Day 3 in Arles
We visited two modern art museums on our third day in Arles. Our first visit was to the Van Gogh Foundation. There are very few Van Gogh pieces; we may have seen two. Van Gogh, being a bit--erm, eccentric--was not much appreciated when he was here and l don't think he had a local patron that kept his art.
Anyway, the Van Gogh Foundation features primarily other artists whose connection to Van Gogh is tenuous. When we visited, they had a large exhibition of works by Nicole Eisenman, whose work often focuses on sexuality, and in particular, a lot of depictions of women giving birth - sometimes to people, sometimes to things.
Next, we visited another arts foundation called Luma. The Luma's building is a remarkable structure designed by Frank Gehry. It's meant to evoke the surrounding countryside. The museum curators are quite proud of their foundation and the building. On the first floor, immediately after entering, they have a gallery room that runs a 10-minute interview with Gehry on a loop. A second gallery room runs a loop of an interview with creator of foundation. A little too much navel-gazing, if you ask me. That said, we appreciated some of the art featured in the other galleries, like the work by an American artist who focused on racism and the Greco-Roman statue made of wax that was actively melting (commentary on the permanence of art). I also especially enjoyed the three story slide built into the interior of the museum (H didn't partake).
After a day at these two museums, we had had our fill of modern art. Unfortunately, we found a lot of it was too abstruse. The explanatory placards accompanying were often unhelpful. They typically fell into two categories: (1) they suggested the artist's oeuvre was a reflection of multiple vast and vague psychological or social issues like "sexuality" or "family"; or (2) they indicated the artist was reacting to other artistic movements or artists that we weren't always familiar with.
COVID
Thursday morning I woke up with a tickle in my throat and a very occasional cough, which I honestly thought was nothing. Hannah, annoyingly, kept giving me nervous glances. Rather than field questions all day about my health, I suggested we go to a nearby pharmacy and get a COVID test "just to make [her] feel better." About 30 minutes later the faintest red line indicating I was positive appeared. Hannah's nervous glance transformed into to looks of abject terror, albeit looks that were hidden away beneath two face masks.
We moved out of our hotel and into a nearby AirBNB. Hannah slept in a separate bedroom and vacated the apartment entirely from morning to night. For the first five nights, rather than use the air conditioner, we left the windows open to keep the air flowing. Unfortunately, Provence in the summer is hot and home to mosquitos, who made a meal of me in the evening. Not to mention the busy street right outside our window, where obnoxiously loud scooters would barrel down the street. One early morning a tractor trailer couldn't quite make a turn around a tight bend about a block away and spent about 30 minutes trying to back itself out of the intersection, going back and forth between forward and reverse (with the truck's reverse alarm going off each time) dozens of times.As Hannah put it, "I feel like I wake up in the barrel of a cannon."
But, I shouldn't overstate my situation. My case was relatively mild and after a few uncomfortable days coughing and sniffling, I was feeling well. I watched about half a dozen movies and read a novel while I convalesced.
Remarkably, Hannah didn't catch it. This is despite the fact that I was breathing directly into her face the night before I tested positive when we were sleeping in the same bed and when I was supposedly highly infectious. My wife is Wonder Woman. Hannah ventured all over Provence while I isolated in the apartment. As far as I can tell, she saw all the things and ate all the food. By the end, though, she was tired of touring around and dining alone.
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