Rain and school holidays having thwarted my hiking plans yet again, I decided to make the most of half a non rainy morning when I was going to be around Guadalajara to check out a free exhibition and the museum of a local artist.

Francisco Sobrino (1932 – 2014) was a conceptual artist whose sculpture can be framed into the kinetic art and constructivism styles. The museum Museo Francisco Sobrino hosts some of his smaller works, mostly in colourful vinyls and experiments with materials, textures and light. Pretty colours and shapes, but I guess you need more knowledge of art than I have to appreciate the works and see… something different from pretty colours and shapes. But the museum is free and it is hosted in a historical building, the former slaughterhouse, built in traditional brick and stone. Though I’ve been around a few times, I’d never visited it before…

The exhibition on Ancient Egypt and King Tutankhamen’s tomb Tutankamón Secretos Revelados: La Exposición (Tutankhamen Secrets Revealed: The Exhibition) was endearing but lacking. It was located in another historical building, the traditional market Mercado de Abastos. It used to be a very successful local market, but the vendors lost most their clientele when it was closed for a few years to turn the place into a culture and bar hub. It was not successful at all, and now it’s a sad-looking place. The top floor hosted the exhibition, with a few posters with information and pictures, one of them being a very buff Anubis from the video-game franchise Assassin’s Creed. There were a few display cases with reproductions of Egyptian antiquated from private collections and books on Egypt. The largest part of the exhibition was a reproduction of several items found in Tutankhamen’s tomb: the wall paintings, a golden chair and the gold-plated sarcophagus. There were also a reproduction of the funerary mask, a brass tray and anything golden the curators seemed to have at hand, including a scarf. And the bust of Nefertiti for some reason.

I’m not going to say I was disappointed or that I expected more, it was a cute little exhibition that tried to do its best. Unfortunately, some of the information was inaccurate or outdated – they were showing a video from the 1980s, and archaeology has evolved a little since then.

However, I am still cackling at the low-resolution buff Anubis…