Today we have planned a fast exploration of the city before our relative has to reach the airport later in the afternoon for the return flight to Romania. We start the exploration with the major art museum in town the Tenerife Espacio de las Artes in short TEA. It is housed in quite a modern building together with the library and it takes a bit to find the right entrance to reach the museum proper.
After paying the entrance fee we reach the first temporary exhibit, an ever changing one where you pick a key write a message and affix it to a fence. The message is supposed to say what the key is opening and there are quite some imaginative messages as we read them and then add one of our own.
Then we enter the more permanent section, it is dedicated to one of the more famous artists from Tenerife, Oscar Domiguez, born in San Cristobal de la Laguna. He is one of the most famous Spanish avant-garde painters who unfortunately killed himself at 51 years of age after quite an interesting career.
There are also more temporary exhibits, some quite…scandalous I guess? We find them interesting to see what artists can dream up.
Like every Spanish painter Oscar Dominguez was quite impacted by the Spanish Civil War as seen in some later paintings some done during his exile. This might have led also to his untimely demise.
Now it is time to explore the lower level which starts with a small photography exhibit. It is quite good actually and we then try to find the rest of the exhibits on this floor.
Next is an exhibit that we assume it is related to the Guanches. Or maybe not who knows. But even though we might not understand all of them some are funny like a full room with just a huge pencil that has drawn a semicircle. We can only guess what it might mean, so many possible meanings.
We pass through a few more interesting exhibits and then arrive at one where there are burning candles around the room. We are not sure how that is safe and as we explore a guard appears and we assume it is to tell us to stay further away from the candles. And he starts to gesture and point at the candles and soon we understand that he actually tells us we should light a candle ourselves, so we do just that. Another interactive exhibit, not what we expected. And then it is time to leave, we have one more museum planned before we have to leave for the airport.
