With a truckers’ strike in Spain causing ongoing transportation issues, a Julian Schnabel show in Málaga has been postponed.
Schnabel’s 23-painting show at the Centro de Arte Comporaneo was expected to open on Friday, but it will no longer kick off as planned, since it became impossible for the museum to obtain all the works on time. Titled “Schnabel and Spain: Anything Can Be a Model,” the show is organized by the artist’s son Cy and curator Fernando Francés. It has not been given a new opening date.
While the majority of the paintings did not arrive on time, a few works—and the New York–based artist himself—managed to get to the museum, even amid a sandstorm that blew red dust from the Sahara Desert across the city.
“The paintings are going to look great, and what are you going to do?” said an optimistic-sounding Schnabel, speaking by phone from Spain. “When the paintings get there, they’ll be on the wall. The space is amazing, and the show is going to be great.”
Earlier this month, three Spanish truckers’ unions formed a group known as the Platform for the Defence of Transport and began striking on March 14 amid rising prices for fuel in the country. The strike is expected to cause food shortages in Spain. The unions involved with the strike rejected a proposed government aide plan that workers said would not compensate for the losses caused by the prices of diesel.
On Monday, the CAC made a last-minute call to postpone its Schnabel show.
“The center has waited until the last moment in the hope of being able to carry out the exhibition on the scheduled date, searching for other transport alternatives without success due to the dimensions of the works of art that make up the exhibition,” the center said in a statement on its website.
Although most of the paintings are currently stuck in transit, four of the works—including a 13-and-a-half-foot-long one—made it to the museum and are currently hanging there.
“I hadn’t seen them in a long time, and I was very pleased with how they were hung,” Schnabel said.
