Köln: Day Two
Sep. 17th, 2023 10:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aRunning a day behind on these because of events. (I didn't feel like writing much other than an initial memory of Lucy when I got here on Friday and Kimberly had to have Lucy put to sleep that same morning, out in Hawaii.)
In fact, I wasn't really that thrilled to go out and do stuff yesterday. I've been lounging about my apartment more than I usually would each of these last two mornings. But I knew I needed to get out and SEE STUFF, because I likely won't ever be in Köln again, and I'd regret it if I didn't. So I opted to go see a museum or two yesterday, as that seemed easy, and something that didn't require much thought.
So I made another hike down to the Rhine, and this time headed south. There was some type of soccer(?) festival going on in a little plaza south of the Cathedral, and while I circled it, some girls asked to take a picture with me while wearing my hat. A scavenger hunt or something? I dunno, but I obliged. And then continuing south a bit I hit the Wallraf-Richardz Museum, my initial goal.
The Wallraf-Richardz is a historic art museum, with three floors dedicated to the Medieval times, Baroque art, and the 19th century. My main goal was the 19th century, but the Medieval floor was so well curated that it totally won me over. The didactics did such great jobs of explaining context that I read through them all (and looked at the art a bit too). There were great bits like: how the earliest art was religious religious totems/iconography, some of them even used for worship (some of them even with instructions for worship); how lapis lazuli and goldleaf began being used not to elevate the work but rather to represent what the artists felt was the already-elevated source material; how medieval art discovered backgrounds through import of styles from the Netherlands; and a lot more. Sadly, those same curators didn't seem involved with the Baroque floor, so I went through that faster, then I spent more time with the 19th century and again enjoyed the curation as we gradually went out doors, then met the impressionists, then met the three German impressionists. As in Prague, I really liked seeing how impressionism had visited other shores.
From there I briefly headed out the Heumarkt, yet another public square. There was _another_ big protest going on here. It took me a while to figure out what was going on (as most of the signs were in German) but I finally realized that it was a forced-birth demonstration (pro-Leben) with some homophobia thrown in as a side dish (because gay couples can't have children on their own, as far as I could tell). And there was a counterprotest too, which was at least as large. (https://www.indonewyork.com/politics/cologne-hundreds-at-demonstrations-against-abortion-use-of-batons-h95714.html) As I watched the marching handmaidens and saw the counterprotests growing louder and louder in their counter-chants and booing, I realized that I had no idea if something like this might erupt into violence in Cologne, so I beat feet. (I haven't seen any reports that it did.)
Wow, two huge demonstrations in two days. That's not something you see in Hawaii. (Even in Berkeley I would have been surprised by two protests of that size two days in a row.)
I walked along some nice plazas on the Rhine back to the Bahnhofsvorplatz. I just adore all the public spaces in Cologne. There was even a little running water feature that a lot of kids were immersing themselves in, with their parents and families about.
And then it was over to the Ludwig Museum, which is the modern art museum, and thus the perfect complement to the historic art museum.
I started out on the ground floor, and it was full of the stuff that gives modern art a bad name. A sink built out of wood with a coiled firehose nearby. A working set of pistons of some sort made into a perpetual circle. Some piles of dirt and a "machine" of peacock feathers. Bleachers filled with mannequins. I was not enthused.
But then I went up to the second floor, and that's where the art that I actually cared about began. There was an amazing exhibit on Ukrainian artwork from the 1900s through 1930s. It was rather pointed, talking about how there was this great outgrowth of modernist art, and then it was crushed by the USSR in 1930-something when they decreed Soviet Realism as the only acceptable art style and murdered a lot of artists.
Then, after a variety of different art styles (this museum was unfortunately poorly curated compared to the Wallraf-Richardz, with no clear throughline and the didactics often positioned AFTER the artwork, but the descriptions of the different art styles were much better than I've seen at most modern-art museums), we got to the stuff I'd really come to see. There was some Picasso, and although I'm not usually a fan of Picasso, I was won over by his painted objects (plates, vases, etc) and a wonderful weird sculpture, and even some of his paintings. There were just a few pieces of Dali and Magritte and a few other favorites. I almost missed the pop art (again, because of that poor curation/organization), which was one of the things I'd specifically wanted to see. But it wasn't amazing, other than a huge display that talked about the normalization of war in America. And there was Roy Lichtenstein. I'm always a little sad to see Lichtenstein in a museum as I consider him a thief, as he didn't even attribute the comic book artists that he traced. (See https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/apr/09/new-allegations-of-plagiarism-against-roy-lichtenstein, Lichtenstein claimed he wasn't a plagiarist because his works were higher "quality" than the comic books he copied.) But it was a joy to see a few Warhol and others.
The day went by in a blur because I'd hung out in my apartment until about 10 before spending 5 hours or so at museums.
And then I had a bad night's sleep, waking up at 1am and feeling very awake, and waking up every hour or two after that. I tried to open the windows at 1am, since I think the heat is contributing to my poor sleep, but the bar was still partying on, so they were eventually closed again.
And now it's another late day. But I'm planning to bike down to a garden and the river and some other stuff northward.
I hope I can manage an earlier schedule in the next day or two, since the workshop is starting tomorrow, though not until the evening. (The whole point of these days at the start is to reorient my schedule to Europe time, and that's been hard this time for various reasons.)
In fact, I wasn't really that thrilled to go out and do stuff yesterday. I've been lounging about my apartment more than I usually would each of these last two mornings. But I knew I needed to get out and SEE STUFF, because I likely won't ever be in Köln again, and I'd regret it if I didn't. So I opted to go see a museum or two yesterday, as that seemed easy, and something that didn't require much thought.
So I made another hike down to the Rhine, and this time headed south. There was some type of soccer(?) festival going on in a little plaza south of the Cathedral, and while I circled it, some girls asked to take a picture with me while wearing my hat. A scavenger hunt or something? I dunno, but I obliged. And then continuing south a bit I hit the Wallraf-Richardz Museum, my initial goal.
The Wallraf-Richardz is a historic art museum, with three floors dedicated to the Medieval times, Baroque art, and the 19th century. My main goal was the 19th century, but the Medieval floor was so well curated that it totally won me over. The didactics did such great jobs of explaining context that I read through them all (and looked at the art a bit too). There were great bits like: how the earliest art was religious religious totems/iconography, some of them even used for worship (some of them even with instructions for worship); how lapis lazuli and goldleaf began being used not to elevate the work but rather to represent what the artists felt was the already-elevated source material; how medieval art discovered backgrounds through import of styles from the Netherlands; and a lot more. Sadly, those same curators didn't seem involved with the Baroque floor, so I went through that faster, then I spent more time with the 19th century and again enjoyed the curation as we gradually went out doors, then met the impressionists, then met the three German impressionists. As in Prague, I really liked seeing how impressionism had visited other shores.
From there I briefly headed out the Heumarkt, yet another public square. There was _another_ big protest going on here. It took me a while to figure out what was going on (as most of the signs were in German) but I finally realized that it was a forced-birth demonstration (pro-Leben) with some homophobia thrown in as a side dish (because gay couples can't have children on their own, as far as I could tell). And there was a counterprotest too, which was at least as large. (https://www.indonewyork.com/politics/cologne-hundreds-at-demonstrations-against-abortion-use-of-batons-h95714.html) As I watched the marching handmaidens and saw the counterprotests growing louder and louder in their counter-chants and booing, I realized that I had no idea if something like this might erupt into violence in Cologne, so I beat feet. (I haven't seen any reports that it did.)
Wow, two huge demonstrations in two days. That's not something you see in Hawaii. (Even in Berkeley I would have been surprised by two protests of that size two days in a row.)
I walked along some nice plazas on the Rhine back to the Bahnhofsvorplatz. I just adore all the public spaces in Cologne. There was even a little running water feature that a lot of kids were immersing themselves in, with their parents and families about.
And then it was over to the Ludwig Museum, which is the modern art museum, and thus the perfect complement to the historic art museum.
I started out on the ground floor, and it was full of the stuff that gives modern art a bad name. A sink built out of wood with a coiled firehose nearby. A working set of pistons of some sort made into a perpetual circle. Some piles of dirt and a "machine" of peacock feathers. Bleachers filled with mannequins. I was not enthused.
But then I went up to the second floor, and that's where the art that I actually cared about began. There was an amazing exhibit on Ukrainian artwork from the 1900s through 1930s. It was rather pointed, talking about how there was this great outgrowth of modernist art, and then it was crushed by the USSR in 1930-something when they decreed Soviet Realism as the only acceptable art style and murdered a lot of artists.
Then, after a variety of different art styles (this museum was unfortunately poorly curated compared to the Wallraf-Richardz, with no clear throughline and the didactics often positioned AFTER the artwork, but the descriptions of the different art styles were much better than I've seen at most modern-art museums), we got to the stuff I'd really come to see. There was some Picasso, and although I'm not usually a fan of Picasso, I was won over by his painted objects (plates, vases, etc) and a wonderful weird sculpture, and even some of his paintings. There were just a few pieces of Dali and Magritte and a few other favorites. I almost missed the pop art (again, because of that poor curation/organization), which was one of the things I'd specifically wanted to see. But it wasn't amazing, other than a huge display that talked about the normalization of war in America. And there was Roy Lichtenstein. I'm always a little sad to see Lichtenstein in a museum as I consider him a thief, as he didn't even attribute the comic book artists that he traced. (See https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/apr/09/new-allegations-of-plagiarism-against-roy-lichtenstein, Lichtenstein claimed he wasn't a plagiarist because his works were higher "quality" than the comic books he copied.) But it was a joy to see a few Warhol and others.
The day went by in a blur because I'd hung out in my apartment until about 10 before spending 5 hours or so at museums.
And then I had a bad night's sleep, waking up at 1am and feeling very awake, and waking up every hour or two after that. I tried to open the windows at 1am, since I think the heat is contributing to my poor sleep, but the bar was still partying on, so they were eventually closed again.
And now it's another late day. But I'm planning to bike down to a garden and the river and some other stuff northward.
I hope I can manage an earlier schedule in the next day or two, since the workshop is starting tomorrow, though not until the evening. (The whole point of these days at the start is to reorient my schedule to Europe time, and that's been hard this time for various reasons.)