My Husband Hates the Pompidou Centre (but not all modern art)

As I perused the itinerary for our transatlantic cruise (today is, surprise, another sea day), I was delighted to see that we will stop in Malaga. We’ve never been to the Costa Del Sol, so this will be a pleasant port day. Malaga is the birthplace of Pablo Picasso.

Having been to the Picasso museum in Barcelona, and spent some time viewing the Guernica in Madrid, I decided we would pass on the Malaga version, and head straight to the Pompidou Centre. The Malaga outpost of the Paris museum is contracted for five years, with an option to extend another five years. I thought this visit would certainly be more successful than our visit to the original museum in Pari.

FKGuy was, well, I won’t say excited, exactly… interested in going to the Pompidou, but was a good sport. After all, the building adorned the cover of his French book in high school. And he does speak un peu French. As we perused the galleries, we came across a video. Unfortunately, it sucked us in right away. It was a (poorly made) video of the artist mutilating himself with a knife. It was a train wreck, but we could not stop watching.

Eventually, the artist had enough self-mutilation and proceeded to urinate on himself into a bucket. (Do you see where this is going? I didn’t, and it has haunted me for the past fourteen years, and many more to come.) With that out of the way (you should probably stop eating now) he proceeded to drink the contents of the bucket.

Gross. This was, in no way, art. It was horrible. Yet, we watched the entire thing, which I think says as much about us as the artist. FKGuy has not let me forget that I ruined the day in Paris by schlepping him to a museum with a guy drinking his own pee. So, I was delighted to plan our visit to the Pompidou outpost in Malaga. FKGuy had even agreed to go in open-minded, with one caveat: if we come across “art” that involves self-mutilation and drinking one’s own urine, we can leave immediately. I thought that was a fair compromise.

Alas, we will end up in Malaga on a Tuesday, the one day the museum is closed. FKGuy gets a reprieve this time, and it seems we will be headed to the Picasso museum, after all, before we meet up with our food tour.