May 15 - Serralves Park - treetop walk and Museum

 Today we had plans to see three things - but ended up seeing only one.  But it had multiple aspects.  We decided to go to Serralves which used to be a private estate on a lot of land.  It is now a contemporary museum with a treetop boardwalk and a building that exhibits several film artists from ages ago - with deep philosophical  themes.  But first the walk through the woods.

And then we headed onto the boardwalk.  So clever - just as the land took a deep dive they started the board walk.  So you didn't have to walk down the steep hill- but suddenly you were at treetop level.

So many interesting shaped and leafed trees. 

After the tree top tour we went to the film museum.

The rooms were so dark that I kept feeling I was going to step into a hole.  But they had so many films  on screens all going at the same time, it was hard to keep track of what was happening.  Everything was in Portuguese - sometimes with subtitles in English.  But how long would you want to stand there to watch the entire film?  And there were at least 10.  We finally gave up.

We headed back the way we had come.  Back to the entrance and the contemporary art museum.

The first artist was Mark Bradford.  Huge canvases.  

I got some of his stuff - the pictures were huge.  A lot had to do with unicorns - which I have to say made little since.  Later in his exhibit - he named them by number which made a lot more sense.

But then there were other artists - one who made some sewing projects with words in Portuguese.  They looked like first attempts at poorly done sewing projects and made no sense to me.  Maybe if I could have read the words it would have meant something.  

Then another room with a mask - but multiples of the same mask painted in different colors in many rooms - what the F did that mean?

OK - maybe I don't get contemporary art!!!