Museum Brandhorst: Munich's newest stop for contemporary art

I still live in Munich, I swear. Never mind the fact that I've neglected to write a single post about this city in the last two months.

This weekend we decided to check out Munich's new museum, the Museum Brandhorst. I've been marveling over the building's stripey exterior for months now. The colorful ceramic bars are certainly... different. The interior is quite lovely and houses the collection well.



Cy Twombly is the star of the Brandhorst collection. I've never been a particular fan of his paintings, but I really liked the Lepanto series (which ocupies the museum's central gallery). Plus it reminded me of my favorite iphone game, Trace.



My personal favorites in the exhibit were the large figurative paintings by Eric Fischl. I've always had a preference for paintings, but the museum has plenty of art made out of giant cardboard boxes, neon lights, and human hair, if that's your thing.



Museum Brandhorst is in the same area as Munich's three Pinakotheken, and can be visited along with them on a €12 day pass. Like the Pinakotheken, Museum Branhorst only costs €1 on Sundays, but that price attracts a lot of folks. If you like to get audioguides, the total price difference (a couple euros) isn't worth the Sunday crowd.

Kandinsky in Munich

If you haven't already, go see the amazing Kandinsky exhibit at the Lenbachhaus. It's only in Munich through February 22nd, after which it travels to Paris and New York (but without the Blaue Reiter show that's here in Munich with it). Give yourself plenty of time to see both buildings.

Late night art in Munich

So I'm back in Munich. Oktoberfest may be long over, but there's still stuff going on in this lovely city. There's always something going on, I tell you. Yesterday evening it was the Lange Nacht der Münchner Museen (Long Night of Munich Museums), which, as its name implies, is a evening where many of Munich's museums stay open until late in the night. For a 15-euro ticket, one could visit them all. Many locations had special events going on such as live music or readings.



Using the same modus operandi as we did for Zurich's museum night last year, we skipped our favorite museums and used the evening as an excuse to explore some locales we may have never made it to otherwise. We saw a fairytale reading at the Alpine Museum, some a cappella at the Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde (Ethnology Museum), and some fancy roof restorations at the Galerie Handwerk. My favorite part of the evening was the introduction to lithography session we attended at the Münchner Künstlerhaus.

We didn't make it to even half of the museums and galleries that were on my list of interesting-looking stuff, but it was a lovely evening nonetheless. Looking forward to going again next year.

Jugendstil, Qi-Gong, and the world’s worst muffin

On Saturday night, Zurich’s museums opened their doors for the Lange Nacht der Museen, an annual affair that involves late-night openings and special events all over the city (with, of course, extremely efficient all-night public transportation connecting it all). We visited an impressive eight museums (out of 40) over the course of the evening, definitely getting our money’s worth out of the CHF 25 admission fee.

We started out at the Museum Rietberg, where we took in some Asian sculpture. Then it was across town to the Botanical Garden, which lured us in with its Slow Food exhibit. Given that we were hungry for actual food, we kind of hurried through the exhibit (stopping to sample many varieties of tomatoes at one display on the way) and headed to our next stop, the Museum Bellerive. In addition to a lovely Jugendstil exhibit inside, the courtyard of the museum was turned into a Bavarian beer garden for the evening. We filled up on pretzels, salads, sausages, and beer, took a quick spin around the inside of the museum, and then wandered towards the Chinagarten. A gift from one of Zurich’s sister cities, the Chinagarten is a lovely little oasis hidden behind a big brick wall. There we watched some martial arts demonstrations before moving on yet again.

Next up was the Johann Jacobs Museum, a tiny place where you can learn all about coffee. Well, a little about coffee. A short tram ride later and we were at the Mühlerama, a popular destination featuring a (disappointing) chocolate fountain, baked goods, and an exhibition about fat in all its incarnations. After reading about America’s contribution to the fat world (olestra, which according to the display causes one to lose control over a certain vital bodily function) and daring each other to go listen to what the beer belly had to say, we decided we’d had enough fat education for one evening.

Next it was on to the NONAM, or Native American museum (who knew Zurich had such a thing?), which I will now always remember for (1) the hideously acted old western film they were showing in the courtyard, and (2) the hideous-tasting pumpkin muffin that we made the mistake of purchasing there. The evening’s grand finale (for us, anyway) took place at the Kunsthaus, Zurich’s main art museum. We took in the current exhibit and checked out the tragically hip disco before yawning our way home to bed. Zurich's museum night gets my full endorsement - fun stuff!