Friday, 21 May 2010
Thursday, 13 May 2010
Adventures, part 6
Vienna, day 2
On our second day in Vienna we picked up where we had left off the previous day, in the Museums Quartier. We visited the Museum Moderner Kunst, or "MUMOK", which had a large exhibition of televisual art, including a lot of works by Andy Warhol (he was a popular guy in Europe), and various other contemporary artworks; in fact, it was probably the most contemporary place we visited, with a lot of very recent work from artists I'd never even heard of.
Heather got a few great pictures of some of the highlights, including this piece featuring several vertically standing neon lights which I have been unable to attribute to any artist (I'll continue to research and hopefully edit with the creator at some point):
She took that from a balcony, which is why they look so small. This picture is a close up of Pietro Sanguineti's "Void":
Here's the whole thing:
Void was one of my favourite pieces, but the place was full of really great, forward looking and slightly confusing art.
The television art section wasn't so up to date, as it was more of a retrospective on tv art generally. One of the highlights was a whole room dedicated to "Andy Warhol's TV", a television show which was shown in the 80s on MTV, as a kind of realisation of Andy's 15 minutes claim. It was pretty amusing; I watched a sketch where a fat woman gets the wrong shoes from her parents for Christmas, so she wrecks the room she's standing in, tipping the Christmas tree onto her mother and screaming swear words before storming out. I also watched a sequence about rodeo clowns, and Heather watched an episode dedicated to boots.
To be honest, I don't remember seeing this particular video, and I can't actually watch it right now because I'm in the library without headphones, but here is a clip to give you some idea:
One thing I forgot to mention about this place was that it was completely free to students! Considering how expensive we thought Vienna was going to be generally, it was great to get in here free; all we had to do was fill in a little form about what University we went to.
After MUMOK we went to Schönbrunn Palace, which was pretty magnificent, maybe a little too magnificent for a couple of student bums. It was a massive place, the "gardens" were more like a huge park, it had it's own zoo... The maze was fun though. We went through the main maze, the kids maze and some other kind of puzzle maze, which wasn't really a maze, just a hedged in windy path. Heather has pictures of these things, but I don't think she's posted them yet.
One other note about Vienna; I think Austrians are pretty much obsessed with sex. Sex club inside an art gallery aside, we saw posters for sex shows and sex shops everywhere, even just outside the palace gardens.
Other than that, that's pretty much all there is to say about Vienna; I think it was my second favourite place on the trip. We had to eat cheaply but there was a lot to do.
Next was Budapest, city of bums!
On our second day in Vienna we picked up where we had left off the previous day, in the Museums Quartier. We visited the Museum Moderner Kunst, or "MUMOK", which had a large exhibition of televisual art, including a lot of works by Andy Warhol (he was a popular guy in Europe), and various other contemporary artworks; in fact, it was probably the most contemporary place we visited, with a lot of very recent work from artists I'd never even heard of.
Heather got a few great pictures of some of the highlights, including this piece featuring several vertically standing neon lights which I have been unable to attribute to any artist (I'll continue to research and hopefully edit with the creator at some point):
She took that from a balcony, which is why they look so small. This picture is a close up of Pietro Sanguineti's "Void":
Here's the whole thing:
Void was one of my favourite pieces, but the place was full of really great, forward looking and slightly confusing art.
The television art section wasn't so up to date, as it was more of a retrospective on tv art generally. One of the highlights was a whole room dedicated to "Andy Warhol's TV", a television show which was shown in the 80s on MTV, as a kind of realisation of Andy's 15 minutes claim. It was pretty amusing; I watched a sketch where a fat woman gets the wrong shoes from her parents for Christmas, so she wrecks the room she's standing in, tipping the Christmas tree onto her mother and screaming swear words before storming out. I also watched a sequence about rodeo clowns, and Heather watched an episode dedicated to boots.
To be honest, I don't remember seeing this particular video, and I can't actually watch it right now because I'm in the library without headphones, but here is a clip to give you some idea:
One thing I forgot to mention about this place was that it was completely free to students! Considering how expensive we thought Vienna was going to be generally, it was great to get in here free; all we had to do was fill in a little form about what University we went to.
After MUMOK we went to Schönbrunn Palace, which was pretty magnificent, maybe a little too magnificent for a couple of student bums. It was a massive place, the "gardens" were more like a huge park, it had it's own zoo... The maze was fun though. We went through the main maze, the kids maze and some other kind of puzzle maze, which wasn't really a maze, just a hedged in windy path. Heather has pictures of these things, but I don't think she's posted them yet.
One other note about Vienna; I think Austrians are pretty much obsessed with sex. Sex club inside an art gallery aside, we saw posters for sex shows and sex shops everywhere, even just outside the palace gardens.
Other than that, that's pretty much all there is to say about Vienna; I think it was my second favourite place on the trip. We had to eat cheaply but there was a lot to do.
Next was Budapest, city of bums!
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Adventures, part 5
Vienna, day 1.
The train out of Prague was nice, in a kind of Poirot/Holmes stylee, as we had to sit in a booth. There was a lock on the door, and when the ticket man/coffee man came, they knocked before entering and closed the door behind them, even though it was made of glass so it wasn't exactly private anyway. Regardless, it was a nice trip, and we had our booth to ourselves almost the whole way.
When we got to Vienna we weren't sure which station to get off at, and then when we got off and U-Bahn'd over to the correct stop, we couldn't decide on which direction to walk. We got to Hostel Ruthensteiner in the end however. It was a strange place; very nice, and pretty clean, but the staff were pretty anal about being environmentally friendly/smoking/keys etc., which was a bit off putting. Also, the kitchen was tiny and always packed full of people, making it pretty awkward to cook food, which was a problem because Vienna was probably the most expensive place we visited.
Anyway, it wasn't such a big deal, since we'd only be sleeping there, and it was still a pretty nice place. The first thing we did was head to the Secession Building:
It was pretty impressive from outside, and pretty bizarre inside. We paid about 10 euros to see two exhibitions; the first of which a crap piece of rock in the middle of a huge white room, which apparently the "artist" had slept inside or something (I'm not entirely sure, I wasn't paying much attention to it).
The second, which was what we really went to see, was this:
Gustav Klimt - Section from the Beethoven Frieze (1902):
Actually finding the frieze was quite difficult. We went in, looked halfheartedly at the rock sculpture, awkwardly asked the attendant about a cloakroom (as we anticipated a larger gallery), came back, went downstairs, saw a pole dancing stage and a seedy looking bar, got confused and went back up, asked the reception guy where the frieze was, he said "go through the bar", so we did, and we found it right at the back. However, the bar we went through, and the club built around the bar, was a swinger's club called Element 6. This swinger's club was complete with S&M equipment, like a cross with manacles, and huge screens showing porn. There was also private sex rooms, and beds lying around under palm trees for exhibitionists (including inside the room with the frieze - a room which was darker than it probably should have been for proper viewing, to accommodate the shaggers).
When we left the sex club/gallery, we saw a woman going in with her kids; I'm pretty sure the reception guy didn't bother to warn her. I took comfort in the fact that she was British, so she'd probably be very shocked and indignant about it.
After our sex club adventure, we visited the Leopold Museum. I think tiredness was generally one of the most debilitating features of our trip; we struggled to have the energy for looking around exhibitions (or at least I did, especially with a sore toe), and as a result probably didn't take the time we should have in studying the various artworks. The Leopold was great, it had some brilliant Secession paintings and posters and some amazing works by Egon Schiele, an artist I'd only vaguely heard of before going abroad:
Egon Schiele - Nude Self Portrait (1910):
Gustav Klimt - Poster for the First Secession Exhibition (1898):
Koloman Moser - Poster for the Thirteenth Secession Exhibition (1902):
I love the red eyes on the Schiele painting. His works were some of the most impressive that I saw while I was away, they were so expressionistic yet stylistic and bold.
It was raining when we came out of the Leopold, and we planned to go to the Museum Moderner Kunst after a trip to a cafe, but we ended up just heading back to the hostel, we were so tired and short on time.
Day 2 in the next post.
The train out of Prague was nice, in a kind of Poirot/Holmes stylee, as we had to sit in a booth. There was a lock on the door, and when the ticket man/coffee man came, they knocked before entering and closed the door behind them, even though it was made of glass so it wasn't exactly private anyway. Regardless, it was a nice trip, and we had our booth to ourselves almost the whole way.
When we got to Vienna we weren't sure which station to get off at, and then when we got off and U-Bahn'd over to the correct stop, we couldn't decide on which direction to walk. We got to Hostel Ruthensteiner in the end however. It was a strange place; very nice, and pretty clean, but the staff were pretty anal about being environmentally friendly/smoking/keys etc., which was a bit off putting. Also, the kitchen was tiny and always packed full of people, making it pretty awkward to cook food, which was a problem because Vienna was probably the most expensive place we visited.
Anyway, it wasn't such a big deal, since we'd only be sleeping there, and it was still a pretty nice place. The first thing we did was head to the Secession Building:
It was pretty impressive from outside, and pretty bizarre inside. We paid about 10 euros to see two exhibitions; the first of which a crap piece of rock in the middle of a huge white room, which apparently the "artist" had slept inside or something (I'm not entirely sure, I wasn't paying much attention to it).
The second, which was what we really went to see, was this:
Gustav Klimt - Section from the Beethoven Frieze (1902):
Actually finding the frieze was quite difficult. We went in, looked halfheartedly at the rock sculpture, awkwardly asked the attendant about a cloakroom (as we anticipated a larger gallery), came back, went downstairs, saw a pole dancing stage and a seedy looking bar, got confused and went back up, asked the reception guy where the frieze was, he said "go through the bar", so we did, and we found it right at the back. However, the bar we went through, and the club built around the bar, was a swinger's club called Element 6. This swinger's club was complete with S&M equipment, like a cross with manacles, and huge screens showing porn. There was also private sex rooms, and beds lying around under palm trees for exhibitionists (including inside the room with the frieze - a room which was darker than it probably should have been for proper viewing, to accommodate the shaggers).
When we left the sex club/gallery, we saw a woman going in with her kids; I'm pretty sure the reception guy didn't bother to warn her. I took comfort in the fact that she was British, so she'd probably be very shocked and indignant about it.
After our sex club adventure, we visited the Leopold Museum. I think tiredness was generally one of the most debilitating features of our trip; we struggled to have the energy for looking around exhibitions (or at least I did, especially with a sore toe), and as a result probably didn't take the time we should have in studying the various artworks. The Leopold was great, it had some brilliant Secession paintings and posters and some amazing works by Egon Schiele, an artist I'd only vaguely heard of before going abroad:
Egon Schiele - Nude Self Portrait (1910):
Gustav Klimt - Poster for the First Secession Exhibition (1898):
Koloman Moser - Poster for the Thirteenth Secession Exhibition (1902):
I love the red eyes on the Schiele painting. His works were some of the most impressive that I saw while I was away, they were so expressionistic yet stylistic and bold.
It was raining when we came out of the Leopold, and we planned to go to the Museum Moderner Kunst after a trip to a cafe, but we ended up just heading back to the hostel, we were so tired and short on time.
Day 2 in the next post.
Adventures, part 5
Vienna, day 1.
The train out of Prague was nice, in a kind of Poirot/Holmes stylee, as we had to sit in a booth. There was a lock on the door, and when the ticket man/coffee man came, they knocked before entering and closed the door behind them, even though it was made of glass so it wasn't exactly private anyway. Regardless, it was a nice trip, and we had our booth to ourselves almost the whole way.
When we got to Vienna we weren't sure which station to get off at, and then when we got off and U-Bahn'd over to the correct stop, we couldn't decide on which direction to walk. We got to Hostel Ruthensteiner in the end however. It was a strange place; very nice, and pretty clean, but the staff were pretty anal about being environmentally friendly/smoking/keys etc., which was a bit off putting. Also, the kitchen was tiny and always packed full of people, making it pretty awkward to cook food, which was a problem because Vienna was probably the most expensive place we visited.
Anyway, it wasn't such a big deal, since we'd only be sleeping there, and it was still a pretty nice place. The first thing we did was head to the Secession Building:
It was pretty impressive from outside, and pretty bizarre inside. We paid about 10 euros to see two exhibitions; the first of which a crap piece of rock in the middle of a huge white room, which apparently the "artist" had slept inside or something (I'm not entirely sure, I wasn't paying much attention to it).
The second, which was what we really went to see, was this:
Gustav Klimt - Section from the Beethoven Frieze (1902):
Actually finding the frieze was quite difficult. We went in, looked halfheartedly at the rock sculpture, awkwardly asked the attendant about a cloakroom (as we anticipated a larger gallery), came back, went downstairs, saw a pole dancing stage and a seedy looking bar, got confused and went back up, asked the reception guy where the frieze was, he said "go through the bar", so we did, and we found it right at the back. However, the bar we went through, and the club built around the bar, was a swinger's club called Element 6. This swinger's club was complete with S&M equipment, like a cross with manacles, and huge screens showing porn. There was also private sex rooms, and beds lying around under palm trees for exhibitionists (including inside the room with the frieze - a room which was darker than it probably should have been for proper viewing, to accommodate the shaggers).
When we left the sex club/gallery, we saw a woman going in with her kids; I'm pretty sure the reception guy didn't bother to warn her. I took comfort in the fact that she was British, so she'd probably be very shocked and indignant about it.
After our sex club adventure, we visited the Leopold Museum. I think tiredness was generally one of the most debilitating features of our trip; we struggled to have the energy for looking around exhibitions (or at least I did, especially with a sore toe), and as a result probably didn't take the time we should have in studying the various artworks. The Leopold was great, it had some brilliant Secession paintings and posters and some amazing works by Egon Schiele, an artist I'd only vaguely heard of before going abroad:
The train out of Prague was nice, in a kind of Poirot/Holmes stylee, as we had to sit in a booth. There was a lock on the door, and when the ticket man/coffee man came, they knocked before entering and closed the door behind them, even though it was made of glass so it wasn't exactly private anyway. Regardless, it was a nice trip, and we had our booth to ourselves almost the whole way.
When we got to Vienna we weren't sure which station to get off at, and then when we got off and U-Bahn'd over to the correct stop, we couldn't decide on which direction to walk. We got to Hostel Ruthensteiner in the end however. It was a strange place; very nice, and pretty clean, but the staff were pretty anal about being environmentally friendly/smoking/keys etc., which was a bit off putting. Also, the kitchen was tiny and always packed full of people, making it pretty awkward to cook food, which was a problem because Vienna was probably the most expensive place we visited.
Anyway, it wasn't such a big deal, since we'd only be sleeping there, and it was still a pretty nice place. The first thing we did was head to the Secession Building:
It was pretty impressive from outside, and pretty bizarre inside. We paid about 10 euros to see two exhibitions; the first of which a crap piece of rock in the middle of a huge white room, which apparently the "artist" had slept inside or something (I'm not entirely sure, I wasn't paying much attention to it).
The second, which was what we really went to see, was this:
Gustav Klimt - Section from the Beethoven Frieze (1902):
Actually finding the frieze was quite difficult. We went in, looked halfheartedly at the rock sculpture, awkwardly asked the attendant about a cloakroom (as we anticipated a larger gallery), came back, went downstairs, saw a pole dancing stage and a seedy looking bar, got confused and went back up, asked the reception guy where the frieze was, he said "go through the bar", so we did, and we found it right at the back. However, the bar we went through, and the club built around the bar, was a swinger's club called Element 6. This swinger's club was complete with S&M equipment, like a cross with manacles, and huge screens showing porn. There was also private sex rooms, and beds lying around under palm trees for exhibitionists (including inside the room with the frieze - a room which was darker than it probably should have been for proper viewing, to accommodate the shaggers).
When we left the sex club/gallery, we saw a woman going in with her kids; I'm pretty sure the reception guy didn't bother to warn her. I took comfort in the fact that she was British, so she'd probably be very shocked and indignant about it.
After our sex club adventure, we visited the Leopold Museum. I think tiredness was generally one of the most debilitating features of our trip; we struggled to have the energy for looking around exhibitions (or at least I did, especially with a sore toe), and as a result probably didn't take the time we should have in studying the various artworks. The Leopold was great, it had some brilliant Secession paintings and posters and some amazing works by Egon Schiele, an artist I'd only vaguely heard of before going abroad:
Thursday, 6 May 2010
Adventures, part 5
Vienna, day 1.
The train out of Prague was pretty Poirot/Sherlock Holmes stylee, as all of the seats were inside little booths, each with six seats. It was pretty cool, there was a lock on the door so I guess we could have locked ourselves in if we had wanted, and when the coffee/ticket guys came they knocked and then closed the door behind them afterwards. We mostly had it to ourselves, apart from a very short way when we were joined by two women who sat in complete silence.
When we got to Vienna we couldn't decide which train station to get off at, and then when we got to the correct U-Bahn stop, we couldn't decide which direction to walk in, but we found our hostel eventually. I've actually forgotten the name of it; it was nice enough, but the staff were a little bit anal about smoking/keys/environmental friendliness etc., which was a bit off putting. It was kinda expensive for beer as well, and the communal kitchen was tiny and always packed full of people.
However, we weren't too concerned about where we were sleeping, and we headed off for our daily intake of art. The first place we visited was the Secession building,
The train out of Prague was pretty Poirot/Sherlock Holmes stylee, as all of the seats were inside little booths, each with six seats. It was pretty cool, there was a lock on the door so I guess we could have locked ourselves in if we had wanted, and when the coffee/ticket guys came they knocked and then closed the door behind them afterwards. We mostly had it to ourselves, apart from a very short way when we were joined by two women who sat in complete silence.
When we got to Vienna we couldn't decide which train station to get off at, and then when we got to the correct U-Bahn stop, we couldn't decide which direction to walk in, but we found our hostel eventually. I've actually forgotten the name of it; it was nice enough, but the staff were a little bit anal about smoking/keys/environmental friendliness etc., which was a bit off putting. It was kinda expensive for beer as well, and the communal kitchen was tiny and always packed full of people.
However, we weren't too concerned about where we were sleeping, and we headed off for our daily intake of art. The first place we visited was the Secession building,
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Adventures, part 4
Prague, day 2.
Gosh, I should have done this much faster than I have done it, because already I'm beginning to struggle to remember what went on in each day.
On our second day in Prague, we visited Prague Castle:
We didn't go inside, in general we tended to avoid huge tourist attractions, but I figured it was worth mentioning because it's a pretty impressive building. We also made a stop at the Wallenstein Gardens, which were impressive and peaceful (apart from some idiots chasing the peacock around trying to get a picture standing next to it):
Our next stop in Prague was the Franz Kafka museum, which was pretty insane. There was a couple of sculptures outside; the one of a man pissing into the shape of the Czech Republic is by David Cerny, who is a bit of a nutter (both pictures by Heather):
[slideshow]
The Kafka museum itself was a pretty scary and weird place, but they certainly made the most of the fairly boring material they had (letters, first edition books etc.) by turning the whole place into a representation of some kind of existential nightmare, with strange noises like children crying playing behind a monotonous droning soundtrack, and various art installations. It was interesting, and well worth a visit.
After the Kafka museum we visited a pretty small art museum that I don't remember too much about at the moment, but I'll come back and edit this post later if I remember who the artists were (most of the works were by two artists).
That evening we experienced a lot more of the Czech hostility towards dummies like us who can't speak any Czech. Both days we went to the same supermarket and got shouted at in broken English by the same crazy woman. However, we had a really great meal anyway, in a place that has a name that translates into "The Whale" or something, but I don't remember the Czech.
That was pretty much it for Prague. A pretty place, but we struggled a little to find too many things to do.
Next stop, Vienna!
Gosh, I should have done this much faster than I have done it, because already I'm beginning to struggle to remember what went on in each day.
On our second day in Prague, we visited Prague Castle:
We didn't go inside, in general we tended to avoid huge tourist attractions, but I figured it was worth mentioning because it's a pretty impressive building. We also made a stop at the Wallenstein Gardens, which were impressive and peaceful (apart from some idiots chasing the peacock around trying to get a picture standing next to it):
Our next stop in Prague was the Franz Kafka museum, which was pretty insane. There was a couple of sculptures outside; the one of a man pissing into the shape of the Czech Republic is by David Cerny, who is a bit of a nutter (both pictures by Heather):
[slideshow]
The Kafka museum itself was a pretty scary and weird place, but they certainly made the most of the fairly boring material they had (letters, first edition books etc.) by turning the whole place into a representation of some kind of existential nightmare, with strange noises like children crying playing behind a monotonous droning soundtrack, and various art installations. It was interesting, and well worth a visit.
After the Kafka museum we visited a pretty small art museum that I don't remember too much about at the moment, but I'll come back and edit this post later if I remember who the artists were (most of the works were by two artists).
That evening we experienced a lot more of the Czech hostility towards dummies like us who can't speak any Czech. Both days we went to the same supermarket and got shouted at in broken English by the same crazy woman. However, we had a really great meal anyway, in a place that has a name that translates into "The Whale" or something, but I don't remember the Czech.
That was pretty much it for Prague. A pretty place, but we struggled a little to find too many things to do.
Next stop, Vienna!
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