Culture with Vermut: Antoni Tàpies, Bruce Conner, Tekla Aslanishvili

Irene found an exhibit of some of the video works of Bruce Conner here in Barcelona at an event called "Autumn Vermouths" (in English).  It's at the Antoni Tàpies Foundation building, just a 17 minute walk away. When I looked it up, I realized I'd walked past the building in 2017 and wondered about it: on top of this ornate building was a mass of twisted wire, screen, and rebar; I couldn't decide if it was construction, demolition, or art.  

In the context of artist Tàpies, it makes sense: he celebrated found objects, every day objects, and largely pioneered the movement in connection with Duchamp and others. And today, we got to visit it and check out the art inside!

The building itself was gorgeous inside, mixing wide open museum-style spaces, industrial iron, and a beautiful wood-and-glass-encased library for researchers.

For only 10€ we got a guided tour of the Antoni Tápies exhibit "The Fertilizer that Feeds the Soul". I didn't know anything about him, but he was a pioneer in treating everyday objects and found objects in the context of art. Our guide was enthusiastic and knowledgeable but unfortunately, we didn't understand much as she gave the guided tour in Catalan; totally our fault, and we contented ourselves by reading the English labels. 

Afterwards, there was a reception on the attractive roof deck, where we could see from behind the mass of wires on the façade, as well as a sculpture of a giant sock -- a recurring element in his work, it turns out. And of course the promised vermut with snacks of potato chips and anchovy-stuffed olives.  

Irene worked up the courage to tell her we didn't understand anything, and this broke the ice to a conversation (in our stilted Spanish) about Tápies, Bruce Conner, and modern art in general. 

After the break, we went downstairs to check out the Bruce Conner exhibit "Light out of Darkness". I've been interested in Conner since 1987 when I saw a piece of his at a collector's shop in Georgetown DC, obsessed over it, and finally purchased the lithograph. I've been fortunate to see a lot of his work including films, assemblages, mixed media, and prints in DC at the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn and Katzen Arts Center, and in San Francisco at the SF MOMA and DeYoung Museum. Our guide indicated this was the first time Conner's video work has been exhibited in Barcelona. Some of the pieces I'd seen before, including early (MTV-era) videos for Devo and Talking Heads, but also films focusing on the atomic bomb tests and Kennedy's assassination set to music by Terry Riley. You can see how he pioneered the fast cuts, video overdubs, and other techniques we now take for granted. If you blow up the text in the second image about his video for David Byrne and Brian Eno's "Mea Culpa", it's pretty damning: 

"Although copyright reasons prevented Conner's films from being played on MTV, the film techniques he employed -- the jump cut, flash frame, flickering, reverse editing, fast cutting, double and multiple exposures and the use of found footage -- had a formative influence on just on the experimental film-making of his age, but also on the pioneering phase of the MTV music video"

I'd never heard of the third artist, Tekla Aslanishvili from Georgia but really enjoyed her documentary video "A State in a State". It draws a connection of communication and solidarity between railroad workers from major transport lines including Azerbijan, Georgia, Turkey, Belarus, and Ukraine, before and after the breakup of the USSR. It winds up in the present day with workers agreeing to sabotage lines critical to Russia's current war effort. Her style reminded me of Werner Herzog's documentary work a little, and I was surprised how much I enjoyed learning about conflicts and places I'd only heard about on the radio growing up. 

This event has whetted my appetite to get out and explore more culture, especially modern art, in this rich city.

Catalan Gins, and a lovely "ranci" Martini

We found a delightful, friendly wine/liquor store a couple blocks away, Art de Vins. When some friends visited from the US, we wanted to do a tasting of three Catalan red wines, and three Catalan gins. It's the gins we're writing about here!

First, we tried the gins straight -- no ice or mixers -- cold from the fridge. Nut London Dry Gin was pretty assertive; it was good, but didn't rock my world. Next up, Gin Mare from the coast: this had a more enjoyable profile for sipping, the winner so far. Finally, we had Mahón gin made on the island of Majorca, which had an enticing herbal/citrus profile, and became our favorite sipper.

The rest of the evening was spent indulging in Gin Tonics, which I make with a 1-to-1 ratio of gin-to-tonic so we can taste the gin.  We felt the Nut gin was the best for this, due to its assertiveness: it didn't get lost in the Schweppes Tonic.

Later in the week, we chose the Mahón for sipping.  When we returned to Art de Vins to restock gin for both G&Ts and sippers, we were very surprised at the cost: the Nut was significantly more expensive than the Mahón; at this price point, we could use Mahón for mixed drinks. 

We wanted a drink to showcase the Mahón, and a Martini is about as gin-forward as you can get. We thought that mixing with one of the omnipresent dark vermuts served as aperitifs around here would be too heavy. Irene hit on using Vi Ranci, a very traditional oxidized wine that we buy in bulk from the same shop: a ratio of 4-to-1 has a good balance.

This was a real win: the aromatics of the gin came through, as well as the unusual nutty taste of the wine; it's fairly dry and needs no garnish. We've dubbed it the "Rancini", and it pairs really well with a stunning sunset -- salud!

Festies with my Bestie

There seems to be a festival of some sort happening constantly in Barcelona; like, every day, some neighborhood or organization has an event. It's impossible to keep up, and we've stumbled upon one by happy accident.  Here are the most recent.  (they were a lot more fun than the painting in the last post!)

Barcelona International Community Day

On Saturday, Barcelona held Barcelona International Community Day to connect prospective and new residents with organizations and companies that could help them: property finders, residence and tax lawyers, business development organizations, schools, etc. Totally free, in the beautiful Maritime Museum, just a 20 minute walk from our place. 

Ironically, one of the talks was "Tips for following the city's cultural calendar and not die trying". :-)

But the one that floored us was the dry-titled "Barcelona 2030: ongoing projects for a more sustainable and digital city"; we figured it'd be blue-sky, but Bárbara Pons, Commissioner for the 2030 Agenda, Ajuntament de Barcelona, gave an informationally-intense high-level view down to the street-level plan for a city with better transit, improved inclusion, and on and on -- all supported by rich multi-layered maps that backed up the city's goals with definite plans. When someone asked about the high-tech development called "22@" she dove into it with enthusiasm and details, and almost had to be pulled off the stage due to time constraints. It's fantastic to see a speaker that's got all the data at her fingertips and makes the subject matter compelling. 

The last session was the most fun, "Experience Barcelona by bike: the best routes" by Marta Casar, Member of the Board of Directors, BACC (Bike Club of Catalonia), website bacc.cat,  Bikes are extensively used in Barcelona, and the city's done a great job of providing separated lanes and even crosswalks for bikes, but Marta pointed out some areas they are pushing for more protected lanes.

She then provided a number of routes to explore the city including the most stunning examples of architecture in the Modernisme style, as well as some very challenging ones to the top of Montjuic and Tibidabo. She also presented some routes where you could take your bike north or south on a train, then return by bike path to Barcelona -- this sounds excellent: we've seen the path along the coast from the R1 train line.

Side Bar: Cocktails

We headed home and stopped for a drink, but the first cafe wasn't welcoming, so we looked into a narrow street in El Raval and spied a place that looked like a cocktail bar: Somnia. Oh, yeah, a cocktail bar if you've got nightmares of circus clowns! The place was over the top decorated, and all the seats in the upstairs "Big Top" room and the downstairs area were reserved, but we were able to sit at the bar. Good thing, too, because the bartender was top-notch. In addition to a bunch of obviously popular wild-assed concoctions (a drink served in a bathtub-shaped "glass" complete with molecular gastronomy foam bubbles), he built us some classics and variations. I enjoy telling bartenders my favorites (Negroni, Last Word) or ingredients (amaros), and seeing what they create. In addition to a fine Negroni and Manhattan, I got a Cynar-based drink that was delightfully dry, boozy, and balanced; if I can remember the ingredients, I might be able to create it -- if not, well, that's the fun, it's a unique experience. He realized we're into classic cocktails and recommended three bars to us: Paradiso (just won an award for best bar in the world, Sips (the number 3), and for the classics, Boadas (the oldest coctail bar in Spain). I really appreciate getting recommendations for the competition. He also said if we stuck around, at 8pm a magician came to perform tricks for the guests -- sounds like fun, for next time.

Accidentally: A Fest for Tomato Bread

We headed home -- again-- and as we crossed the pedestrianized Ronda de Sant Antoni, we heard music, saw tents, and lots of people. Better check it out!  There was a DJ spinning tunes from my youth, folks nearly my age dancing in the street, vendors serving local wine and beer, and a bunch of food stalls.  We headed to the beginning of the tents and saw it was a festival celebrating the Catalan classic "Pa amb tomàquet", tomato bread: bread (frequently toasted to crisp it a little), rubbed with a specific kind of tomato bred for this, lashed with good olive oil, and a sprinkle of finishing salt.

 

After a couple drinks, we headed to the beginning of the tents and -- for 7€ -- got some big slabs of hearty bread, which the first tent topped with rubbed tomatoes and oil, and the next two topped with the precious jamon Iberico and conserved tuna. It was tasty, rustic, authentic, and filling -- no need for the dinner I'd planned at home!

Check the Lava Lamp at this drinks tent

Pa amb Tomaquet with tuna, escalavida, and jamon

Festival of Markets

We love the municipal markets in Barcelona. We tend to frequent Mercat del Ninot (just 10 minutes walk), but are also 7 minutes from the beautifully restored Mercat de Sant Antoni, and 13 minutes from the famous (and tourist-clogged) Boqueria. There are 32 of these markets spread throughout the neighborhoods of the city where you can get to know your fishmonger (different vendors for fin fish, shellfish, cephalopods, bacalao), meat (choose cow, chicken, pig, sausage), amazing cheeses, vegetables (including seaweeds and seasonal mushrooms), beans/lentils, and much more. 

This weekend, there was a Mercat del Mercats, where it seems each market had 2 stalls where you could sample an amazing array of foods ready to eat, meats you could take to another stall where they'd grill them for free, things to take home, as well as local beer, wine, cava, and vermut. This was at the modern Plaza Glories in the shadow of the Museu de Desseny building adjacent to the Glories tower -- a 17 minute bus/train ride away. Sadly, I didn't take any pictures of the festivities: these are from two nights earlier when I was returning from a Python Meetup:

Funnily enough, despite being on the other side of town, we ran into Dani and Maria who run Milar Catalá downstairs from us, the shop where we bought our water heater and fridge.  It's the second food festival where we've run into them -- maybe we have a connection!

We wandered, tried the beers and wine, got some delicious snacks from vendors, and I let one talk me into taking home a lovely cured Llonganissa sausage and butifarra negra (blood sausage) that Irene enjoys (I'm still a little squeamish). 

What's Next?

No idea. I need to find various planners, like the one presented by the Visit Barcelona developers on Saturday. Or maybe we'll just stumble upon another. Either way, I'm sure it won't be long before we're eating, drinking, and listening to much more of what this vibrant city has to offer. 

Magnifico Frigerífico

It's always about hot and cold, heating and cooling. We're taking cold showers, waiting for a new water heater to be delivered and installed, but realized that we just couldn't live with a dead freezer: no ice for our vermut! :-(

Our kitchen is a totally "built-in" [US] or "integrable" [Spain]: Death Star black cabinets hide everything, in a Euro-standard 60cm cabinet width layout. Our left-most cabinet has a separate congelador (freezer) and on a shelf above, a frigerífico (fridge).  The congelador was dead, dead, dead. Simple, right? Order a new one, "integrable", and move on. Nope. The way the cabinet door mounts to the freezer has the  cabinet door hinged as usual and connected to the freezer door by a clever/complex/stupid sliding mechanism; the new style (you see this in the US too) is to mount the door panel to the appliance, which means its hinges have to support the weight -- totally different mechanism, we might have to get a carpenter into re-cut the cabinet door to fit. 

It also meant there was precisely ONE model of congelador on the market that could even be integrated inside a 60cm (exterior width) standard European cabinet. And it cost about 700€, ouch!  I noticed we had to run our refrigerator, a separate unit with the same cabinet-mounted sliding mechanism, at about the max cooling -- clearly this was an old, tired, and inefficient unit; what would it cost to replace it too, in maybe a year?  

Next door to our apartment building -- I mean, literally next door -- is the Milar Catalá electrodomésticos shop where we ordered our water heater. Dani at the shop and Irene both persuaded me to give up on the Darth Vader integrated look and go with a free standing fridge, a stainless "combi" with freezer and refrigerator. There were hundreds of models available, in all price ranges, efficiencies, and finishes. After my usual ADHD analysis, spreadsheets, and such, we narrowed it to one unit based primarily on energy efficiency. The cost of power isn't going down any time soon; we know the price of gas/petrol in Spain is at least 2x that in the US, so expect electricity to be at least double what we paid in Arlington. 

All appliances (and our apartment!) have an energy efficiency rating, between A (excellent) and G (expensive). We focused on biggest 60cm unit that would fit, with the highest efficiency available, "B". When we compared it to another model we really liked (black crystal finish!), it cost less than half to run!  Easy to amortize this over a year or two. And with prices rising in Europe due to the Ukraine/Russia war, it's a good choice. 

It wasn't hard bruting out the old freezer and fridge, but we had to disassemble the cabinetry. It's all 60cm European standard stuff, but custom built on prem. After hacksawing pins and dowels on a similar cabinet, we came up with a plan for the fridge cabinet. We "scienced the shit out of it" and realized that if we pulled out a filler panel, we'd gain 2cm, which we hoped would be enough to remove the left panel from its internal pins, then pull the old freezer/fridge shelf, then disassemble the cabinet, leaving a princely 2cm left to slide in the new fridge. 

Dani, our dealer with Milar downstairs, verified our measurements, and around 5pm we put our money down and ordered the LG fridge, a 2.03 meter behemoth.

Only one problem: would it fit in the tiny elevator we have in our building? We are on the top floor, 9th floor, over a hundred steps up. I measured the elevator doors, and it was gonna be close, really close. There's something magical about living here that we never would have expected: Dani came over to our apartment, and measured the elevator, and sent the dimensions to the transport company, as part of the service -- can you imagine that in the US?? The inside doors were under 200cm tall, and the inside of the elevator itself was 212cm max: we were not even sure the fridge could be tilted in, as the elevator's about the size of a Clark Kent phone booth! I could not imagine the cost to pay hulks to walk this up the 9 narrow flights of stairs! 

But wouldn't you know: the delivery guys came, and ever... so... carefully... angled the naked fridge into the tiny elevator, where it had a couple millimeters of clearance to the back and ceiling. It's funny, Dani said "They usually send a small guy and a big guy", and I asked, "What's the small one do?", to which he replied, "Stay inside the elevator to push the button." And that's exactly what happened! :-) They slotted it into the space we created by removing the cabinet, with about 1cm to spare.

Amazing! It had been under 16 hours since we placed our order and had it -- very carefully -- installed. Finally, we'd have ice for our Vermut and Gin Tonics! :-)

We let it cool down and walked to the grocery store to stock up, then Irene cooked a nice dinner of pork chops, potatoes, and asparagus on the grill on the terrace while the sun set. A rather pleasant 5€ bottle of wine and a finish with an even cheaper Cava for dessert after dark.

Only one problem: the door came hinged on the right, and we need it to swing from the left. But an LG technician is arriving Monday to swap the door; dunno why they have to send someone out, for 59€, but if we do it ourselves we void the warrantee. Fine.

Time for a cold breakfast beer from Montseny, a local craft brewery.

Life is feeling pretty good, now that we're back to our old rhythm of cooking and eating. We're loving the quality of service we're getting from shops around here, it's really refreshing.

Now we just need some hot water for a shower... just a few days to wait, we're told, so close...