Saturday, July 18, 2009

Frankfurt am Main

Our European wanderings have brought us to Frankfurt, which has the duel attraction of being a good city from which to base some touring, and of being the home to our friends, Martin and Arabella. We are happily ensconced in the Hotel Diana, where the staff are friendly and the breakfast is big. We've visited the fine arts museum and the sculpture museum, as well as wandered around town. Yesterday, Martin drove us to Darmstadt, to visit the printing museum therein. Despite Arabella's insistence to the contrary, the museum was not boring but great; I think that I took about 100 pictures, but then I get very excited around moveable type. They have all kinds of machines, most of them operational, and the volunteers who work there are gems. The pressman, Peter, was particularly helpful... he was also excited that we were from Canada. He asked "where are you from?" and I thought he meant the country, but he had already pegged us as Canadian and wanted to know the city, so I told him "Prince George" with all the confidence that he'd have to ask where that is, but he said "Oh, I've been there three times and will be there next summer... I have been through to Prince Rupert, to Alaska, and to Jasper, and next year I am going to go from Vancouver to the Yukon to take the Dempster Highway!" Needless to say, I was impressed. I gave him my card and hope that he calls, so I can return some of his hospitality.

Also in Darmstadt we visited the Mathildenhöhe, which has a gallery and a lot of Jugendstil architecture. It also had a restaurant [thankfully] where we had Swabian specialties, in honour of Martin's heritage. The gallery had a delightful show by Nedko Solakov, a Bulgarian artist. His work consisted of emendations he made to the gallery space; after the last show was taken down, all the cases and pillars as well as labels were left in place, and he mainly wrote on the walls in felt pen, drawing little stick figures, writing satirical text, and making comments about art, artists, art patrons, and life in general. I enjoyed it, especially since the fellow on the cash register tried to warn us that we might not like the show... he even gave us a discount, because he was afraid we'd complain [there was a sign saying that no refunds would be given... I think that they have had a lot of complaints!]... after the show, we assured him that it was great. Oh, besides the gallery show, we were told to go downstairs for the rest of the exhibit, which consisted of taking off our shoes, putting our feet in plastic bags, putting on the available rubber boots, going up a set of stairs, then descending a ladder to an underground, bricked water reservoir, where we waded through a foot of water to the far corner, where there was a desk with a lamp on it, with a sign telling us that he had run out of ideas and perhaps we could offer him one... there were pencils and paper and a box to put the suggestions in... I offered a suggestion, but I am pretty sure that just walking through the water and contemplating his request constituted the art work.

Well, the clock is striking 5:45 [we are in an internet cafe right next to a church] and we are meeting M and A for dinner, soonish. More updates to come...

No comments: