Nuria Marques @ Esbaluard

 For those who love to explore an artsy site of new place, Esbaluard Museum of Contemporary Art in Palma de Mallorca can be, gently speaking, a slight disappointment. It doesn't really represent a spirit of the magnificent place it's based on, but rather reminds of a mere temporary exhibiton at Tate Modern. At the beginning of that article I need to mention I can definitely not act like any sort of authority in terms of Esbaluard as the entrace fee made me angry before I entered. It costs 4.50 euro to get in and me, spoiled by London where the access to most of the musuems (of much greater excellence) is free, I felt repelled by such a low accessibility of the Spanish museum. And this feeling didn't leave me for most of the time while watching the exhibition. 

 So what's cool about Esbaluard? Several Picassos and a roof terrace. And few magical spotlights which saved my impression about this place and made me leaving the building content. And, there is Nuria Marques. 

 Before I found her I took a long walk around the roof terrace, in a burning sun through the long paths with an open view to the city. Palma from that side is quiet and almost countryside style, far from tourists jam around the cathedral and the noisy Rambla. The best way to look down is to enter one of the tiny towers on the corner, which can give you a caustrophobical feeling of a cult place but is definitely worth breaking it through. You can find yourself in a magical place of a well-shape with tiny windows reaching out to the see.

 The thing which was supposed to be the most remarkable after those days hasn't been easy to find and that's exactly what attracted me to it. I have a weakness to things which seem to be hidden, swept away from within the reach of your eyes like they needed to be found and that was the only reason for them being there at first place, like being searched and found was an another purpose for their existence. They are there, to surprise and enchant.

 The work of Nuria Marques, about whom I desperately seek any information online (and saddly and surprisingly, unsuccessfully) was hidden from the general view and at the same time somehow, located just perfectly. To spot it the one needs to cross the whole room and the only reason you have to do that is a large window at the end of it. You have to feel the need to look out for the sun. There is a price for those who feel this urgent, underlying need to search for the sun. Behind a corner there is a small screen with a pair of headphones. They are waiting to take you on a journey.

Endless hours

 Long time ago when I was younger, and I was somewhere else, I liked to sit near by the window. I liked it especially when it was rainy, watching people passing by in a hurry. It was a place like a coffee shop, but not the one you can imagine. It was a tramway of our time, holding you up to stop your time for a while. And if you ever ask me what is the perfect place and the perfect time for me I will draw you this place: a table by the window, next to the front door, with a high seat and a view to the street. Sometimes I think I could just leave my life, only to come back there, with no looking back.

 It was a part of a discussion during a creative writing course I attended, positively surprised afterall, describing the perfect place to write and create. For some reasons, most of the people claimed they needed silence. The absolute one, like early morning in their bed. ''Worst place- one guy wrote- probably a busy coffee shop during peak hours''. And then, my mind took me there. It took my heart back in time. 

 There is this specific kind of people in this world who like to stay near by the window. You can meet us in restaurants and bars as the ones who never go up neither downstairs, no matter how nice is there. We never seek silence. We enjoy the counter with a whole business of it's work and a company of random passengers. We breathe the noise of the street in and feed on it. Until we need it to live. 

 I used to come there often. That is why I see this place so clearly when I close my eyes. It was located in an old city centre about which you can read in the guides that is nowadays almost forgotten. It remains passed by and unnoticed, just like a cat on a courtyard. The entrance to the coffee shop was just a large glass wall and there were two tables located just next to the doorway, with high chairs. There were places for smokers, a bit away from the rest of those inside. Just around the corner there was a bakery run by two older ladies who were making fresh rolls with chocolate or mushrooms inside and a queue outside was long enough to mix up with the people on a bus stop by the next street. Apart from that, nothing. An old library, a second hand bookshop and a silly round building which used to be a symbol of the city- at that time empty, a home for the pigeons. 

The levels of isolation

 The Guy I Lived With had another life. It was there, inside his computer, when he thought I did not see. He believed that I indeed did not see despite watching as he was not aware that it was not really his computer. It was his head. And he believed that I would not see what was in his head. Isolation always starts with a belief. 

 I got caught by the idea while sitting at my table. The house was quiet and these things in the air, like tiny pieces of a sand spread all around, started bringing images of places I have never been too and lives I have never lived yet. Monkey Seduction had attacked. As usually, all of a sudden.

 I write letters. To the people who meant, those in the life you come back to watch on an old picture printed out of a polaroid you don't have anymore. I write to them in my mind, cause that's the best way to say everything without a careful count of steps.

 Coming to the point, (as recently I hear a lot of moaning voices complaining about how much I roam around the subject without having actually any core of it) I went to Tate Modern. And following a creative writing guide this is probably the first fact I wrote here since the beginning of this blog.

 I need to add here that I usually go to Tate Modern once in a while. I like coming back there because of the memories left there for me. Everytime I come I can pick up some of them and take them back, or abandon them forever which never works for real. And- there is a mirror.

MIRROR

 No, not just any mirror. This mirror is meant to be an art- it's sticked to the canvas and pretends to be a painting, to be a real art mirroring the reality. Oh, what a curse for the artist- this mirror doesn't show reality. It's the only mirror in the world which shows you everything you've ever tried to hide. 

 I am always intrigued by things which are placed in such positions that you would rather see them leaving than coming inside. It's an easy trick to make the experience totally unexpected- people once decided to leave the place are usually unarmed, vulnerable like children attacked by a sudden memory of a last night's nightmare. This is how The Mirror attacks. Unexpected is it's weapon. To grab you, tear you apart and place you on the final level of isolation- integrity. Then you become the ultimate piece on a picture, just you. Painfully sole.