weekend wrap up

I love the frilly and floral qualities of Tord Boontje's lights. As we were walking to Gast, a delicious and simple restaurant that runs off the open kitchen concept, I passed a shop and instantly recognized his 'Midsummer's Light' pendant lamp in the window. Boontje's aesthetic mix of natural with the technological create some striking pieces. I also love that he returns to nature for inspiration.

He currently has an instillation at Swarovski in Innsbruck through 2009 and I still need to make my way to see it. Despite my lack of interest in the zillions of Swarovski shops that seem to dot every European city, I would be willing to visit the one in Innsbruck since he is involved. I had to laugh when we went to tiny Liechtenstein last year to find their headquarters are there. Swarovski is truly inescapable.

Dinner at Gast, was great as usual. They have a huge variety of fresh pastas, pizzas, salads, and rice dishes. I've also seen their menu for a breakfast, but we haven't made it yet. If you're interested in an inexpensive and delicious meal, you can find Gast at the Gasteig, one of Munich's performing arts centers, at Rosenheimerplatz.


This weekend we also enjoyed the Mark Rothko exhibit at Kunsthalle, which is part of Fünf Höfe. It was a retrospective, which are always fascinating. I love being able to see how an artist progresses and they had these really neat digital monitors that enabled the viewer to flip through pages of his sketch books simply by touching the screen. It brought me back to the abstract expressionism from my 20th century art history courses. We noticed many of the pieces were on loan from his daughter Kate. Interestingly he also holds the record for a post-war painting sale - in 2007 he had a piece sell for $72.8 million. I wonder what he would think of that. Fünf Höfe has several exhibitions through the year and they are always quite good. The space is beautiful and I love that they integrated art into a frequently traversed area of the city.

I love taking people to art museums, because it's nice to be knowledgeable and tell people about the area that I studied. Stefan was asking me even seemingly simple things about the different mediums and the differences between oil paint and gauche, so it was a bit back to basics, but it brought a little smile to my face.

We definitely need to make museum visits more of our weekend repertoire. I miss seeing the art as well as the other patrons, since museums and galleries seem to draw and eclectic crowd.