Art and Culture in Madrid for a perfect Autumn weekend
Madrid is perfect in Autumn. It isn’t too hot or too cold. The perfect time for a weekend in this city and visits to its museums. The Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza and Fundación Caja Madrid have organised an exhibition centred on German art from the late 15th to the mid 16th centuries. And the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia shows the work of the British sculptor, Andy Goldsworthy under the title of ‘En las entrañas del árbol’
The two key figures in the Thyssen-Bornemisza are Dürer and Cranach the Elder but visitors will also see works by other important artists of this lengthy period. It has a particular focus on two issues: the artist’s image of his world and the role that these images played in particular areas such as religion, politics and war. It also analyses the relationship between the autochthonous ideas of German culture at this period and exterior influences, principally those of the Italian Renaissance.
If you go to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia you will be able to stand inside one of the large domed wood spaces of Andy Goldsworthy (Cheshire, England, 1956). There is something powerfully unnerving, both physically and emotionally, about first entering into these cavernous rooms. Constructed with tightly packed branches and tree trunks, which admit little or no daylight, the darkness can be disorientating, the eyes taking a short while to adjust. The wood can feel oppressive and heavy as it looms around and overhead. Built to be entirely self-supporting, or with a minimum of fixings, the seeming implausibility that these structures stand amplifies that initial frisson. And yet, there is also something distinctly comforting about the primal nature of these domes, induced at least in part by their light smell or their strange warmth. They offer an intense experience of interiority, which, beyond any initial hesitancy, can yield a real sense of reverie. Even a brief stay inside can re-attune our instinct for our natural material environment, which is so often dulled, mediated or sanitized.
‘En las entrañas del árbol’ has been built using Scots Pine from the forests in the mountains to the north of Madrid which supplies timber for a range of commercial products. Already harvested, Goldsworthy has ‘borrowed’ and temporarily diverted the wood stock from its commercial route. Andy Goldsworthy is internationally known for his exclusive use of natural materials, such as wood, stone, leaves, clay, mud, snow and ice. These he typically uses at or near to the place where he finds them, subjecting them to forms and processes that reveal and heighten properties particular to them, their immediate context or their source. Perhaps best known for his sculptures and projects that are ephemeral, and even momentary in their existence, Goldsworthy has also produced a significant body of large permanent sited works, and has developed a broad range of temporary gallery-based installations, which frequently engage the ‘nature’ or material origins of buildings.
More info
Dürer and Cranach. Art and Humanism in the German Renaissance
October 9th, 2007 - January 6th, 2008
Organised by the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza and Fundación Caja Madrid
Andy Goldsworthy- En las entrañas del árbol
October 3rd, 2007 - January 21st, 2008
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía - Palacio de Cristal
