*Pic: Guggenheim … at first sight …
On the Roman military road, west to Bilbao. Gonzo follows…it’s wet, wet, wet
It’s big bold and beautiful, Bilbao
Theatre Royal, Balbao
Typical housing project, Bilbao
Infinity … inside the Guggenheim
Balls, Bilbao
A roundabout centre piece
The Guggenheim looks like a cardiac arrest. Today there are two exhibitions, Francis Bacon with Picasso to Velasquez and the Paris Ecole 1900-945. The Field Marshall and I are interested, while Gonzo is relaxing and getting rid of the grime of travel. There are a great many other galleries including the Basque Contemporary and the MBAB in Bilbao.
I am going to see the Field Marshall rock and roll around the galleries or will his legs and knees and hips give out?
Bacon had all the distorted bodies mixed in with Velasquez and Picasso’s. The most striking piece was SIGHS, a film of an orchestra playing without their instruments, very intense in casual clothing and presented on nine screens, totally involving the viewer as the eyes absorbed their concentration.
I am not an art critic but I know what I like and it was Picasso’s 1924 ‘mandolins et guitares’. It felt like I was falling into it. The balconies merged into the table and music happened.
The large paintings of their permanent collection, invoked infinity, a man laying in a field staring at stars or two ponds and the Field Marshall lost himself inside those, only to reappear at the Saturday afternoon jazz concert in the sun by the side of the river. There was the real beauty of the day, falling asleep on the grass, after a glass of wine and meaty olives.
Bilbao is clean, the churches packed for daily mass and people kinder and well tended, with a hint of contentment.
We are not, our clothes are damp and we are weary and the days are getting colder.
There is no turning back and there is only one way to go, that is the way of Santiago. I am concerned about the Field Marshall’s well being, he is wasting away. The large round compound of fats and oils he started out as, now is just a bubble of ruminating noise. I am still giving him biscuits and have restricted the pate foi de gras and salmon to just a token smell once per day.
I need to be fair, otherwise he will punish me with backchat and insurrection. I tell him about sticking his head up above the parapet and to turn the other cheek. Infidels are not wanted on this Hadj. His behaviour at the Guggenheim was exemplary except when he tried to entice me into another painting. It was dreamy, surrounded by masters who dreamt bigger things than I or the Field Marshall could ever have imagined.
Our talk turned back to plotting and planning. The result was, get some goals and objectives Tasmania, make our politicians show initiative and planning, show us the future or get lost you private school wastrels.
To be continued…
*Greg James is a malcontent capitalist. He has employed (and fired) a lot of people and spawned many business opportunities for himself and others. Some have been wild successes and some abject failures. Greg refuses to accept that Tasmania is second rate, it is only the people who occupy it who are second rate. Greg is a self and state educated owner-operator. He has been Chairman and President of State and Federal organizations, has owned a gay bar, built a suburb and wasted his life hoping that others around him would see the light as he see it. His brain is addled, his motives suspect and age has caught up with a life well lived. He writes about himself in the third person.
