Das Neue Kinokothek

So I’ll try to keep today’s post shorter than yesterday’s.

We’ll see if it works.

We spent most of the day trudging around outside, or in a museum. After breakfast we set out to find the Botanischen Garten- the botanical garden of München. It was a lovely walk, with a light snowfall, but when we found the garden it proved to be essentially a small park, like a big median stripe, full of bare trees and dead, snow-covered grass. Apparently botanical gardens don’t do so well where it freezes and weird white stuff falls from the sky. But that’s OK, we just got a new goal: Das Neue Pinakothek, or New Museum.

This was a bit more of an adventure. It gradually started snowing more and more, and a breeze appeared, so by the time we found the Pinakothek cluster (there’s three of them- Old, New and Modern, catering to ancient, 19^th century and modern art) we were shaking off snow. It still wasn’t sticking, but this was more than the errant snowflake from last night. We couldn’t find the Neue Pinakothek, though- the building where our map said it was didn’t seem to have a doorway. We kept trudging around it, and eventually found the door three quarters of the way around it, along with a sign that said “open every day of the week, except Tuesdays.” Naturally, it’s Tuesday. So we opted for the Moderne Pinokothek across the street, which is closed Mondays instead of Tuesdays.

This turned out to be a stupendous idea, since all the modern art we hoped for was, in fact, here. Some of the art was truly awesome, some of it was less than spectacular. The whole thing was in rooms maybe 20x20 feet, and about 15 feet high, painted white with a gray cultured granite floor. One of the highlights for me was a room with black string vectors strung through it- five in total, going diagonally from floor to ceiling and to walls. The effect was off-putting at first- it was so huge, and filled the space so completely that my reaction was to stop at the doorway, try to take it in, and then move on. But then I didn’t. Instead, I noticed that two lines crossed, and might even touch, though both were totally straight, so no tension against each other. Then I realized that there was no barrier, no sign to stay away from it, no docent eyeing me from the corner, so I went and looked at the string crossing. Then, I walked beneath the strings into the space delineated by black cords. It felt like an oddly intimate act, like I was invading the art’s space. I pushed further into the space, focusing so closely on the black thread and white, brightly lit walls, that my entire sense of space became anchored in nothing by those thin black lines, sparse enough that I could get no real directional bearing- I could see I was five feet from the X, for instance, but not if I was in front, to the side, or even above or below- I had to take a moment, check gravity, refocus on the walls, and then find that I’d lost the X- profoundly awesome experience.

Then, another person showed up, and the whole illusion vanished.

They had some other neat stuff- loads of paintings which I won’t even try to describe, some photography and modern sculpture, and the bottom floor was entirely devoted to industrial design. Particularly neat stuff included a VW Beetle from 1944, and a BMW motorcycle from 1929. I won’t go on to describe the entire museum to you, and just say that there were a lot of interesting things, a lot of things we marveled were in a museum rather than on a fleamarket, and a few spectacular things.

I take it back- the ground floor had an interesting exhibit on wood as a renewable building source, with scale models of particularly large or intricate modern structures, along with blown up photos of the actual structures. I was particularly intrigued by one made of a series of massive, 40-meter-wide umbrellas with cross-hatched lath skins. The tiny humans in the model gave it a grandiose sense of scale, and I would love to see the original.

Then a swing through gift store, and back out into the snow. By now, it was probably two or three inches thick (pretty good for “less than an inch), and getting colder. We went back to the hotel, warmed up, pulled on some warmer clothes, and headed back out to the Weinachtsmarkt for dinner. The snow was taking on a decidedly wet consistency, a trend that continued for the rest of the evening. Currywurst and Kartoffelngratin (potatoes au gratin), Glühwein and roasted chestnuts- just what the doctor ordered. We window shopped quite a bit for Christmas gifts, but by then the snow was very wet and alternating with a light rain. The upside was that it was considerably warmer at 8:00 pm than at 2:00 pm, but also wetter. The precipitation overall was lighter though, so not too bad.

And now, I think, it’s bed time. Tomorrow we’re doing more Christmas shopping (and some decidedly non-Christmas shopping), and tracking down a Laundromat. Wish us luck- we need clean clothes!

Pictures!

 

It was definitely snowing- that's all new since we got into the museum!

 

A rather awesome wood model- you can see the scare of that thing! Each of the people in that are a half-inch tall.

 

Occupy Frankfurt, appropriately enough at the statue of the Euro sign. For the sake of sanity, it's to be noted that the Euro is not quite seen the same way as the dollar- in addition to being a currency, it's a currency that united nations. Hence the 11 gold stars.

 

A Tor- hier the Ratshaustor, or city hall gate.

 

Glühwein, bread, candle, and milk can full of silverware. Help yourself!

 

Amy found a tasty goulash! The chalkboard behind her has a number of alcoholic slogans, including "thirst is worse than homesickness." We agreed!

 

The Weinachtsmarkt and a Tor.

 

The Irish pub in Frankfurt.

 

An awesome old BMW motorcycle in the design section of the Moderne Pinokothek.