FABULOUS!

In light of the previous post about the horrible Danish Design Museum, I thought I'd direct you to my friend Michelle's blog, where she has some great gift ideas for Christmas that are truly well designed.  As opposed to the crap on display at the Danish Design Museum.

Danish Design Museum, Copenhagen

It's not surprising that if you go to enough museums, you eventually find yourself in one that makes you want to gouge your own eyes out. 

We thought the Danish Design Museum would be full of cool Scandinavian modern design pieces, furniture, etc.  You know, like Ikea done well.  We were wrong.

They had one room, roughly the size of a walk in closet, that had some objects from the past century, showing the development of technology and design (computers, telephones, chairs, etc).  This was moderately interesting.  There should have been more of this.  There was also a temporary exhibit in the basement that was very meta-reflexive, with little vials of liquid with labels like "symptom remover."  And they were playing Sigur Ros and Bjork in this room.  The artsy-fartsy person in me somewhat enjoyed this.

The rest of the museum was confusing.  They seemed to have two other special exhibits installed, both of which were showcases of innovative Danish design. But there wasn't enough information to know what pieces were meant to be used for.  Also, a lot of the stuff there seemed like it should be interactive, but it wasn't clear whether this was allowed, and when I was completely gauche and tried to pick up one of the objects (a flashing set of blocks?), it was nailed to the display table, so clearly I was mistaken.  It just felt poorly conceived of and poorly executed.

Also, it wasn't free, and the other two museums we went to in Copenhagen were.  So that's another strike against it.

Overall, a disappointment.

The National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen

We went to two fantastic museums in Copenhagen, and the National Museum of Denmark was definitely the best.  It probably had one of the best archaeological displays I've seen in a long time.  

Highlights included:

• The entire exhibit of Danish prehistory was excellent.  Reallly well-displayed, and with good information to accompany the artefacts.  They had tons of interesting stuff to see, from the earliest artefacts (about 15,000 years old: lithics, bone tools, and art!) to bronze horns called Lurs.  It was pretty fantastic, and even my non-archaeologist husband agreed!
• Lots of burials in hollowed out tree-trunks, which was pretty interesting to see.
• Late prehistoric stone carvings, stelae and rock art.  Awe-inspiring stuff.
• Bronze-age hoards of metal and amber.  The quantity of material that was uncovered from some of these sites was staggering.
• Vikings, vikings, vikings!  Need I say more?
• Upstairs, the original palace rooms were preserved, and the museum transformed from a modern, well-curated exhibit to a more old-fashioned museum with curio cabinets filled with antiquities and odds-and-ends.  It was interesting to compare the two approaches to museum curation.  

We really enjoyed the hour and a half that we spent here, and I would highly rate this among museums we have recently been to.  The material was accessible, well-explained, and just plain interesting.  There's something here for everyone!  

P.S. It's FREE!

The Museum of Christmas

We're off to Copenhagen for the weekend, so hopefully when we get back, I'll have a new museum to review/praise/trash.  In the meantime, there's something I've been thinking about the last few days that I'm not sure warrants a full post, but is more of "food for thought."

We pulled all our Christmas tat out of boxes last weekend to decorate our (tiny) flat.  This caused me to start thinking about the practice of decorating for Christmas, acquiring new Christmas tat, and reorganising your things to make room for a huge stuffed Santa in the entryway.  I think this practice closely resembles museum curation, and it's interesting that this seems to be the only time of year when most people put on their "curator" hats, rearrange their furniture, and put up their "special exhibit" of ceramic snowmen.  You can learn a lot about people by studying the way they decorate for Christmas.  Some people are "themey" (all angels, all Nativity scenes, etc), others are restrained (you know the people who have a map for where to put ornaments on the tree, and only allow elegant silver baubles), others are all inclusive (my mom is part of this school of thought: anything Christmas-related is coveted and curated by my mom!).  You could take the analogy so far that it becomes ridiculous, but it's worth considering the way this act of decoration makes you engage with the objects in new ways each year, and how you see things differently depending on the events of the previous year.  

Whew.  All of that deep thinking made me exhausted.  I think I'll go have a hot chocolate.

Doing the Rounds

I'm not ashamed to admit that I love museum gift shops. There's something about an overwhelming amount of magnets with Monet's waterlilies on them that just warms my heart.  Since Christmas is just around the corner, and shopping is inevitable, I thought I'd offer a quick review of the best museum gift shops in London.

1.  Victoria & Albert Museum Gift Shop.  I think this gift shop has some of the nicest inventory in London. They have a huge range of items, from unique jewelry to scarfs to handbags to books to doo-dahs.  The quality is really much higher than the norm, and they also have lots of relatively unusual items that don't scream "I got this at a gift shop."  The quantity of items you might actually buy far outnumber the quantity of special erasers with "V&A" printed on them.  It's pretty design oriented, so it's a fun place to browse.  Highly recommended.

2.  Gift shop in the Crypt of St. Martin in the Fields.  I discovered this gift shop last year.  They have REALLY cute Christmas decorations this time of year, and they are a bargain.  My parents and I did a little comparison shopping between the merchandise here, at Harrod's, and at Fortnum and Mason.  Often times, they have physically identical items here as at the high end department stores, and literally for half or a quarter of the price.  They have lots of old-fashioned style Christmas ornaments and decorations, which I love.

3. Tate Modern.  After slamming their Rothko exhibit, I figure I should say something nice about the Tate.  We found really cute Christmas cards here a few years back, and they also have a really huge selection of interesting art books.  It's almost like a specialist bookstore inside a gift shop.  Pretty great.

No list of recommendations is complete without a list of duds.  The gift shops at the National Gallery and the British Museum leave a lot to be desired.  They are pretty run-of-the-mill, and occasionally border on boring and tacky.  Large quantities of bendable pencils with the museum's names on them.  The bright side of this is that it leaves you more time with the actual museums themselves.  And everyone knows how I feel about the National Gallery.  

Also, today, while at the V&A, we saw some really atrocious museum behaviour, which I've added to the wall of shame.  Everyone loves a misbehaving tourist!

Rothko at the Tate Modern

Disappointed would be the word I'd use to describe the way I felt in this exhibit of Rothko's later paintings at the Tate Modern.

I love Rothko, and have since the first time I saw the room full of his paintings at the Tate Modern.  So when I found out they'd have a whole exhibit of his works, I was over the moon.  Yet, I left this exhibition feeling let down and disappointed.  It's just not that great, to be honest.  And for the cost of the ticket, it's not worth it.  Save your money, go see the Rothkos that are in the permanent collection when the exhibit closes, and go have a nice night in the pub with the money you've not spent.

Rothko sets a mood, and I was expecting this exhibit to be overflowing with "mood."  It wasn't.  It was boring.  They had one nice room, the main one, filled with the Seagram murals, that created an "experience," but other than that, the displays fell short.  I don't know what it was, but I just couldn't get out of there fast enough.  The whole exhibit felt poorly constructed and poorly executed.  The paintings never truly engulfed the visitor the way they do in the famous "Rothko Room", and I think that was the biggest disappointment of the day. I never felt truly absorbed by it all.

My disappointment may partially relate to the fact that the exhibit contains none of his more vibrant, earlier paintings, and I can't exactly blame them for that since it specifically focuses on his later work.  But still, I consider myself to be a pretty open-minded art appreciator, and considering I like Rothko enough to have one of his posters up in our flat, you'd think I would find something that resonated with me in an entire exhibit of his work.  But sadly, I didn't.

I hate to be a downer, but in my opinion, there are much better things to see in London right now.  Clearly, I'm at odds with some reviewers who loved it.  Still, I'm not the only one who thought the display of the Seagram murals was less than ideal.  I haven't felt this let down by a special exhibit in a long time.  Go to the Byzantium exhibition instead.  It's honestly 800 times more interesting.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Natural History Museum (London)

Turns out, we went to a lot of exhibits when my parents were in town.  

Their last day in London, we went to the special exhibition on the Wildlife Photographer of the Year, which is held at the Natural History Museum in London each year.  I went with my parents because I knew my dad wanted to go.  I'm not usually a "photography" sort of person, but as it turns out, this may be the best thing we saw in 10 days.

Highlights included:

• None of the photographs are actually printed.  Instead, they were displayed on screens.  Even if this was a bit gimmicky, I loved it.
• Each photograph was accompanied by a short quotation from the photographer, explaining their take on the picture.  Then, a brief snippet was included about the species/scene/behaviour that is shown.  This was great if you aren't a naturalist/biologist, and it was the perfect amount of info.  They also included a map with where the photo was taken, and the specs on the equipment used.  I usually gripe on the presentation of information at this exhibits, but I couldn't imagine a better way of doing this.
• Pictures were grouped according to subject, or occasionally, who took the photo (there were categories for photographs taken by children aged 11-14, and 15-17).  Winners for each category or group were displayed along with runners-up and honorable mentions.
• The overall winner was a photograph of a snow leopard taken by Steve Winter, a National Geographic photographer.  He spent months in India trying to capture photographs of the snow leopards, and had to set up an apparatus that would take photos automatically when the leopards passed the cameras.  The results are phenomenal.  His efforts are also shown in the BBC TV series "Planet Earth" (also available on DVD now).  
• Subjects depicted in the photos included: a battle between a snake and a frog; images of glaciers melting; a giraffe being chased by a lion; and an underwater shot of a whale just a few feet away from a diver.  Really impressive stuff.  

This is a fabulous exhibit.  It is well worth an hour of your time, and the £7 entrance fee (£3.50 for students/concessions).  It's there until the 26th of April.