A perennial expat muses about her recent move from Zurich to Munich and her travels around Germany, Europe, and the world. Currently: bracing for Oktoberfest.
This one should tip off many of you at least to the artist(s) involved, if not the exact location.
Edited to add: We have a winner! It is indeed the Giardino dei Tarrochi in Italy, an enchanting garden designed by Niki de Saint Phalle (the artist who created the angel sculpture in Zurich's main train station). I'll blog more about this trip soon, but if you can't wait, you can see more photos on my Flickr.
Any guesses?
Edited to add: you can find the answer in the following post.
On Saturday night, Zurich’s museums opened their doors for the Lange Nacht der Museen, an annual affair that involves late-night openings and special events all over the city (with, of course, extremely efficient all-night public transportation connecting it all). We visited an impressive eight museums (out of 40) over the course of the evening, definitely getting our money’s worth out of the CHF 25 admission fee.
We started out at the Museum Rietberg, where we took in some Asian sculpture. Then it was across town to the Botanical Garden, which lured us in with its Slow Food exhibit. Given that we were hungry for actual food, we kind of hurried through the exhibit (stopping to sample many varieties of tomatoes at one display on the way) and headed to our next stop, the Museum Bellerive. In addition to a lovely Jugendstil exhibit inside, the courtyard of the museum was turned into a Bavarian beer garden for the evening. We filled up on pretzels, salads, sausages, and beer, took a quick spin around the inside of the museum, and then wandered towards the Chinagarten. A gift from one of
Next up was the Johann Jacobs Museum, a tiny place where you can learn all about coffee. Well, a little about coffee. A short tram ride later and we were at the Mühlerama, a popular destination featuring a (disappointing) chocolate fountain, baked goods, and an exhibition about fat in all its incarnations. After reading about
Next it was on to the NONAM, or Native American museum (who knew Zurich had such a thing?), which I will now always remember for (1) the hideously acted old western film they were showing in the courtyard, and (2) the hideous-tasting pumpkin muffin that we made the mistake of purchasing there. The evening’s grand finale (for us, anyway) took place at the Kunsthaus,
My trip to French-speaking
We spent the evening in
Martigny is a tiny town nestled between a couple vineyard-covered mountains. It’s cute enough, but I doubt it would ever see much tourist action if it weren’t for the world-class art exhibits put on by the Foundation Pierre Gianadda. We were sucked in by promises of a large Marc Chagall exhibit, and weren’t disappointed. The exhibition space was… different. It kind of reminded me of a 1970s American church annex or community center. It was surprisingly crowded for a Wednesday morning, but the paintings were worth it.
The complex also has a large sculpture garden (featuring, among other things, a giant thumb and a giant breast). We wandered through this (the garden, not the boob) on our way to the second building which housed a Leonardo da Vinci exhibit, featuring models of the some of the great artist’s many inventions, including drawbridges, military tanks, and flying machines. His brilliance always makes me drool. And reminds me to practice my mirror-writing.
We headed back into town and had a late lunch under the chestnut trees on the main
Yesterday we went to Art Basel, a large 5-day exhibition of art in - you guessed it - Basel. Around 300 galleries from around the world come and bring work from their hottest, shiniest art stars to display and sell for insane amounts of money.
We arrived at 11 AM, just as the exhibit was opening its doors. We started in Hall 1 of the conference center, which housed several large-scale works (pictured above), pacing ourselves since we knew we had a lot to see that day. By 12 we were proudly ready to move on to Hall 2, where all of the gallery booths were set up.
We browsed through the first row of booths, soaking in the offerings. There were lacquered sculptures, c-print photos, and creative knitting projects. Gold-leafed collages and mirrored concave wall hangings. Abstract video installations and drawings of penises, lots and lots of penises. By 1:30, we were starving, and decided to grab a ridiculously-overpriced lunch out in the courtyard while resting our feet and our brains. Actually my brain wouldn't turn off, as it danced around full of dreams of going back to art school to learn new techniques and make lots of crazy new things (that would happen to sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars at events such as this one). I loved art. I was an artist, and I was here in my element, hungry to learn more. Yay, art!
A couple hours and several rows of booths later, my attitude was a wee bit different. I think it could be blamed on over stimulation. Who were these freaks and what made them think these things were art? What was wrong with me that I couldn't appreciate all this art? And where the hell were the paintings? It was time for another break, so we had some coffee and some cheese quiche, hoping it would revive us.
Later we stumbled upon the galleries specializing in 20th-century artists (otherwise known as Artists I've Actually Heard Of), but by then we were too tired to really care what we were seeing. Numerous Picassos, Kandinskys, Schieles and Warhols passed before my eyes completely unappreciated. Not even eavesdropping on the discussions around me by people who were actually buying this art could keep my interest. I was fading fast. We tried taking another break and then plowing ahead, but by then it had all just become torturous. Finally around 7 PM, we made our exit, having seen about 75% of the booths (and appreciating about 10% of them).
Despite the agony in this tale, I would actually highly recommend a trip to Art Basel. But set a timer and leave after three hours or at the height of your artistic appreciation abilities, whichever comes first.
Last year I wrote about the inauguration of the NOVA 3D light sculpture in the Zurich main train station. This marginally entertaining installation has become a lot more interesting since then, now that its interactive capabilities have been enabled.
By touching a glass screen on the side of the groups meeting point sign, you can dictate what the light sculpture displays in real time. You can choose from several different pre-set programs, or draw free-form in various colors.
Several people looked up to admire our smiley face creation the other day. Isn't he cute?
OK, so where was I? A couple weeks ago I spent a few days in
When we weren’t watching Italians spread food substances on each other, we actually managed to take in a little culture on this particular trip. First there was the Scrovegni Chapel, a fresco-covered room painted by the master Giotto in 1303-1305. Much like at Da Vinci’s Last Supper in
We also paid a visit to the Basilica di Sant' Antonio. St. Anthony is one of the Catholics' most favorite saints, so he has been honored with a particularly fabulous church, even by Italian standards. Although I declared myself all churched out years ago (a non-life-threatening condition reached by people who have visited too many Italian churches within a short amount of time), this one was actually worth breaking my abstinence for. Every square centimeter of the place is ornately decorated. And, in addition to housing the tomb of Anthony himself, this basilica boasts quite a collection of other dead saint parts, too (they call them ‘relics’ and display them in custom-made decorative vessels; don’t get too close if you’re easily queasy).
Hungry for more art, we also took in the De Chirico show at Palazzo Zabarella. I was disappointed to not see my favorite work by him (Melancholy and mystery of a street, which looks exactly like the street I used to live on in Bologna, only creepier), but it was an awfully thorough and enjoyable show nonetheless. It’s on through May 27th, so quick, plan your trip to the
Move over Niki de St-Phalle's angel, the ceiling of the Zurich train station just got a new tourist-distracter. This evening was the unveiling of NOVA, a three-dimensional LED display that makes trippy patterns and pictures from 25,000 spheres.
NOVA uses some of the same technology as the infamous Bahnhofstrasse Christmas lights, which were much complained about during their first December on display last year. The grey and white patterns were too stark even for this city.
Luckily NOVA is more colorful and interesting than the Christmas lights were, and we will supposedly be treated to ever-changing displays over the three years it is scheduled to grace the Bahnhof ceiling.
The unveiling involved some interpretive dancers in body suits and some equally weird music/sound effects. The engineers involved in NOVA’s creation were overjoyed that everything worked as planned. The crowd seemed mildly impressed with the whole thing. Maybe their lack of enthusiasm had to do with the display’s calming effects, which I learned about during this exchange:
Reporter (shoving microphone in my face): What do you think?
Me (in crappy German, which I warned him about so it’s his fault for wasting his time): Um, it’s nicer than the Bahnhofstrasse Christmas lights.
Reporter: Ah, yes. Do you find it calming?
Me: Um, hmmm, well, maybe.
Reporter: No, you don’t.
Me: Should I?
Reporter: That’s what they claim.
He then walked away, seemingly proud that he had found yet another bystander to confirm his ‘not calming’ theory. Can’t wait to tune in for that broadcast.
More pictures here.
If you’ve ever spent any time in a Swiss city, you’ve probably not been able to avoid noticing the omnipresence of things labeled ‘Migros’. I first got to know Migros as the slightly more affordable of the two major supermarket chains in Zurich (Coop being the other one), but groceries are just the tip of the iceberg at this retail giant. There are Migros department stores, Migros banks, Migros home-improvement stores (amusingly named ‘Do It’), and a Migros school.
The school is sort of like a community college, offering adult classes in a wide array of disciplines. I have taken Swiss German, Painting, and Inline Skating classes there. [NB: Those were 3 separate courses. Painting while inline skating would just be silly – almost as silly as wanting to speak Swiss German.]
This past weekend we explored yet another corner of the Migros empire: the Migros Museum of Contemporary Art. The museum shares a building with several independent art galleries, pretty much all of which are closed for summer vacation right now. The trip was more than worth it, though, for the museum’s current exhibit, a grouping of films, sculptures, and drawings by Icelandic artist Gabriela Friðriksdóttir. I can’t get the eerie, textural, dream-like films out of my head.
The Gabriela Friðriksdóttir exhibit, entitled Inside the Core, will be at the Migros Museum through August 13th. I highly recommend it.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the Migros service desk to pick up the DVD player I brought in for repair… and then maybe I’ll do some grocery shopping while I'm there…
Last Sunday the weather was gorgeous, so we decided to go explore Luzern. We arrived just before lunch and headed directly to the ‘best vegetarian restaurant in Lucerne’, Restaurant Hofgarten. The food was yummy (if a little heavy on the sauce), and we enjoyed sitting out in the plant-filled courtyard.
Then we went over to the KKL (Kultur und Kongresszentrum Luzern), a large, modern building on the edge of the lake which houses, among other things, a museum and a concert hall. We poked around a bit and then enjoyed an espresso while watching dressed-up people stream out of the concert hall. Then it was off to the Rosengart Collection – a private collection of paintings by 20ith-century masters such as Picasso, Klee, and Chagall, assembled based on the personal tastes of a father and daughter who actually knew most of the artists. In particular, I liked their taste in Picassos.
We then spent most of the afternoon wandering around exploring the rest of the city, including its two beautiful wooden walking bridges and the pedestrian-only old town center. We also walked around on the medieval wall that used to surround the city. We climbed one of its towers and were rewarded with gorgeous views of the city and the sailboat-speckled lake.
We then headed back down towards Löwenplatz, which felt like the tourist-trap center of the city, complete with about a million souvenir shops, tour bus parking, and a restaurant called something like ‘Swiss Town’. We went in to see the Bourbaki Panorama, an ‘amazing’ ‘breathtaking’ 19th-century 360-degree painting of the Franco-Prussian War (the marketing was so funny, we couldn’t resist). The painting itself was OK, and we enjoyed the accompanying exhibit, which taught us a little bit of Swiss history in a relatively painless way.
On the way out we stopped at the bar downstairs for a beer and to catch the first half of the Mexico game on their projection TV. At halftime we headed out to see the giant lion carved in a rock that all our guidebooks claimed was a must. It was right next to Glacier Garden, which was unfortunately already closed for the day. It looked like just the kind of cheesy tourist attraction that would actually be fun to see. It has a hall of mirrors!
Next it was back to the pedestrian area, where we found a cute little bar where we watched the end of the game. By then we were famished, so we headed back to the river to scope out some of the guidebook’s restaurant recommendations. We ended up at a table on the small balcony of the restaurant Zunfthaus zu Pfistern, where we enjoyed the views and the food. Afterwards, we sauntered back to the train station and headed home.
We really enjoyed our day in beautiful Luzern. I’m beginning to wonder if Switzerland has any cities that aren’t adorable.
To further my goal of getting to know every corner of Switzerland, I recently rounded up a few friends and took a day trip to Basel, which is about an hour away from Zurich by train (as I’ve said before – one of the big benefits of living in Zurich is all of the cool day trips that are around).
From the train station in Basel, we walked towards the old town. We immediately noticed that, like Bern, Basel was less meticulously clean and orderly than Zurich. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Our first stop was to admire the Tinguely Fountain, a busy arrangement of water-spewing figures that entertained us for at least a good 10 minutes. It also solidified our decision to make the Tinguely Museum part of our day.
Next we stopped for a quick coffee at the trendy café fumare non fumare (Gerbergasse 30). My double espresso was horrible, but the spinach-filled Italian rice ball was delicious.
We ploughed onward through the old town and searched the river bank for the king who was sticking out his tongue at the peasants on the other shore. All our guidebooks mentioned him, but we weren’t having any luck, so we decided to get a little tongue-sticking-out in ourselves. Damn peasants! We really showed them.
Anyway, we finally found the king, and stood mesmerized by his mechanical tongue motions and eye rolls for a couple seconds before crossing to the other side of the river in search of the Tinguely Museum. The walk along the river to get there was longer than we expected, but enjoyable given the beautiful views and charming neighborhoods (not so bad given it was the peasant side of the river).
The Tinguely Museum was tons of fun. I usually enjoy museums, but the squiggly, squeaky, twirly, interactive sculptures that filled this one made it good for visitors with even the shortest attention spans. To set each motorized sculpture in motion, the viewer has to step on a big red button on the floor. The buttons didn’t always work, however, so we always felt special when our step was the one that made things go.
The exhibit left us famished, so we had a quick lunch in the museum’s restaurant and headed out again. We took a tram back towards the center and wandered up to the Münster, which was back on the tongue king’s side of the river. This big Gothic cathedral has a beautiful countyard and a back terrace that offers more gorgeous views across the river.
We then headed down some steep stairs to the river bank for a quick ride across on this little boat attached to a wire which we had seen crisscrossing the swiftly-moving river all day. That brought us conveniently back to a group of riverside restaurants we had passed earlier in the day, so we decided to stop for a beer and to enjoy the view.
Then it was back to the old town again, to explore more little streets and to see the Spalentor, a Gothic gate that dates to 1370. It used to be part of the defensive wall that encircled the city. We were also delighted to come across this guy, who appears to be the beer super hero of Basel.
One of our guidebooks recommended a bar that was sort of nearby, so we headed there for an aperitif. Cargo Bar (St. Johanns Rheinweg 46) was a small, hip, student-hang-out-y kind of place, with a friendly bartender who apologized profusely for his inability to make a proper dry martini (my fault for expecting a dry martini to be, well, not sweet).
Finally it was time for a late dinner at a delicious tapas bar, Spalenburg (Schnabelgasse 2), that we found in the old town. Somehow we managed to eat everything we ordered (which had to have been close to one of each thing on the menu). A mad dash to the train station, and we were on our way home to Zurich. I can’t believe we managed to do all of that in one day. And, we still have to go back to see the many other interesting museums, and to sample some of the yummy-looking (but closed for the holiday) restaurants we saw.
[note: apologies for the formatting. Blogger is being a pain in the ass and not uploading pictures correctly.]
We spent Easter weekend in Berlin with Kesha and her giant husband (who, by the way, looked quite reasonably-sized among the Germans). I lived in Berlin for the summer of 1997, and hadn’t been back to the city since 1999, so I was eager to revisit my favorite parts and see how the place had changed in the past seven years. Here are some of the highlights from the trip.
Biennial. This large-scale art show was installed in a variety of buildings along Auguststraße in Berlin-Mitte, including private apartments, a ballroom, and a former Jewish girls’ school that has been abandoned for 10 years (and was re-opened just for this exhibit). It was the kind of exhibit that gets into your brain and makes you think, but doesn’t necessarily give you anything intelligent to say. For days afterwards, I went around critiquing almost everything I saw as art.
At the very start of Auguststraße, where it intersects with Oranienburgerstraße, I had the chance to briefly re-visit Tacheles. Back in 1997 it was a mostly gutted and bombed-out shell of a building that had been turned into a couple bars and a cinema by squatters. We used to go there often to see undubbed movies in English, and to drink cheap beer while watching the crazy variety of people around. Today the building has been renovated and glassed-in, but the remnants of the bombed-out part were left there (although cleaned up a bit).
Walking, drinking, more walking. We spent the better part of Saturday wandering through the heart of East Berlin. We started with some shopping and lunch in the hip neighborhood around Hackescher Markt, and then meandered towards Museum Insel, an island in the Spree River which is home to several museums and the magnificent Berliner Dom, an imposing, gorgeous neo-renaissance cathedral.
On our way to Alexanderplatz, the center of East Berlin and the home of the Fernsehturm, we visited the Ampelmann store, which was full of kitschy souvenirs featuring the adorable little guys from the East-German walk/don’t walk signs.
Next we headed to the Nikolaiviertel, an adorable little medival-style area that was created by East-German architects in the 1980s. There we found a nice outdoor café and I forced Kesha to try Berliner Weisse, a bizarre drink that is technically beer, but thanks to the sweet syrup flavoring (you can have “red” or “green”) it tastes more like something that should contain an umbrella. She actually liked it enough to order it again that night.
Afterwards we walked back towards Museum Insel and continued on along Unter den Linden, the showcase of East Berlin. This street, which leads to the former border crossing near Brandenburger Tor, was über-maintained by the GDR to show just how wonderful things were behind the iron curtain. Along the way we stopped to see the memorial at Bebelplatz and the fancy Peugeot design showroom (this is the boys’ fault), and also wandered through a couple random souvenir shops.
Reichstag Dome. When I lived in Berlin, the Reichstag was still under construction (and the federal government had not yet moved from Bonn), so it was fun to see the finished product. We had to wait in line for about an hour to get in, go through the metal detector, and hop in the elevator that whisked us up to the roof. The dome was actually a really nice piece of architecture, and we could look down upon the eagle that dominates the German parliament, which I had last seen in Bonn when the government was still there.
Film Museum. This brand-new museum presented the surprisingly interesting history of German cinema from before Metropolis to after Lola Rennt (Run, Lola, Run). The stories of the many German actors and directors who fled to Hollywood to escape the Nazis were fascinating. Plus, Marlene Dietrich is a babe.
Stasi Museum. On Sunday we sent our friends off to see the museum at Checkpoint Charlie (a must-see on your first trip to Berlin) and ran off to the Stasi Museum. Situated in the former headquarters of the East German secret police, deep in the heart of East Berlin, this museum is a fascinating reminder of the not-too-distant past. The exhibit is almost exclusively in German, so if you don’t speak the language, make sure you bring along someone who does. Some parts are understandable even without translation, such as the rooms full of various objects designed to hide spy cameras and guns, such as watering cans and briefcases.
Another remarkable thing about this museum is how old the actual Stasi offices seem, even though they were in full operation through 1989. There are no computers, no electric typwriters, and only the old manual-style telephone switchboards (not to mention 60s-era décor), mainly because the last head of the Stasi was an extremely paranoid man, who was convinced that if he used an electric typewriter, someone could find out what he was typing through the power lines.
You can also pick up an application to receive your Stasi file here; all East Germans are allowed to request their Stasi file and find out which of their neighbors were spying on them back in the day.
I was delighted to find that the café in the museum served Rotkäppchen Sekt, an East-German brand of sparkling wine which I remember fondly from my days in Halle. After drinking a bottle ourselves and grabbing another to bring back to Kesha the birthday girl, we headed back out into the cinderblock suburbs of East Berlin and took a subway back to Potsdamer Platz.
Potsdamer Platz. The whole area was just a giant Baustelle (construction site) when I lived in Berlin in 1997, so I was excited to see what it looked like now. It looks like the cross between a newly-built city business district and a newly-built American-style mall. But for some reason I liked it.
OK, the part I liked best was the martini bar in the lobby of the Marriot hotel at Potsdamer Platz. Not only were they beautifully presented, but they were delicious, too. My girl-drink-drunk husband thoroughly enjoyed his appletini (served with little marinated apples) and his cosmo (served with dried cranberries).
I was ecstatic to learn of the existence of another kind of dry martini that was almost as yummy as a dirty martini – called a ‘salt and pepper’, it was made with Absolut Peppar and served with a salted rim (and blue-cheese-stuffed olives). Yum.
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On Monday morning, Scott flew back to Zurich and I hopped on a train to Halle, a city deep in the heart of East Germany that had been my home for three years.
Yesterday Ali and I visited the exhibit ‘Gay Chic’ at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich. The show highlighted how gay has become mainstream in music, film, fashion, and television in European and American culture. This thesis was backed up with pictures of RuPaul, Wham album covers, video installations of Absolutely Fabulous, movie posters for Bound and TransAmerica, and rhinestone-encrusted men’s jewelry from H&M.
We spent what seemed like hours playing with the Chic O Mat, an interactive installation that allowed you to combine the image of your face with images of other people’s heads, and vice versa. That’s how we found out what a sexy boy I’d make, and how lucky Ali is to be a girl.
Last night we went to the opening of “After the Curfew”, an exhibit of the work of three Iraqi artists (Wathiq Al-Ameri, Wamidh Al-Ameri, and Ali Al-Fatlawi) who fled their home country during the regime of Saddam Hussein. After a long and difficult journey through Jordan, Sudan, and Libya, they eventually came to Switzerland and settled in the region around Zurich.
The exhibit, which took place at platform elf, included paintings, mixed-media pieces, video installations, and a performance piece (pictured). The works address the current state of Iraq as a country at war, although somehow in a less graphic way than we expected. I really enjoyed the show, and would recommend it to anyone who has a chance to see it before its closing on May 13th. There will be another performance on May 12th at 20.30.
I just returned from a retina-burning couple of hours at the Zurich Kunsthaus, where the exhibit Feast of Color is in full, vibrant swing. The 200 or so paintings and sculptures come from the private collection of Werner and Gabrielle Merzbacher, an apparently insanely wealthy couple with a passion for intense colors and early-20ith-century European art. My favorites were a series of paintings done by Kandinsky in a small town in southern Germany.
By the end of the exhibit, we were too overstimulated to handle any more art, so my friend and I agreed to go back next week to tackle the museum’s permanent collection. This sounded like an even better plan once we realized that entrance to the permanent collection is free every Wednesday.
If you ever get a chance to see the Merzbacher-Mayer collection, I highly recommend it. It will be at the Kunsthaus Zurich through May 14. More information at their website.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to paint.
Recently a gigantic grey box has sprung up in downtown Zurich, right next to the lake. Its bright orange signs let passersby know that it contains something that has to do with the The Gates.
The Gates was an installation in Central Park by artists Jeanne-Claude and Christo, whose famous works include the Wrapped Reichstag and giant killer umbrellas. As The Gates came to NYC shortly after we had moved away, we were excited to get a chance to see what we had missed.
In order to be allowed into the giant grey box, we had to get (free) tickets in advanced for a particular time. The exhibit starts with depictions of various proposed projects that the Christos had conceived for city of New York (mostly consisting of various wrapped buildings) that were never executed. Then it flows into the history of The Gates, a project that was conceived way back in the 1970s but not realized until 2005. The letters, photographs of meetings, and other documents presented give a sense of immense historical importance to the whole thing—the presentation seems more appropriate to the signing of a historic peace treaty than the approval of an art installation. Reasons offered up in the rejection of the project ranged from ‘Central Park is already a work of art’ to ‘the poles will cause soil compaction’.
The exhibit also contained many of Christo’s visionary drawings and collages of the project, which I easily appreciated as works of art in their own right. The main room housed countless photographs of the actual installation, as well as a couple of the actual gates (rolled up and lying down). The show concludes with images of a yet-to-be executed project entitled 'Over the River'.
It felt strange to me to be seeing this exhibit about NYC (the closest thing I have to a ‘home city’) in Zurich (a city I am just starting to get to know), but I am very glad I went to see it.
This exhibition will be running in Zurich until April 2. Free tickets are available here. 
