Ceramics and Glass, Saints and Drugs

Santo Domingo, Antigua, Guatemala

The 5 star Santo Domingo hotel occupies the site of a former 16C monastery and college complex, ruined elegantly in the 1700s by the vast earthquake that brought Antigua to its
World Heritage Site status.

The hotel buildings are worth exploring for their loveliness, quite apart form the several museums and art exhibitions scattered among the ruins and displays of sculptural and architectural items discovered in the excavations and partial restorations of the compex.

Go for a day, and plan to take lunch and several tea beaks, as well as time to sit amongst the various gardens, contemplating said items, or resting your eyes and legs, while listening to the quiet ecclesiastical music that adds to the overall aesthetic of the place.

Highlights?
I really loved the strikingly creative permanent exhibition of PreColombian ceramics juxtaposed with contemporary glass art. Literally juxtaposed. Each well-lit display case houses 1-3 PreColombian pieces alongside 1-3 modern glass pieces in close thematic associations, so the pieces speak to each other aesthetically and sometimes humourously, sometimes in a rather aweful way. I lingered there 3 times, and each time saw aspects in fresh ways. It’s an innovative concept (as far as I know) and it works.

The venue itself. It is a magnificent venue, tastefully attended to and dressed.

The music. Nice.

Other things to see and do there:
I’m always a sucker for historic pharmacies. Something rather nice about all those alchemical bottles and jars. We saw a photographic exhibition: Yo-Yo of portraits and self-portraits; an archaeological museum that had 2 stone pieces and a number of painted cartoons and caricatures (????); a great little exhibition of regional crafts and arts; various crypts, some housing friars’ bones and another a well-preserved Colonial altar triptych from the monastery’s founder period; and chose to forego the Colonial art museum, it being a rather grey rainy day on which to expose ourselves to yet more tortured piety!

So tonight
Looking forward to dinner with Cuban jazz by musicians who look as though they should be old enough to be pretty well-seasoned experts... let’s hope so!