Ayuso, the 'Guernica' and universality

Although Ayuso is understood when she speaks, this time her new creation –“the culture is universal”– does need translation. What she is saying is that only Madrid is universal and, therefore, the Guernica cannot be lent for nine months to the Basque Country, as requested by the Basque government to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the bombing of civilian populations by Hitler's aviation, an ally of Franco. With the full sentence it becomes clearer: “I think it's provincial, and I think that culture is universal”.

The reader may think (and will not be mistaken) that if culture is universal, Madrid is as good as Bilbao, but then we must go back to the basics (redundant as it may be) of Ayuso's political thinking from 2020: “Madrid is Spain within Spain”. Now she has tripled down, because Madrid is the universe within the universe. I don't know what the astronauts of Artemis II have lost on the far side of the Moon, when they could travel to the center of the universe, go down for a few beers in freedom and return to the spaceship.

The arrival of the Guernica in Madrid in 1981 was a state operation, because it was proof that Spain was already a democracy, a condition that the painter had set for the return of the work. Picasso, an anti-Francoist like Pau Casals, died in exile.

Irony of fate. The defender of the universality of a work that denounces the crimes of fascism is the sociological daughter of Francoism and the spokesperson for the most aggressive and nationalist expression of Spanish politics. And the Guernica, a work by a republican, is at the Reina Sofía, alongside a king handpicked by Franco, whose son continues to reign. And there they both remain: the Guernica and the monarch, at the center of the universe. Or perhaps the most progressive Spanish government in history will dare to authorize the temporary loan of the painting? It would make perfect sense.