Point 1: It has art in it that I understand, unlike the Museum Ludwig, which I went to on Thursday. I do *try* with modern art nowadays, I really do, but honestly at some point my mind just reaches a breaking point and it normally involves random objects being scattered on the floor of the art gallery.
So, that gets the modern art bashing out of the way up front. I’m just more comfortable with art up to the early C20th, and definitely with stuff that involves a canvas or something similar hung on a wall (and sculpture, more generally). But also the Wallraf-Richartz is nicely laid out, with a broad collection and really good introductionary panels to each room in German and English, plus little computer screens and headphones installed in the seats in each room that give you more information on specific works – they’re in German only, but you know what – I was good with the wall signage. Hurrah for explaining the context of the works and all that.
They’ve also got a couple of really good exhibitions on at the moment – they started yesterday and run to January, which is why I waited till today to go to this museum. The first is called ‘Mit Napoleon in Ägypten, and showcases the Museum’s collection of sketches of Egypt’s temples by Jean-Baptiste Lepère, who was a French architect and egyptologist who went on Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt in 1798 (y’know, the one where they found the Rosetta Stone).
The exhibition showcases the (fanatastically stunning)sketches and their reproduction as engravings for publication, and discusses the beginnings of Egyptology as a scholarly pursuit and the French expedition as a whole. And it’s really really good.
The other is a showcase of Van Gogh’s Boots (right), which they have displayed on its own in a room, and contextualised with excerpts from the critical debate about the importance of the painting – specifically essays by Heidegger, Shapiro and Derrida. Fundamentally, it’s a meditation upon aesthetics and the meaning of art, but it’s really nicely done, and it doesn’t presume any knowledge of either the art of the criticism. I was completely engaged without feeling patronised, so yay for the Wallraf-Richartz.
And, my gosh, next up is an exhibition of Stradivari violins, including concerts. It would be bliss to go to them all, if only I came into a couple of thousand euros. €150 a ticket PER CONCERT. But you get champagne, so that’s ok, right? That won’t make me hate them.
