Batz World II: March 2006

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

My virtual pet hedgehog

http://bunnyherolabs.com/adopt/showpet.php?b=bWM9aGVkZ2Vob2cuc3dmJmNscj0weDQ3MzQ5OCZjbj1zdGVrZWx0amUmYW49YmF0bGFkeQ==
Pet my hedgehog Stekeltje! He's very cute ;-)

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Dark Fairy Tales I

My fairytale fascination will never stop...

Monday, March 20, 2006

Tour&Taxis, Brussels (19-3-2006)

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Other

Tour&Taxis is the name of a site with several buildings in the harbour of Brussels. The main building is a very big and well restored 1920's building.
The buildings are used for many many different things ranging from techno parties to European business meetings.

Inside the main building are several exhibits at this moment. One is about Einstein and it's expensive and I haven't heard anything good about it. One is about 50 years Documenta and it's free. Another is about pictures around the world and is also free.

We went there ofcourse for the two free ones and they were rather nice. The buildings and the site itself are very exciting too and worth a visit in itself.

Hallepoort/Porte de Hal, Brussel/Bruxelles (19-3-2006)

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Other

"Er was eens / Il était un fois / Once upon a time"

The Hallepoort (Dutch name) / Porte de Hal (French name) is an old city gate tower in Brussels.
Most medieval cities in Europe used to have impressive city walls with big gates and defensive towers. But sadly most of the walls are gone and most of the gates too. In Belgium some city gates still remain and one beautiful example is the Hallepoort.

Nowadays it is used for exhibits. The current exhibit is about fairytales. It was a fun exhibit giving us some information on fairytale writers and the tales themselves. There were old and modern drawings of some of the best known fairytales.
And an old tower is ofcourse a brilliant setting for a fairytale. The nice thing about the exhibit was how all of the information was bi-lingual in a very inventive way. And it looked good ofcourse.
Another nice extra was the fact that you could visit the Hallepoort itself ofcourse.

Info: http://www.kmkg-mrah.be/nl/hallepoort/main_hallepoort.html#Sprookjes
you can get the info in Dutch and French, not sure if there's an English version ;-)

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Tour&Taxis, Brussels

Beautiful multifunctional building(s) in the harbour of Brussels

Hallepoort / Porte de Hal, Brussels

Nice old city gate/tower in Brussels

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Ecstatic

Experimenting on myself

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Church of St.-Peter and St.-Paul

Baroque Jesuit church, built between 1670 and 1677, Mechelen.

Monday, March 13, 2006

Design Museum Gent (12-3-2006)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

A rather unique museum we hadn't visited yet. The building itself is a 18th century house of a wealthy family. A lot of the rooms are still original. Interesting to see all that nice furniture and a new thing in those days: wallpaper.

But the main part of the museum is about modern design. They have a permanent collection which ranges from Art Nouveau to Alessi. There several small exhibit rooms for special exhibits. One was about Art Nouveau glass (lovely, I'd like one or two of those), another about a modern (glass) designer (Nanny Still).

The main reason we where there though was an exhibit of drawings from a Belgian architect neither of us had heard from. I saw one of the drawings on a leaflet and immediately knew we would want to see the exhibit.
And I was very right! His drawings were so beautiful, so detailed!!
If you ever have a chance you should definitely check some of the work of Geo Henderick ;-)

Info on the museum and it's exhibits: www.design.museum.gent.be

SMAK (Modern Art Museum, Gent, 12-3-2006)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Sunday was, as today by the way, a gloriously beautiful day so perfect for a museum visit!

The SMAK is situated in the Citadelpark in Gent and the park is rather beautiful too. There were some cats chasing ducks and other birds, the sky was cloudless and the leafless trees resembled black tentacles against the blueness.

The SMAK is a nice museum with bright open spaces and interesting corners. There's usually several exhibits of modern artists. And here modern means: now! They are still alive and working; still evolving.
The most interesting artists today where Franky D.C. (see http://www.nadine.be), Phil Collins (no not that one, this one was born in 1970!) and Henk Visch (interesting Dutch artist).

The work of Franky D.C. is an interesting mix of old and new, grungy and clean, paintings and installations. And he has a thing for orange.
A part of the exhibit was his collection of orange things ranging from seventies toys to recent invitations to parties. A lot of his work is quite funny. It makes you look at day to day things and reconsider them.

Phil Collins, the artist, is very interested in pop music and youth culture. His main work here was a video showing fans from Colombia singing a karaoke version of a song from the Smiths album "The world won't listen". Local musicians played the music, local fans sang the lyrics and he filmed the singers against a painted romantic landscape (see picture).
The result is often quite hilarious. Most of the fans cannot sing but their performance makes up for that. There's loads of passion in it and we had a great time watching (and secretly singing along).

Henk Visch is a well-known Dutch artist who has been working for quite some time. His work has a nice surrealistic touch to it. Sometimes it looks simple but it always makes you look.

For more info on the artists, the museum and it's exhibits: www.smak.be

Gent 12-3-2006

A trip to Gent

Tuesday, March 7, 2006

Nessie = Elephant

http://www.sundaymail.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16774661&method=full&siteid=64736&headline=nessie-the-elephant-name_page.html
Is this the true nature of the monster?

Wednesday, March 1, 2006

Snow!!!

March the first 2006