The Syncretist International » frankfurt

Lazy Saturday, Busy Sunday

stellar magnet — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 20:49:18 +0000

Me and Teresa were worthless on Saturday. Well, I was worthless, Teresa cooked me some pasta. And we watched the German movie “The Lives of Others” — great film. On Sunday, we had quite a schedule: brunch, the Schirn again (this time for the Darwin exhibit – fantastic), and then some waffles. Scoped out some Segway peoples, I think on a Segway tour. I’m a bit sad to leave Germany, but I will be back!

Sleepless in Frankfurt

stellar magnet — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 19:08:38 +0000

I love Germany. So post-museums, I walked around for a second and snapped some shots then returned to Offenbach. Decompressed for a second, because museums are quite exhausting (j/k). Later in the evening, I went out to dinner with Pascal, my Offenbach host. I had spinach with feta. That’s precisely what it was. When I saw it, I didn’t think it would be that good, but it was very good — you really can’t go wrong with spinach and feta. After dinner me and Pascal headed to Teresa’s flat. Teresa is my new host. She is a gorgeous model. See her pictured below. <3

Pascal introduced me to Apfelwein at dinner, and I had some more at Teresa’s place. It’s wine made out of apples I guess. But it has half as much alcohol as grape wine. It’s local to Frankfurt apparently. I like it very much, tastes like watered down apple juice.

After hangin’ around for a while, we all headed to the amazing Robert Johnson for the Wighnomy Bros., who were off-the-hook… kept me dancing until my feet hurt. There’s a shitty video clip below of them DJing some Sound-of-Silence remix or cover or something or whatever, I enjoyed that moment (and many others). Me and Teresa didn’t get back until 8am. Coulda been worse (or better if we stayed longer?).

MMK & Schirn Kunsthalle

stellar magnet — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:19:43 +0000

Thanks to some friendly advice, I visited the Museum Für Moderne Kunst (I thought it was called the “Kunst” at first, but then I realized “Kunst” translates to art – it’s the modern art museum). I’d never seen art by Thomas Bayrle before, and I liked what they had there.

They also had this light fixture/floor mat combo, you’d walk by in this one region and you step on this mat, but the mat is connected to this light that’s a few feet away and it turns it on/off depending on if you are stepping on it or not. I was confused for a second. I liked that. The third floor at the Kunst (lol) is really the best. James Turrell’s “Twilight Arch” was cool too.

James Turrell makes art out of light. The craft of his art is in contextualizing the way in which people experience light in space. In Turrell’s piece Twilight Arch, the viewer first enters a dark room. As her eyes gradually adjust to the darkness, she perceives a faint blue square on the far wall. When she approaches this blue square, she realizes it’s not a blue painting hanging on a wall, but rather a square hole cut through the wall, opening onto another room bathed in blue light.

I also visited Schirn Kunsthalle for the E.W. Nay exhibit, with paintings from his last few years of life. I didn’t know much about him before visiting this exhibit, I would have probably liked it more if I knew what his art looked like throughout his life (which I later saw when I went home, via the internet). But I liked…

His three major large-scale works, each measuring 4 x 4 meters and unusually exhibited – hanging from the ceiling – at the Documenta III, Kassel in 1964 initiate a heated debate in the press.

They were hangin’ from the ceiling at the Schirn as well, as described.

Budapest-Bratislava-Frankurt

stellar magnet — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:54:26 +0000

Took a short train from Budapest to Bratislava and then hopped on a plane to Frankfurt. I arrived at my couchsurfing host’s flat in Offenbach around 1am. We chatted a little bit, had some tea and then passed out (my first time sleeping on a floor this whole trip, not too bad). Tonight I am going to see Spectrum so I didn’t have much time to explore except going to eat at a Persian restaurant called Chandis. I had wanted to check out a place called Pistazie, which makes lots of Persian dishes with a tofu option but they are closed in those hours between lunch & dinner. Chandis was nice though, I had a vegetable stew with basmati rice. Below you will see my new hair, a funny German advertisement for metro passes, a random store front and then my dinner place and foods.