A Curious Land: Wallonia (Bozar, Brussels, 22-3-2008)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

No you haven't missed anything: Wallonia is not a country you have never heard of. Un till further notice Wallonia is the French-speaking part of Belgium (well actually the small German-speaking part of Belgium is also part of Wallonia but let's not make it harder for all non-Belgians ;-p).

This exhibit focuses on art that was made in this part of our country from the 12th un till the 16th century but it also includes some contemporary pieces.
It's a lovely, well-designed exhibit with loads and loads of treasures. The combination of old and new is very beautiful too.

Check out the exhibit un till 18-5-2008. Site

Paul Klee (Bozar, Brussels, 22-3-2008)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Theatre Here, There and Everywhere

Not many great artists come from Switzerland but Paul Klee (1879-1940) is the exception to this rule. I have always loved his work ever since I came in contact with Bauhaus-art. His works are very special, child-like sometimes and funny but also poetical and technically perfect.

This is the first Paul Klee exhibit in Belgium since 1948 so we haven't had a chance to see much of his work live yet. The exhibit focuses mainly on his love for music, theatre, circuses and puppet shows.
His world is a lovely world to be in and the design of the exhibit is very pleasing too so check it out!

Exhibit un till 11-5-2008, not open on mondays. Site

Iceland on the Edge (Bozar, Brussels, 22-3-2008)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

A festival with all kinds of Icelandic arts, exhibits and performances. Sadly one of the exhibits couldn't be realized but there are still two to be seen at the moment. You can visit them for free if you buy a ticket for the other exhibits!

Magicians of Nature
Three Icelandic painters (Kjarval, Davídsson, Gudni) who have shaped the way Icelanders paint their surroundings. The paintings by Gudni are quite amazing! (just look at the image for a while)

Dreams of the Sublime and Nowhere
Contemporary Icelandic art. Funny, impressive and pretty cool!

Site

Bozar - Free exhibits (Brussel, 22-3-2008)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

There are a whole lot of exhibitions in the Bozar at the moment and they are all worthwhile! First the free exhibits:

The Archives of the Imagination => The unreal image: emblems, symbols and metaphors
A pretty long title to describe a selection of photographs from the collection of the FotoMuseum in Antwerp. Very beautiful poetic images to be seen!

Filip Dujardin Interesting and funny architecture pictures.

Jan Fabre:The borrowed time
Pictures of his theater-pieces made by well-known photographers + sketches for the same plays made by the artist (see pic). I love his work and this was another great view into his weird world. Check it out!

You can visit the free exhibits everyday from 10 till 18 (and some during performances too). Site

Natural History Kassel

See Documenta-review for more info

Kassel 2007

More sights in Kassel. Also see Documenta-review

Documenta XII

Some of the artworks. Also see Documenta-review

The dead zoo

a visit to the zoo in Antwerp some time ago

It's our history! (Tour&Taxis, Brussel, 9-3-2008)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

A trip through the history of Europe and the European Union from WWII un till yesterday.
It may not sound very exciting to many but it actually is. There is a lot to learn in this visually pleasing exhibit!
It's only a general history lesson but a lot of subjects are shown. And it doesn't go around subjects like the cold war and the European dictatorships of Spain, Portugal and Greece which have of course also shaped our recent history.

Ok, the texts aren't always easy to read because they are too dark and the letters are small but even without reading you get a great image of our mutual history and what makes Europe Europe.
The exhibit is a bit expensive but it is a very pleasant and interesting trip through our Europe.

Check out the site: http://www.expo-europe.be/index.php?lang=en

Fotomuseum - Patrick De Spiegelaere (Antwerpen, 1-3-2008)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

New exhibitions in the Fotomuseum (un till 8-6-2008)!

- Patrick De Spiegelaere (Belgian photographer)
- Face On (interactive portrait project)
- Ria Verhaeghe (photo-collages in the gallery)

The retrospective of the recently deceased Belgian photographer is a definite must see. His photographs have an amazing poetic quality. All his pictures look like still lives, even the portraits. Everything on the picture looks frozen in time. But what is most amazing about the images is that all though time has frozen all things are still very much alive (see pic).

Check the site for more info here.

Supermarket Europe (Brussel, 23-2-2008)

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Other

A short but visually perfect history of food and food-production in Europe.
Free interactive exhibit un till 30-4-2008. Dutch info only!
Site: http://www.supermarkt-europa.be/

Museum Ludwig (Cologne, Germany, 22-2-2008)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

The big unmissable modern art museum of Cologne. They have an important modern art collection including a lot of Pop-Art icons like Warhol and Lichtenstein. If you are into 20th century art this is a must see in Cologne!
You also have a great view of the Rhine from the museum.

The museum usually has special exhibits about 20th or even 21st century art. The special exhibit we saw was about Mondrian (see pic). It was actually the collection which is normally in The Hague in the "Gemeentemuseum" so I had already seen the works several times before but they were still great!

The site here (German version,there is an English one!)

Wallraf-Richatz-Museum (Cologne, Germany, 22-2-2008)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

One of Cologne's art museums. They have a collection of European art from the 13th century un till the 20th century.

It's a nice modern museum with some really great works including Rembrandt, Friedrich, Dürer, several Impressionists, etc.

There are usually special exhibits too. We saw a small presentation in the "graphics cabinet" about Piranesi's drawings and it was pretty impressive (see pic)!

See the museum site (German version, there is an English one!): http://www.museenkoeln.de/wallraf-richartz-museum/

Reiss-Engelhorn-Museum (Mannheim, Germany, 21-2-2008)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

The Reiss-Engelhorn-Museum is actually a museum complex. All in all it's 6 museums including natural history, archeology, (local) history and culture.
One exhibit in the REM was our reason to visit Mannheim in the first place: Mumien, der traum von ewigen leben ("mummies, dreaming of eternal life").
This exhibit was in the "Zeughaus", a former arsenal. The building itself is pretty cool already, especially at night (see pic, a permanent installation by Elisabeth Brockmann).

But what about the exhibit that started it all? Well, it was pretty great! On thursdays the special exhibits are open un till 21:00 so we went there quite late (around 17:00). Because of the late hour the exhibit was really quiet so we had a lot of space and time to see everything.
The exhibit itself is the most diverse mummy-exhibit ever. They do not have a lot of mummies but there are examples of every possible kind of mummy.
It starts with animal-mummies and the different ways in which natural mummification can be achieved. They even have a mummified fish!
The information is very interesting (even though it's in German ;-p) and we learned a lot about natural mummification.

After the animals its time for the humans. In this part there are examples of mummification natural or otherwise in all continents: Maori heads, Egyptian, Andes, a bog body from Germany and loads more. And of course a lot more interesting information on the how and why ;-)
On the site of the museum you can see a lot of pictures so check them out there! I bought the catalogue which was pretty cheap and has loads and loads of articles and pictures on mummification and mummies.
Site of the exhibit (also in English!): here!

But this was not the only exhibit! There is another special exhibit in the REM! This one is about archaeological finds along the Silk Road. This one is in the opposite building where you can also see the natural history part during normal hours.

There was no one but us in this exhibit so it was sometimes kind of eerie. The exhibit shows all kinds of recent archaeological finds from Xinjiang in China. This is a terrificly interesting region with all kinds of influences from the neighbouring regions (like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mongolia).
The objects were very diverse and from all ages but they were all pretty amazing! There were a lot of really well-preserved clothes (yay for extremely dry regions!), another mummy, masks, gold ornaments, effigies, etc.
And the information was also in English so the texts were a bit easier to read ;-)
Site of the exhibit (also in English!): here!

You can still visit the mummy-exhibit un till 18-5-2008. You can visit the Silk Road exhibit un till 1-6-2008.
The museum site: http://www.rem-mannheim.de/index.php

Baroque Palace Mannheim (Germany, 21-2-2008)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Mannheim is not a city that will be on many people's list of places to visit in Germany but maybe it should be. So why should you check out Mannheim?

1) Take a look at the map: here.
Noticed anything odd? Indeed, the inner city has a chessboard-pattern and no street names! Our hotel was in F4 ;-)

2) Interesting architecture: several churches and other buildings with interesting styles.

3) Fun museums with great exhibits. See the other review for one of them.

4) A really big Baroque palace! Site here

The palace was built between 1720 and 1760. Mozart played at the Mannheim court which was a leading centre of culture at this time.
Napoleon's adoptive daughter Stéphanie (Grand Duchess of Baden by marriage) used to live here un till her death in 1860. She had parts of the palace renovated in Empire style (see pic).
Sadly a lot of this magnificent palace was destroyed during WWII. But luckily enough was spared and the rebuilding started in 1953. Parts are now used for the university.
Now there was a palace but the objects which had adorned the many rooms were almost all gone. In 1995 a project was started to restore the original splendour of several important rooms. And the palace re-opened in 2007!

The part of the palace which you can visit is really stunning! It's like walking inside a historical movie about Mozart or Napoleon, depending on which room you are in.
There's an interesting audio-tour which explains everything you'd like to know (in English!).
It's a pity that none of the gardens survived (there are roads there now) but the palace is a great place to be!

Check out Mannheim at their (German) site: http://www.mannheim.de/

Chinese houses (KMKG, Brussel, 20-2-2008)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

There aren't many really old houses in China because most were made of wood but there are a lot of ceramic models! These models were made as gifts for the dead. This exhibit shows models from the museum in Henan.

The models are really detailed and tell us a lot about Chinese architecture and live itself. And they are very beautiful too ;-)
It's a great exhibit so if you have a chance to go: check it out.
There are more pictures on the site (Dutch and French version) : http://www.kmkg-mrah.be/newnl/index.asp?id=1449

Exhibit un till 20-4-2008. Also check the other exhibits in the KMKG-MRAH and of course their permanent collection!

From Gilgamesh to Zenobia (KMKG, Brussels, 20-2-2008)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Antiquities from the Near East and Iran.

It's always interesting to see objects from one of the cradles of our western civilization. This is where a lot of our stories, art, laws and language originate from! And I just love cuneiform ;-)

It's great exhibit with lots of interesting stuff and information. I didn't read much about the mythical characters in the title (Gilgamesh and Zenobia) but maybe I just missed that (it's easy to find information about them on the internet anyway).
There is a lot of information on the history of archeology of the Near East which is quite interesting!

I saw a lot of inspiring objects I had not seen in a long time and had almost forgotten about. Definitely worth a visit!

Dutch site (also available in French: http://www.kmkg-mrah.be/newnl/index.asp?id=1485