Wednesday February 26 was another fabulous day-- high of 23C and lots of sun. We decided to go see a Lee Miller photography exhibit at La Térmica, a relatively new cultural space that opened in 2013 at the outskirts of the city. It is about a 1.5 hour walk from our apartment and about 20 minutes further west than the Russian Museum we had visited a few days ago. It is very close to the beach of La Misericordia.
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| We first stopped at Julia Bakery to pick up a vegan blueberry scone |
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| Lots of treats and people having late breakfast outside |
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Across the street- another mural on a building
We walked to La Térmica (only got slightly lost) and decided that we would walk back on the beach.
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| Palm trees and the Sea |
La Térmica has educational facilities, artists' workshops, conference rooms, concerts and exhibitions. It is described as a "cultural epicentre" and is now a hip hub of art, design and contemporary culture. The historic building previously housed an orphanage and sanitorium and is about 100 years old. It was very quiet today. Apparently, it can be quite buzzy at openings and other cultural events. Admission was free.
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| Alano walking towards La Térmica-- gorgeous building |
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Institutional feel inside- like a school, though with beautiful tiles.
The Lee Miller: Surrealista exhibit was in two large classroom size rooms. There were 101 photographs in the exhibit. It was curated by Antony Penrose, her son and co-founder of the Lee Miller Archives. I have always been a huge fan and while a number of photographs were familiar to me, there were some I had not seen. She was a surrealist before she knew of the movement and her surrealist eye informed all of her work.
Lee Miller (1907-1977), was born in Poughkeepsie, New York. Her father introduced her and her brothers to photography at an early age. Lee Miller was a fashion model in NYC in the 1920s before going to Paris in 1929 where she became a fashion and fine art photographer. She became Man Ray's model and collaborator as well as his lover and muse. She had her own photography studio when she lived in Paris and together with Ray rediscovered the photographic technique of solarisation. She left Ray and Paris in 1932, returning to NYC and established a portrait and commercial photography studio with her brother Erik as her darkroom assistant.
In 1934, she left her studio and married Egyptian businessman and engineer Aziz Eloui Bey, who had come to NYC to buy equipment for the Egyptian National Railway. Although she did not work as a professional photographer during this period, the photographs she took in Egypt are considered as some of her most striking surrealist images. By 1937, Miller had grown tired with her life in Cairo. She returned to Paris where she met the British surrealist painter and curator Roland Penrose.
At the outbreak of WWII, she was living in London with Penrose. She embarked on a new career in photojournalism and was the war correspondent for Vogue, covering the London Blitz, liberation of Paris and the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dachau. She teamed up with American photographer David E. Scherman, a Life correspondent on many assignments.
After returning to Britain, she started to suffer from severe episodes of clinical depression (now would have been diagnosed as PTSD) and began to drink heavily. In 1947, she divorced Bey and married Roland Penrose. Their son Antony was born in September 1947. In 1949, Miller and Penrose bought Farley Farm House in Chiddingly, East Sussex. She continued to be haunted by the war. Lee Miller died of cancer in 1977.
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| Poster for the exhibit |
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| Untitled (Man and tar) Paris c. 1930 |
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| Untitled (Exploding hand), Paris 1931 |
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| Man Ray, Paris 1931 |
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| Charlie Chaplin with light fixture, St. Moritz 1932 |
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| Solarised Portrait (thought to be Meret Oppenheim), Paris 1932 |
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| Floating Head, Mary Taylor, New York 1933 |
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| Joseph Cornell, New York 1933 |
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| From the top of the Great Pyramid, Egypt c. 1937 |
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| Aziz Eloui Bey and Lee Miller (taken by Lee Miller) Egypt c. 1935 |
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| Portrait of Space, Egypt 1937. One of her most famous surrealist images. |
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| Picasso, Mougins 1937 |
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| Picnic, Cannes 1937 |
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| Fire Masks, London 1941 |
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Henry Moore taken during the filming of "Out of Chaos", a documentary about modern art, London 1943.
The film featured Henry Moore's drawings of the London Underground during bombing raids. (We recently bought a drawing from his Shelter Sketchbook, 1967) |
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| Fall of the Citadel, St. Malo 1944 |
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| David E. Scherman, Lee Miller at entrance to St. Malo Fortress, St. Malo 1944 |
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| Revenge on Culture, London 1940 |
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| Remington Silent, London 1940 |
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| David E. Scherman, dressed for war, London, 1943 |
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| Lee Miller and Picasso, Liberation of Paris, Paris 1944 (taken by Lee Miller) |
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| Colette, 'France's Greatest Living Woman Writer', Paris 1944 |
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| Paul Delvaux and René Magritte, Brussels 1944 |
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| The veiled Eiffel Tower from the Palais de Chaillot, Paris 1944 |
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| Detail of released prisoners in striped prison dress beside a heap of bones from bodies burned in the crematorium, Buchenwald, 1945 |
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| Captured German guards who had donned civilian clothes in the hope of escaping, Buchenwald 1945 |
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| László Bárdossy, fascist ex-Prime Minister of Hungary, facing the firing squad, Budapest 1946 |
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| Lee Miller-David E. Scherman, Lee Miller in Hitler's bathtub, Munich 1945 |
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| Rolland Penrose and Man Ray, Los Angeles 1946 |
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| Saul Steinberg adding the finishing touches to the Long Man of Wilmington, East Sussex 1953 |
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| Picasso embracing his sculpture 'Femme à la poussette', Vallauris, 1954 |
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| Georges Limbour and Jean Dubuffet, Muddles Green 1955 |
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Miró at the Zoo (Hornbill), London 1964
It was a superb exhibit. We wandered a bit more in the building - what a fabulous space.
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| Courtyard outside the building |
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| One of the Hallways |
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| Fabulous tiles |
After our visit to La Térmica, we decided to walk back along the beach and stop somewhere for a late lunch (3:00 p.m. seems to be the optimal lunch hour in southern Spain). La Misericordia Beach is approximately 2000 m long and around 30m wide. It is one of Málaga's most popular beaches and some 19th century chimneys, which are vestiges of Málaga's industrial past still line its seaside promenade.
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| We saw the sign for La Misericordia beach |
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| A very wide and sandy beach-looking toward the centre of the city |
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| Looking the other way |
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| The tire contraption is a winner with kids |
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| Lots of very interesting apartments/hotels on this beach |
We stopped at Chiringuito Los Compadres and had some fried squid (very good) and some fried eggplant (so-so). However, it was a great spot with lots of sun, which we wanted.
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| Alano squeezing lemon on our squid-- nice and warm and crunchy |
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| Eating in the sun near the water-what could be better! |
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| 3:00 p.m. ferry to North Africa |
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| Crossing a bridge back to the city centre-front part water and back part dry |
We went to Bertani for coffee. Next door was a wonderful old style pharmacy dating back to 1886.
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| 1886 Pharmacy |
We headed back to our apartment to rest before our last dinner in Málaga. We finished the wonderful bottle of vermouth with some cheese/baguette.
We were just about to head out to dinner at around 8:50 p.m., when we remembered the free jazz concert around the corner. There is a series of four free jazz concerts starting tonight as part of the Festival de Jazz MVA. We had tried to get the free tickets on-line, but couldn't get them as one needed to enter a Spanish ID number. The website had later said the concert was sold out when we tried to get a tourist office to help. On a whim, we went to the venue (just 2 minutes away) and it turned out that one of the organizers had some tickets that weren't being used. The concert started at just after 9:00 p.m. and went to 10:30 p.m. We saw the Virxilio Da Silva Quartet. Virxilio Da Silva played guitar (he was excellent); Dani Torres on Sax (very good); Dimitri Skidanov on Bass (good); and Francisco Mela on drums (a weak link). They played straight-ahead jazz- lots of standards. The Maria Victoria Atencia (MVA) Cultural Centre was a good venue. Nice surprise getting in!
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| Stage at the MVA Centro Cultural Provincial |
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| The Band |
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The Bows
We had been thinking of going to a tapas place very close to the apartment, but it looked like it was only serving drinks at 10:50 p.m. We ended up going to El Tapeo de Cervantes--- another branch of the tapas restaurant we had gone to with our friends. Excellent food. The restaurant was only open until 11:30 p.m. but we didn't want a huge meal at that late hour so managed to eat in that timeframe.
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| Alano with roasted red peppers stuffed with cod in a delicious tomato sauce |
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| Mixed salad with artichoke, asparagus, roasted red peppers and tomatoes |
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| Anchovies in vinegar with guacamole and passion fruit |
And so ends our two week stay in Málaga. We would highly recommend a visit--- lots of culture, great food and beaches. It'a no wonder Málaga was named the European Capital of Smart Tourism for 2020!
Next stop Córdoba. We take a 2:15 p.m. train on Thursday February 27 and arrive at 3:20 p.m. See you there!
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