Lindau, Germany

In May, we went to Lindau with IT. Lindau is a small island in Lake Constance (Bodensee), located near the meeting point of the Austrian, German and Swiss borders and is nestled on the lake in front of Austria’s Pfänder mountain (see later post). 

We took this aerial photo when flying from Zurich to Kiev after our visit to the island, and recognized it immediately.

Lindau is connected to the mainland on the north shore by a road-traffic bridge and a railway dam. We did not drive and came by train from Switzerland. The station on the island is an old building and has its charm.

Lindau Hauptbahnhof are connected to Friedrichshafen, Munich, Ulm, Augsburg, Bregenz and Zürich by train services run by DB, OBB and SBB.

Our hotel is in front of the harbor on the promenade. Very scenic and lively.

One morning, a small orchestra played on the harbor front outside our hotel.

Lindau is old. The first use of the name Lindau was documented in 882 by a monk from St. Gallen (which we visited after Lindau, see later post). The name Lindau means “island on which linden trees grow”.

Traditionally, it is popular for tourists from the southern parts of Germany.  A well-known landmark in this southwesternmost city of Bavaria is the harbor entrance with Bavarian lion and new lighthouse.

The six-meter-high lion, watching over Lake Constance, is the work of a Munich professor Johann von Halbig. Completed in 1856, it consists of sandstone and weighs about 50 tons.

We strolled to the end of the breakwater on the side with the lion and looked across to the lighthouse. The lighthouse is relatively new, 36 meters high and measures a base circumference of 24 meters. Apparently, it is one of the few structures of its kind which has a clock in the facade.

Looking back towards the harbor, the Mangturm tower can be seen on the left in the photo below. Our hotel is just behind it. This tower used to be a square stone building was built in the 12th century as part of the medieval city fortification.

There are cars on the island but only a small number as the streets are old and narrow. The island is charming for that reason.

Apparently, the Nobel Laureate Meetings began here in 1951 and brings many Nobel Prize laureates to Lindau each year. Students from all over the world are able to meet up with Nobel Laureates to discuss scientific developments.

The Old Town Hall (Altes Rathaus) was built from 1422 in Gothic style – the work on the impressive building lasted 14 years.

It also houses the former Imperial City Library (Reichsstädtischen Bibliothek) in Lindau. It was Martin Luther who in 1524 called on the “councilors of all German cities” to create “good books or librareyen books” – and his appeal was heard here in 1538.

The library houses a colored copy of the first complete German Bible translation of Martin Luther from 1534 which has been put on display in autumn 2013 and protected by a huge climate-stabilizing glass cube.

The welcoming biergarten on the island. It must be packed with very happy people today as this is posted.

Lindau is a jewel on Lake Constance. Comfortable, relaxing, and cultural.

We will come back one of these days.

Museum of Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing

After a stroll through the 798 Art Zone with NKL (see previous post), he took me to the Art Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts (中央美術學院; CAFA) in Beijing. CAFA is an art academy managed by the Ministry of Education of China. It is considered one of the most selective schools in the country.

The CAFA Art Museum, designed by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki (磯崎 新), is located at the northeast corner of CAFA campus. The Museum opened in October 2008, for the University’s 90th anniversary.  So this year is the University’s centenary anniversary.

The school drew media attention during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, during which the students protested by creating a large statue, called the Goddess of Democracy.

NKL took me to see the special exhibit on the works by Xu Beihong (徐悲鴻; 1895 – 1953) who is the first president of CAFA and a painter.

Self portrait oil painting 1924

He was well known for his traditional Chinese ink drawings of horses.

Traditional caligraphy. I am no connoisseur. No masterpiece here.

He was also regarded as one of the first to create monumental oil paintings with epic Chinese themes – a show of his high proficiency in an essential Western art technique. These oil paintings are so strange as we are all used to seeing Western faces, green eyes and blonde hair.

In 1919, Xu studied overseas in Paris at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, where he studied oil painting and drawing. Notice he signed this drawing in French: Péon 1924.

Xu constantly pushed the boundaries of visual art with new techniques and international aesthetics, in bid to reinvent Chinese art.

Charcoal.

1940 portrait made in Singapore

Between 1939 and 1941, he held solo exhibitions in Singapore, India and Malaya (Penang, Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh) to help raise funds for the war relief effort in China.

There were quite a lot of people on that day since it was raining outside.

There was a mock up of his study. He was a pioneer and a patriot.

It is really an interesting show about a painter that played an important role in the development of Chinese modern art.

798 Art Zone, Beijing

While I was in Beijing, I met my high-school friend NKL who is in the art business there, and he took me to see the famous 798 Art Zone or 798 Art District (798艺术区).

By the way, I am not sure if the pile of bicycles in front of the 798 sign is art or a sign of excess of the sharing economy (people not returning the bikes that were shared via services like Uber).

It was a ugly rainy day and many of the galleries and eateries were not open. The consolation was that there were fewer people. The pictures are not pretty but you will get an idea of the place.

751 D-Park

Wikipedia has a lot of information on the history of the zone. So I will use their information in much of what is to come below.  The official web site is at http://www.798district.com/en/.

751 Ace Cafe

The 798 Art Zone is located in the Dashanzi (大山子) area, Chaoyang District, to the northeast of central Beijing. It is the site of state-owned decommissioned military factories including Factory 798, which originally produced electronics. The zone comprises a complex of 50-year-old factory buildings boasting a unique East German Bauhaus-influenced style (Dessau Design Institute). Factory #798 is only one of several structures inside a complex formerly known as the 718 Joint Factory.

Construction started in April 1954 and the factories started production in 1957. The factory quickly established a reputation for itself as one of the best in China. The Joint Factory produced a wide variety of military and civilian equipment. Civilian production included acoustic equipment such as all the loudspeakers on Tiananmen Square and Chang’an Avenue. After 10 years of operation, Joint Factory 718 was split into more manageable sub-Factories 706, 707, 751, 761, 797 and 798, following the Chinese government’s method of naming military factories starting with the number 7.

718 Art Ahead

The plans for the factory buildings, where form follows function, called for large indoor spaces designed to let the maximum amount of natural light into the workplace.

Arch-supported sections of the ceiling would curve upwards then fall diagonally along the high slanted banks or windows; this pattern would be repeated several times in the larger rooms, giving the roof its characteristic sawtooth-like appearance.

In 1995, Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), looking for cheap workshop space away from downtown, set up in the now defunct Factory 706. In 2001, American Robert Bernell moved his Timezone 8 Art Books bookshop, gallery and publishing office into a former factory canteen; he was the first foreigner to move in. Later that year, Tabata Yukihito from Japan’s Tokyo Gallery set up Beijing Tokyo Art Projects (BTAP, 北京东京艺术工程) inside a 400-m² division of Factory 798’s main area. BTAP’s 2002 opening exhibition “Beijing Afloat” (curator: Feng Boyi), drew a crowd of over 1,000 people and marked the beginning of popular attention in the area.

In 2002, designer artist Huang Rui (黄锐) and hutong photographer Xu Yong (徐勇) set up the 798 Space gallery (时态空间) next to BTAP. With its cavernous 1200-m² floor and multiple-arched ceilings at the center of Factory 798, it was and still is the symbolic center of the whole district.

Beginning in 2002, artists and cultural organizations began to divide, rent out, and re-make the factory spaces, gradually developing them into galleries, art centers, artists’ studios, design companies, restaurants, and bars.

Insight Bookshop

Giant mural of the zone in isometric view

Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, UCCA (尤伦斯当代艺术中心) is an independent institution of contemporary art, founded in 2007 by Belgian philantropist, Guy Ullens, out of a commitment to bring Chinese contemporary art into global dialogue.

In June 2017, a group of China-based investors came together to restructure UCCA, separating its commercial and non-profit functions, ensuring its long- term presence in the 798 Art District, and securing its future vision.

When we entered the Center, a volunteer gave us a guided tour of the exhibits in Mandarin. He was enthusiastic and memorized the opinionated spiel about the paintings. But it took too much time and our attention, so we declined the personal tour after a few rooms. I did not take any photo in the Center except in the shop which had a decent range of books and design objects.

Apart from contemporary art, we visited the gallery of a copper artist/craftsman who made incredibly beautiful and complex copper sculpture.

798 Art Zone mixes art, commerce and tourism. It is exciting and exhausting at the same time due to its size, novelty, and diversity. If I live in Beijing, I will come here regularly.

One could think of this as Beijing’s version of New York’s Soho. While the development of the Zone has undergone a similar industrial to artistic to commercial pattern, it is not quite the same. The Zone is in a suburban area, not central Beijing, and much larger in terms of area. To me, it felt a bit like a theme park.

After the 798 Art Zone, my friend took me to the Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. See the next post.

 

Olympics Museum, Lausanne

Closer to home …

Earlier this year while the 2018 Winter Olympics games were being held in South Korea, we went to visit our town’s most famous tourist attraction – the Olympics Museum (Le museé Olympique).

The museum is located on a slope facing Lac Leman, not far from downtown Lausanne. We took a city bus to get there.

The museum houses permanent and temporary exhibits relating to sport and the Olympic movement. With more than 10,000 artifacts, the museum is the largest archive of Olympic Games in the world.

The museum was founded on 23 June 1993, on the initiative of then-president of the IOC Juan Antonio Samaranch.

After 23 months of renovation between 2012 and 2013, the Olympic Museum re-opened on 21 December 2013. Outside the museum is a park filled with sculptures.

The permanent exhibition is organized into three major themes on three separate floors: Olympic World, Olympic Games, and Olympic Spirit. A visit begins on the third floor, where the Olympic World part of the exhibition informs visitors of the history of the ancient Olympic Games and the rebirth of the modern Games in the 19th century.

Highlights include a display of Olympic torches, as well as a video documenting major moments in the history of opening ceremonies history.

The second floor focuses on the Olympic Games.

Mascots from previous games.

Models of stadiums – Bird’s nest from Beijing 2008

Sporting equipment for a variety of sports are on display as well as the more than 1,000 video clips of Olympic Games events and athletes which can be searched and viewed at individual viewing stations.

The uniforms.

On demand are video clips of so many dramatic and magical moments.

The final part of the permanent exhibit covers the Olympic Spirit, where visitors are invited to experience being in an Olympic Village and they can test their balance, agility, and mental skills with interactive exercises.

Interesting optical illusion painted on the ceiling and walls of the stairwell leading down to the Olympic Spirit section.

Olympic medals are also on display. These were from the Winter Games of 1972 from Sapporo, Japan.

We had a lunch buffet which included some Korean dishes while watching the games on the big screen.

There was so much to see. One could spend days here. It was for us a very nice Sunday indeed.

Wadi Rum, Jordan – part 2

Continuing with our desert adventure in Wadi Rum …

Wadi Rum is Arabic for “Sand Valley”, as Rum ( رَمَّ‎) means sand, especially light sand that can be carried by wind.

The official site describes …

Wadi Rum is a protected area covering 720 square kilometers of dramatic desert wilderness in the south of Jordan. Huge mountains of sandstone and granite emerge, sheer-sided, from wide sandy valleys to reach heights of 1700 meters and more. Narrow canyons and fissures cut deep into the mountains and many conceal ancient rock drawings etched by the peoples of the desert over millennia. Bedouin tribes still live among the mountains of Rum and their large goat-hair tents are a special feature of the landscape.

If you are curious about the local geography/topology, there is a map of the desert and rock formations online here.

The experience in the desert was otherworldly to say the least. There was not much wind (thankfully) and it was not scorching hot. There was no smell.

Distance was difficult to estimate except by the haziness of more distant objects. By the way, there are a few tents just below the smaller rock formations if you can spot them.

While criss-crossing the desert in canyons formed between the little and big rock formations, our guide took us to see some markings made at Thamudic times. Apparently, as much as the desert looks hostile, Wadi Rum has been inhabited by many human cultures since prehistoric times.

Nearby there was a caravan of camels … that is another touristic thing to do. All the people living in and around Wadi Rum today are of Bedouin origin and, until recently, led nomadic lives, relying on their goat herds.

Have a camel ride in the desert … exotic but I think it would be really uncomfortable and potentially dangerous if one does not know how to ride. 

There are sand dunes and they are found mostly piled up agains the rock formations. They are difficult to climb as your feet sinks into the ground and sand pours into your shoes.

We started around 3-4pm, so by the time we saw the camels, it was getting hazy as the sun is setting.

Not only the vista was stunning, it was also very quiet (except when we were on the back of the truck with the engine and wind noise).

Our guide said he will give us a treat by taking us to a spot to see sunset (Al Ghuroub). We sat on this rock ledge and enjoyed the silent sweeping vista. The sun was mostly hidden behind clouds on that day.

Transcendence is the word.

This spot, not only afforded us with a vantage point, it was also used in the movie, the Martian. Many other movies about Mars were made around here. 

What a memorable adventure !