Category: Cultural Travel

Cultural Travel (1): Dusseldorf K21 Art Collection im Standeshaus – Katharina Fritsch

K21 im Standeshaus, a beautiful Photo of Joerg Dickmann

I’m a bit sad: I remembered a nice Blog writing about cultural traveling in Europe. I had to dig deep in my memory and remembered my friend Karen had referred to the blog in one of her Travel Carnival posts. It appeared to be in her First Travel Carnival:She had pointed me to High Culture on a low Budget. I’m sad because Olivia apparently ceased writing for the Blog Since June 2008. Curious what’s happening.


Katharina Fritsch: Mouse

I have written on other occasions about our little cultural travel group of friends that we have coined “Art en Route” and travels occasionally to see modern art. Recently we visited Duesseldorf to soak up some modern art. For us Baby Boomers art, design, music, dance, but also good wining and dining are excellent excuses to travel. Therefor I introduce a new category to my blog “Cultural Travel”


Katharina Fritsch: Monk, Doctor and Salesman

I have several posts in my sleeve, but will start with a couple of sculptures of Katharina Fritsch that belong to the K21 Art Collection im Standeshaus. The Standeshaus appeared to be a very nice Museum in the middle of a park. Apart from its facade it had been demolished and rebuild entirely and has a glass roof like some other museums have nowadays. Nowhere on its site is there any information about this renovation after which it became the home of the 21st century art collection of the Art Collection of the German Nordrhein-Westfalen state. I like the building, its location and its restaurant.


Katharina Fritsch: Mouse and Man, Monk, Doctor and Salesman

I am impressed by these sculptures and the fact that K21 devotes a whole room to her.
Katharina Fritsch does not seem to have a website. At present she is a Professor at the German Muenster art academy and there is some info about her on Wiki.
If you search her on Flickr, you’ll get a nice collections of her sculptures.

Affordable Art Fair – Amsterdam – Contemporary Art Fair

After eight successful years in London, New York, Sydney and Melbourne the Affordable Art Fair has been launched in Amsterdam in November 2007. After this first edition the Affordable Art Fair Amsterdam will grow in 2008: circa 80 galleries from the Netherlands and abroad will be seen at the Westergasfabriek terrain from 29 October to 2 November. The fair is fun, relaxed and with everything from €100 to €5,000, it is an art-buying opportunity that can not be missed.

The fair’s friendly environment invites first time buyers to browse amongst the thousands of paintings, original prints, photography and sculpture, whilst seasoned collectors can seek out hot new artists. In short, AAF Amsterdam is a fair where you can look at contemporary art, love it and leave with your own piece.

This funky fair’s stunning location is the 19th century gasworks, an impressive industrial monument on the Westergasfabriek terrain, close to Amsterdam Central station and easy to reach by bike, tram, car or foot from the town center.
Affordable Art Fair – Amsterdam – Contemporary Art Fair

The Rom and The Piano

ROM CRYSTAL NAPKIN SKETCH
ROM CRYSTAL napkin sketch

On june 2, 2007 The official opening of the ROM extension was celebrated. The what extension? The Michael Lee-Chin Crystal. Who’s Crystal?

Okay okay I’ll try to explain.

The ROM is not Read Only Memory, but the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada. The Piano is not Renzo Piano, but a real piano (see below). The ROM extension is a new building designed by Polish born, USA raised and Berlin Based Architect Daniel Libeskind who is also responsible for rebuilding Ground Zero.

Inspired by the ROM’s gem and mineral collection, architect Daniel Libeskind sketched the initial concept on paper napkins while attending a family wedding at the ROM. The design was quickly dubbed the ‘crystal’ because of its crystalline shape.

“Why should one expect the new addition to the ROM to be ‘business as usual’? Architecture in our time is no longer an introvert’s business. On the contrary, the creation of communicative, stunning and unexpected architecture signals a bold re-awakening of the civic life of the museum and the city.”

– Daniel Libeskind

ROM CRYSTAL

Michael Lee-Chin is a Canadian businessman who donated $ 30 mio to the ROM and hence the new building got his name.
The Piano
Via The Globe and The Mail I learned that Liebeskind, whose first vocation was to become a virtuoso pianist designed a Grand Piano.

The idea for the piano arose in 2002, when Toronto piano dealer Robert Lowrey arranged a meeting between Libeskind and Nicholas Schimmel, head of Schimmel Pianos, one of the few remaining companies to make pianos mostly by hand. Libeskind had initially wanted to be a concert pianist, Lowery said, and Schimmel has already produced instruments with designs by the likes of German artist Ottmar Alt.
‘It’s a piano to be played, but also to be admired as a piece of architecture,’ piano dealer Robert Lowrey says.

Libeskind Limited Edition Piano
Rendering by Studio Daniel Libeskind

Three 16-foot-long (five-metre) specialty models will be made, as well as a small number of seven-foot (two-metre) grands based on the same design.

Libeskind designed only the exterior case; the interior works will be essentially the same as in a normal grand.

“It’s a piano to be played, but also to be admired as a piece of architecture,” Lowrey said.

Like the Crystal, the Libeskind piano poses stiff engineering challenges. The enormously long lid, for instance, must be light enough to be raised by an ordinary person, and strong enough not to warp or bend. Lowery said Schimmel is experimenting with titanium as a material for the cabinet. The case for Schimmel’s playful Alt piano, which looks like a gigantic child’s toy, employed steel, glass and fibreglass.

“It’s taking longer to make this piano than to build the Crystal,” Lowrey said.

Thorsell said he expected the piano to emerge from Schimmel’s factory next year. But the head of Schimmel’s American office, to whom the German office referred questions, said he had “no idea” when the piano might be completed.

Lowrey said Schimmel hopes that the publicity value of the large instruments will help sales of the limited-edition models, which will probably number fewer than 120. One of the other long models may be displayed near the ground zero site in Manhattan, he said.

I wonder whether this will revive the classical piano.

Istanbul Museum of Modern Art: Times Present Times Past

We visited the 10th Istanbul Biennial. On that occasion the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art had a temporary exhibition on the whole ground floor called “Times Present Times Past” with an overview of the 9 past Biennials.

The building itself is excellently located on the Bosphorus. I was mezmerized by the restaurant and bar: what a stunning view over the Bosphorus while having a lunch or simply an expresso (or Turkish Coffee).

What struck me most were four photo’s of Shirin Neshat from her series “Woman of Allah”.

Woman of Allah
One of the four exhibited
Photo © Shirin Neshat

As one of the most controversial of contemporary artists, Shirin Neshat will participate in the exhibition with her works from her series Women of Allah, which was part of the 4th İstanbul Biennial in 1995. In René Block’s biennial, Neshat’s work was introduced to the international community and widely discussed. The Iranian-American artist, who participated in the 4th, 5th and 8th İstanbul Biennials, was recognized internationally after her Women of Allah series, in which she used the images of Iranian revolutionary women who were ready to die for their convictions and combined a poetic expression with a problematical political content. Neshat left Iran in 1979 at the time of the Iranian revolution to resume her studies in the U.S.A. and had to live in exile until 1990. When she returned to her country after having spent 11 years in the U.S.A, she began questioning the role of women in the public sphere under the Islamic regime; in the series Women of Allah, which she produced between 1993 and 1997, she concentrated on issues relating to womens’ body, text and political action.

Immediately I associated these photos with the film Submission made by then controversial member of Dutch Parliament and current Bush think tank associate Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh, a distant relative of Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh who was murdered after the film was presented.
Last edited by GJE on December 7, 2011 at 1:41 pm