🎭 The Tapa Weekend: November 17
A glimpse of old Madrid, a drama play with subtitles and another Picasso exhibit.
By @IanMount and @AdrianBono | November 17, 2023 | Madrid | Issue #30
🎉 Welcome to a new issue of The Tapa: Weekend Edition! An English-language newsletter about what to do this weekend in Madrid (plus memes!)
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Here Are 5 Things to Do in Madrid This Weekend
Happy Friday!
“Happy” because the last few days have been insane and the weekend feels like a breath of fresh air. For 48 hours we’ll be talking about vermuts and Christmas markets instead of dictatorships, investitures and Tucker Carlson. At least we hope.
Anyway, now that Pedro Sánchez has been elected Prime Minister for the next four years, let’s take a minute to reflect on what really matters: weekend activities!
Here are five cool things for you to do this weekend.
1. Picasso 1906: The Great Transformation
Ooooohhh, the King and Queen of Spain were the ones to officially open this exhibit this week so it’s gotta be good, am I right?
Picasso 1906: La Gran Transformación is part of an initiative commemorating the 50th anniversary of the legendary Spanish painter’s death and presents over 120 works from private collections and national and international institutions.
The year 1906 is considered to be a pivotal year for Picasso, as it was during then that the Malaga-born artist experienced a dramatic change in his style and technique, embracing cubism and moving away from the realism of his earlier works.
The exhibit, curated by Eugenio Carmona, aims to make you think about his role in the creation of modern art. Through drawings and sketchbooks, his work focuses on “the body and interculturality”. See? Told you it was worth it.
Picasso 1906: La Gran Transformación. Museo Reina Sofía, Calle de Santa Isabel, 52, Madrid. Through March 4. Visit the museum’s website for schedule. Tickets start at €12.
2. No Va a Quedar Nada de Todo Esto: Signs from a Madrid that no longer exists
Here’s an interesting one, especially if you’re feeling nostalgic about the recent past. No va a quedar nada de todo esto (“There won’t be anything left of all this”) is being promoted as a “cemetery of businesses”, an exhibit with over 200 commercial signs and posters on display belonging to local shops that went out of business or were displaced, and to streets that no longer exist.
The focus is on the history of Spanish graphic design (its aesthetic and political changes) and how our public space and cities have been transformed throughout the years.
You will see artisanal signs from century-old shops as well as plastic and acrylic signs from more modern stores that for various reasons couldn’t stay open. The exhibit is curated by the Paco Graco collective, which has tried to “rescue these signs from oblivion”. Apparently there are signs from the 90s too, so get ready to feel old.
No va a quedar nada de todo esto. CentroCentro. Plaza de Cibeles, 1. Madrid. Through March 10. Tuesdays to Sundays, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Free admission.
3. Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Periferia de la Noche
Periferia de la Noche ("Periphery of the Night") is an exhibit by Thai artist and filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul that uses 13 audiovisual pieces of his own creation, distributed across six areas, to construct “a unique atmosphere that allows you to immerse into the universe from where all of his films originate”.
Weerasethakul was born in 1970 in Bangkok and has dedicated his career to promote experimental and independent cinema. In 2010 he won the Palme d'Or at the 63rd Cannes Film Festival with his film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. In 2021 he won again, this time the Jury Prize at Cannes, with Memoria.
The exhibit highlights the most artistic side of this creator, whose career has mostly revolved around cinema, extending Weerasethakul's imagery beyond the movie theaters and forming “an expressive and conceptual whole within an installation”.
It’s basically a cool projection setup that “allows itself to be contaminated by the space it’s in and the audience”. Go check it out.
Periferia de la Noche. Matadero Madrid, Plaza de Legazpi, 8, Madrid. Through April 7. Free admission. Check website for schedule.
4.Who Killed My Father: A play
Yes, yes, we’re very artsy this week. (Sorry, it can’t all be reggaeton and the new season of The Crown.)
Who Killed my Father is a gripping play from Belgian theater director Ivo Van Hove, adapted from the book by French writer Édouard Louis. The story is about a father who, at the age of 50, “is a physical and mental wreck because of the hard work in the heavy industry of northern France. It is both a furious indictment of the political elite and a son's declaration of love to his father.”
While the book is written in the form of a letter to his dad, the play has been adapted as an 85-minute monologue played by Dutch actor Hans Kesting and it’s one of the highlights of Madrid’s Festival de Otoño. The play is in Dutch but it’s presented with Spanish subtitles. Get your tickets while they last.
Who killed my Father. Teatros del Canal, Sala Verde, Cea Bermúdez, 1, Madrid. Nov. 17-19. Tickets start at €9. Check website for schedule.
5. The Spot Market: Pop Up Madrid
Fancy an Iberian pop-up market, anyone? This weekend, the Santa Bárbara Palace near Alonso Martínez is hosting the Spot Market, which brings together Portuguese and Spanish brands. While usually in Lisbon and Comporta, this time this fashion and lifestyle urban market is crossing the border and landing in Madrid.
You'll find “many fashion brands, accessories, jewelry, and lifestyle items”, all of them of “original production and design” according to the market’s website. Since you’re (probably) asking—yes, there will also be food trucks and cocktails. (Because, let’s face it, it’s half the reason why you go to these things. You think there will be pastel de Belem? There better be.)
The exhibitors include brands such as C&P By Maria João Salgueiro, Cerámicas Do Moinho, Clara Aires, Cucurumbell, Fatima Palma, Girlsarehappy, Loiças & Coisas, Made By Us, Made Por Elas, Milk & Snow, Mr Blue, Mutt Dog & Co, Nina Masai,, Oui Kiki, Stones Manuela Andradem and others. If you don’t know these names, that’s a good thing. Check it out! (And let us know if they have pastel de Belem. Seriously)
The Spot Market: Pop Up Madrid. Palacio Santa Bárbara, Hortaleza 87, Madrid. Nov. 17-19. Free admission. Opening hours: Friday, 2 p.m. to 9 p.m.. Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.. Sunday, 11 am to 2 pm.
👨🏻💻 Viral Stories of the Week
🤬 There was tension!
The whole Sánchez offering amnesty and more to the Catalan separatists seemed to drive some people completely batty.
We won’t go into the whole investiture deal in depth (which we did yesterday and we’re sure that you, like us, are totally done with the subject). But the image of the right-wingers of Hazte Oír tooling around Madrid in a bus plastered with an image of Sánchez as Hitler (as we noted: Nazis were national socialists and Sánchez is a socialist so…get it?) and his party’s initials written as Pedro Sánchez Odia España was just too much.
But no, there was more investiture-induced insanity! Like, say, the woman who went to an anti-amnesty protest and just…screamed! 🙀
You want more? There’s plenty more. Check out El Mundo’s compilation of the best and brightest meme-worthy moments of the investiture. It wasn’t ALL histrionic screaming.
🔔 A Message From Our Sponsor
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Located on Calle de Moratín 7 — a few blocks away from the Prado Museum — and with over 20,000 new and used books, Secret Kingdoms has something for everyone.
Find out more at www.thesecretkingdoms.com
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