The Movement Museum
Vintage artifacts and training trinkets are placed around the Barres and Bells studio to stimulate a curiosity for the human body, and to celebrate the wonderful exhibitions of exercise. This piece, ‘Maynooth Man’, was a gift from my brother and his family after visiting the small Ontario town for breakfast. After a morning stroll, perusing vintage shops on the main street we found our man, and continue to be on the look out for for our favourite types of wellness ephemera and training tchotchke.
The Movement Museum
Museums and movement. Those who love them, love them a lot. And those who don’t, may not be bothered to see the pointillism, or to try the exercises that point the ankles and toes.
Recently, the metaphors of movement followed us around on our trip to Madrid, Spain. Unsurprisingly, my google map of any city is more likely to have stars pointing us towards the local calisthenic stations, versus the places curating world renowned, or new art installations. However, on this trip, we explored the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.
Green flags mark the piazzas and parks with either patios or pull-up bars, and hearts show bakeries with the best boulangerie. In our experience, where you find one, often you will find the other.
It was the architecture of the building, and the allure of Picasso, Dali, and Goya that excited us the most. But, before we visited the surrealist and symbolist selections, we explored the temporary modern exhibition on the first floor.
Arriving late, I thought we might be the only ones in the museum on this evening. Like wiggling toes, and being asked to do things with our own bodies that may not bring immediate gratification, the first floor was confusing, evocative, and empty. Yet, one month later, our experience, alone on the first floor, made permanent connections with the real world back home on the street and back in the studio.
As we climbed the stairs to the second floor, the noise rose a decibel with every step. There were other patrons in the museum, many, many more. With rock concert energy, or the enthusiasm of a Hyrox exercise competition, perhaps with the expectation to be surrounded by masterful works painted the picture of an entirely different museum experience.
Was the second floor was full of enthusiasm for the artists and their works? Or, for the selfie? Sometimes discretely, and other times with an emphatic ‘shhhh!’, the docents were continuously reminding patrons to modify their behaviours and noise levels from (by museum standards) deafening to decent.
Do you have questions about how to go up and down the stairs? With our vintage Canadian Pacific Railway step, we have ideas and exercises to share.
On this floor, Lauryn and I seemed to be alone in our attraction to pieces depicting the process. In this grand gallery, cell phones chimed, digital shutters snapped, and in front of Picasso’s Guernica depicting the atrocities of Spanish civil war, people smiled. Perhaps like in exercise, we are too interested in seeing the big picture, that we become unable to appreciate, understand or enjoy the process.
On this day, the third floor was closed for renovations. Did they hide works from Picasso’s blue period there? What about the greatness of Goya? Similarly with exercise, patrons of gyms and followers online may seek the all-in-one experiences to see, and do everything in one visit. We know it takes longer than a single visit to press a heavy bell, or to that pull our selves up to the bar, and an artists success is related to their ability to absorb critique and persevere through times of failure.
On a previous trip to Spain and prior to our current exercise enterprise, this souvenir print ‘started it all’. Lauryn and I saw the print hanging in the shop, and made the commitment to one day hang it in our very own exercise studio. It’s not quite modern art, but a part of our modern history hanging proudly on the wall.
Perhaps on your next visit to the gym, or to the museum may provide the one set, or stroke you need to create your outline, and on paper, or as reflected in your posture, put you on course to create your own great masterpiece.
Are on the first floor of exercise? Just starting out, reading and looking to make connections with your body? Or, did you jump ahead to the second floor to experience the big exhibitions or monumental movements? Maybe, you already climbed the stairs, step by step, and are searching for the third floor to explore more — for the love of movement.
At first, anyway you get to the exercise station or a museum’s curation is the most important step. Then, with practice and refinement, slow down your approach to increase the connections with the past, present and future goals of your calisthenic, cultural and healthy active lifestyle.
Take care,
Ian and Lauryn