Editor's Note » 

EYE CANDY, SOUL FOOD

Published: 07/12/2011 - Filed under: Editor's Note »

• Print
• Send

Do yourself an enormous favour occasionally during appointments, and sneak in a visit to the museum. More, if you can swing it.

We happen to be in pre-Christmas Vienna at the moment, and have rediscovered the experience of staring at something other than a lighted screen. Of course, we paid homage to Gustav Klimt’s most famous work, The Kiss, at the rococo-style Belvedere Palace, which, despite the painting’s being mass produced on any surface and object you can think of - including thimbles - remains (at least to us) a mesmerising fin-de-siecle paen to sensuality, packaged in shimmering patterns and sumptuous tones.

Unwittingly, we discovered Austria’s idiosyncratic artist/architect, Friedensreich Hundertwasser (“hundred waters”), through of all things, an incinerator,  spotted when passing through the unremarkable Spittelau neighbourhood. One couldn’t miss its fantastically painted façade, which friends informed us, was Hundertwasser’s, a commission by the city government despite his constant griping that it had quashed many of his more radical projects. The man believed that “the straight line is godless”, a principle he faithfully adhered to with undulating floors and irregular features incorporated in his buildings and interiors, with much taken from the natural landscape. For a closer look at his works, we checked out his Hundertwasserhaus (Hundertwasser House) on Landstrasse, and the nearby museum, KunstHausWien, which houses a permanent collection of his oeuvres. We emerged from the place with our head just exploding with swirling forms of colour.

On a four-month stop at the Bank of Austria Kunstforum until January is the Colombian painter and sculptor, Fernando Botero, whose opulent, rotund figures captured in mundane activities always make us smile. But that is the power and conundrum of this prolific master, whose seemingly cheerful themes actually underline darker messages - allusions his Colombian/South American origins. The dictator and his First Lady, the haughty cardinal and his red parasol, gamblers, the drug cartels.

Included in the show is Botero’s Abu Ghraib series, his sensational interpretation of prisoner abuses by US military personnel during the Iraq offensive. He did this to “paint out the poison” and donated the set to various museums.  Pretty powerful stuff.

Do visit a museum, any museum, soonest. It’s time to feed your mind and soul.

Margie T Logarta

Managing Editor, Asia

Bookmark with:

ADD A COMMENT »