Munich–January 24, 2017

Today I went to the Pinakothek der Moderne, passing these on the way there:

Wooden sculptures of walking people on rooftop Yellow sign of boy walking with duck behind him Large sculpture of vase Snow on latticework roof Windows in diamond pattern that is “curved” Sculpture of man atop a column Sculpture of a man bending over at 90 degree angle

This museum houses four separate galleries. One of them is design, where they had a large collectio non the wall, plus a “wall of cars”:

Wall with design exemplars Couch in shape of lips Wall of cars with a full-size car hanging vertically on wall.

They also have vintage computers, and knowing that the Apple //c, whose in-box software I worked on when at Apple, is a museum piece makes me feel really old. (It’s on the right in the first picture.)

Original Macintosh and Apple //c computers Early commodore computers with monitor built into body of machine

Here are other items, in no particular order:

Old stereo system with controls arranged to look a bit like a human face. Bight red streamlined motorcycle teakettles Cups with disks as handles zigzag chair plate with circles and lines curvy chairs loudspeakers shaped like pill capsules Robot in a muulticolored sweater Tall radio in shape of abacus beads stacked vertically

These two pictures are of a “pop-up house” with levels that move as you watch them (See the video):

popup house House with levels that move

These were all in the basement, and about when I had gotten through it, the power went out in part of the museum. I took the opportunity to go to the Museum Brandhorst, pictured here:

building with many thin multicolored stripes on exterior

They do not allow photos inside, “for liability reasons.” Being snarky here, they are probably afraid of getting sued by people getting violently ill looking at the photos of the artwork. They had a large exhibit of art by a fellow named Cy Twombly, of which only the “Roses” series appealed to me at all. I had luckily purchased a day ticket for the museums, so all told the price to get in the Brandhorst was only 2 €, but not worth it, if you ask me.

Kingdom of Crystals

On the way back to the Pinakothek, I saw a sign for the Museum Reich der Kristalle (Kingdom of Crystals). They didn’t open until 1 p.m., but they are part of a university and they had a lot of display cases outside the museum. I came back later when the museum was open; the admission price was 4€, and you don’t see too much extra things, but the money goes to help them acquire new mineral samples. I thought it was a better use of money than the Brandhorst. I have combined the pictures from both visits:

selection of agate crystals Purple crystal Orange salt crystal Curved lines in sedimentary rock metamorphic rocks purple crystal Rock that looks like a sponge Stone with green veins iron meteorite fragments Various fossilized shells milky white crystal Green tourmaline crystals embedded in a rock Red rhodonite crystals Aragonite crystals that look like white tangled grass Orange, green, and purple “stone salt” Large desk of fossilized wood, polished on top.

One thing outside the museum was the Münchner Kugel (The Munich Sphere). Here, loosely translated, is its story:

The place directly in front of our museum has a long history. Until the end of WWII it was the Prince Arnulf Barracks, better known as the Turkish barracks. After the war, the walls of the barracks were torn down, but a small part of the tower on Türkenstrasse, the current Türkentor (Turkish tower), was left standing. Everything else disappeared except one artifact: The Munich Sphere, a large granite ball that once adorned a pillar.

Large brown spherical stone

It had slept, like Sleeping Beauty, for a long time in the meadow in front of the location of the current Mineralogical collection before being rescued by the then master carpenter of the collection, Josef Stockbauer.

Here are pictures of the afternoon trip, in the museum. The first picture is the King Ludwig Diamond:

king ludwig diamond Fluorescent minerals under UV light in green and orange Brownish-red vanadinite White crystals on black stone green crystals in stone Yellow sulfur crystals Stone with gray, black, and white ring patterns Lilac crystals in black stone Green and orange halite

Pinakothek der Moderne (part 2)

OK, back to the other museum to pick up on the rest of their galleries, with these pictures, the first of which is a view upward to the ceiling:

Concentric circles in ceiling of museum concentric colored squares Four small square paintings and a thin trapezoidal painting v tatlin Quilt made of towels from ski areas Abstract face on orange background Pile of crushed metal Side view of crushed metal sculpture Wooden chairs with impressionist paintings on seat and back Abstracts surrounding a large distorted bust of a man's head. Abstract sculpture of person on knees with head on ground. Bust of man with downcast face; painting of another man in background Man with hands in front of him, head turned toward viewer Pastel colored painting of man in field with flowers Pastel impressionist picture of two people in forest glade

These next few are interesting: the artist gave 500 Japanese factory workers a candy bar wrapped in aluminum foil. After they finished eating the candy, they were asked to sculpt the foil into any shape they liked. Here are some of the results:

Various aluminum foil sculptures including carrot, person, bear, and deer Aluminum foil figure of standing person aluminum foil cat

They had a room with some Picassos:

Abstract of seated woman Seated woman with child bird-like painting Abstract of artist drawing nude woman

The museum also has a lot of works by Andy Warhol; here is one of them:

Painting of Converse sneaker advert, partial yellow background

The following painting is one that would normally make me say, “You call this crap art?”, but the thought entered my head that perhaps I should take an art history/appreciation course and find out why this is considered good art worthy of being in a museum.

Abstract dark copper colored painting

Francis Kéré, an architect from Burkina Faso, had his work on display in Radically Simple:

model of building Wooden seats from Burkina Faso model of building with triangular sections

Marienplatz

From the museum, I walked to the Marienplatz, which is probably the single most over-photographed place in all the city:

medieval-looking statues at bank statue on bank corner carving of cherub and lion Bicycle with frame made of wood Busts of helmeted figures above arch large monument large monument church front Statue of man in red jacket and breeches Statuary at front of church church front painted soldiers (1700s style) Queen, jester, and herald Two churches (steeple area) Fountain with frozen-over figures

Close to Marienplatz is the Viktualienmarkt. It wasn’t tremendously busy, given how cold it was. There are statues of famous performers from Munich throughout the area:

vik vik ida schumacher

And these pictures on the way back to the hotel:

Bronze boar outside a butcher shop Very frozen-over fountain Closeup of head of frozen-over fountain

Signage

Sign for Egyptian museum with umlaut split on either side of A

Here is a clever way to put an umlaut over a capital A.


Logo for University for TV and Film Munich

A good logo for the HFF (University for TV and Film Munich).


Poster with illustration of blend of rabbit, deer, and some other flat-tailed animal

This was a poster inside the HFF building.


Logo with penguin that is blue and white with orange beak.

Because cute.


columnar map

A closeup of the map showing where the museums are. Notice the arrows that point out where the entrances are. That is really clever design.


Sticker with white letters on red

Seen on another map sign. Good advice!


Hotel Sign

Text reads: Fantasy is more important than knowing, because knowing is limited.

Thought balloon under text