The Retiro Park is one of my favorite places in town! On my
free days I usually walk from home until the park just to sit there for a
while, reading a book, sunbathing (even during the winter… aren’t those sunny
and warm winter Sundays one of the most amazing things that Madrid has?!) and
listening to the sounds of nature. But the best part of this “ritual” is that I
always get surprised. In the middle of the Park is the Glass Palace, an oasis
of creativity in the very heart of Madrid. It is actually just a glass
greenhouse, but a couple of years ago the Reina Sofia National Art Center
bought this place and often uses it as a shelter for some cool art installations.
The coolest I saw in there so far was last winter, it was called “Two Golden Rings”
and it was an installation from the Czech artist Jiří Kovanda with wires and,
of course, two golden rings that really suited this place giving it an even more
ethereal feeling.
And this spring/summer (until the 2nd of
September) there is also another very interesting intervention. Mid way between
the art installation and the architecture, “Imagined Memories” is a piece from
the Japanese Mitsuo Miura. It is actually very discrete, only a dozen of
circles with washed-out colors distributed by the space and crowned by hanging circles
in the exact same color. But the way both sets of circles are placed in the floor
and ceiling of the Glass Palace creates vertical lines that, depending from
each one memories, remind us of imaginary columns… or trees.
I came across it a couple of weeks ago, when I was in town
for a weekend between travels and, once again, I though “spot on”! The art installations
in the Glass Palace never disappointed me and this time was no exception. Actually
this minimalist piece, that creates an invisible (but yet very tangible,
because as you can see from the pictures, no one steps the circles that lay on
the floor) “forest of columns”, makes more sense in here that in any other
place. Because it brings together concepts such as nature/organic, urban and
culture it totally benefits from this location. Nowhere else but here the
piece could change depending from the month and the time of the day. The light
that comes from outside, and that neither the tall surrounding trees nor the glass
can filtrate, contributes to change the colors in the chromatic surface of the
circles, transforming this installation in a brand new piece every time you see
it! Judge by yourselves… Isn’t it beautiful the way the structure of the place
and the different elements of the installation complement each other?!
