspired chair; by HuskMitNavn, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck rolled-into-one... - and "The Beat Goes On" ...!
Van Damme and Antonio Javier López, director of Malaga's La Térmica creativity hub, have co-conceived a kidult's eye-candy emporium named A World in Objects - to be gulped up until 29 June.
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