Madrid, February 2023: ARCO and Leonora Carrington

The original reason for this trip to Madrid at the end of February was to catch Händel's Solomon under Harry Bicket, with Ann Hallenberg singing the title role for the first time, written up on my other blog (behind the link). But it turned out that Solomon coincided with ARCO, Madrid's contemporary art fair, so after Frieze and Felix in Los Angeles, I found myself tramping round the booths again in Spain. And what a lot of booths there were, filling two huge halls. It was interesting to see so many galleries not only from Spain and Portugal, but also from Latin America, and get a feel for what's going on across the Atlantic and the Equator. But on the whole, I wasn't actually grabbed by anything in particular - I mean, there was nothing I frankly lusted after - except, predictably, Rayan Yasmineh's latest painting, on show at Mor Charpentier. The following are a few shots from the fair; the text continues after them.

I don't know how many times I've been to Spain since the early 80s, yet still I get caught out - in a good way - by the prices there. After visiting the fair and checking in to my hotel, I had dinner with a friend also in town for Solomon. I wanted to go back to a wonderful, rock-solid family restaurant in a residential district north of the Retiro, but for some reason it no longer opens for dinner. So I went over to the Michelin Guide and looked for another place conveniently located for both of us, hoping it wouldn't turn out to be trendy, and serving 'small plates to share' (though I guess in Spain that's an honourable tradition, not a silly, overpriced fad). I chose La Monteria, a 'Bib Gourmand' just east of the park. To save faffing about with translations and wasting time choosing, as the fried shrimps (two kinds) served as an 'amuse-gueule' were so good, we went for the tasting menu and had a series of absolutely delicious courses, from seafood to venison, that could, I thought, easily have earned the place a star, if the assortment of desserts at the end had been a bit better executed. Anyway, the delightful thing, especially after LA, was to find that the bill, including water, wine and coffee, totalled 126 euros for two. No wonder they have a 'Bib'. I'll certainly go back again when next I'm in Madrid.

The next day, as a Lucian Freud exhibition at the Thyssen museum, highly recommended to me by a friend visiting from Barcelona with his wife a few days earlier, was full, again I had to look elsewhere, and found that the awkwardly-named MAPFRE foundation (MAPFRE is apparently an insurance firm) was showing Leonora Carrington. Like Tala Madani's big Biscuits show in LA, this turned out to be much more engaging than the fair. I loved it, and bought the catalogue, as I thought it might make a nice present for Reza Shafahi, in Iran., if I ever I can get it to him. The show included a cradle that was one of the most beguiling objects I can remember seeing in a long time.

Finally, on Monday morning I went to the Prado, but like the Louvre, it's too busy to see the paintings in any comfort. Still, I spent some time, as usual, in the El Greco rooms, among the Bosch works, and in the big hall where Velazquez's Las Meninas are, with a thought or two there - again, as usual - for the late David Caille, who took his own life nine years ago already, and with whom I had an exchange of text messages from that very hall a year or so before he died (relating to the rear of the canvas you see in Las Meninas, that David had also depicted in his Open Studio paintings).