Friday, January 24, 2014

#4: a plethora of exceptional museums

i swear i didn't tag this...

this one may seem a little obvious to any of you who know me, but i've got to say it all the same: stockholm has more high quality museums per square kilometer than possibly any other city on the planet. rome is a probable exception, because the entire city is like a museum (as is venice), and of course paris has its share as well, but for organized collections housed under a roof i've got to give the number-per-square-kilometer distinction to stockholm. at last count there were 85 active museums in stockholm proper--that's an impressive count for any city--and the majority of them are unusually good. it's museumpalooza here...

my favorite: fotografiska, without a doubt. it is the largest all-photography museum in the world, it is open almost all the time, and it has a wicked good bar/cafe on site. the shows change regularly and are interesting and engaging. fotografiska introduced a side of helmut newton to me that actually made me want to look at his work, and for that i am appreciative (i'm still not a fan overall, though). i couldn't recommend it more highly...except if they were to give me a show, then i would broadcast their greatness of vision from the mountaintops until i was hoarse.

close seconds: naturhistoriska riksmuseet, moderna museet, almgren's silk museum (see my earlier post about it here), vasamuseet, and millesgården. all are excellent; all deserve at least one visit.

my #4 to-be-missed thing about stockholm is its bounty of good museums in a fairly small area.

i loved this fotografiska ad in the subways this past fall

jumping vulpes vulpes (red fox) at the naturhistoriska museum

they have impressively good taxidermists working for them

nils von dardel, "crime passionnel," 1921 at the moderna museet--how fun is this? i particularly like the shrieking maid in the background and the googly-eyed rugs. the moderna museet is fabulous at displaying swedish artists in context with prevalent european art movements.

*big sigh*, as much as i love the moderna museet, i have one big criticism of it. this is me with the token judd at the moderna...and token it is--this is probably the worst judd i've ever seen first-hand...and i think i've seen just about all of them at this point. the planes no longer join together on almost all of the segments, the surface is crap, and--most unforgivably--the top two stack pieces are closer together than the rest of them. seriously, they should de-install it. that being said, this is clearly not a highlight of the museum and is not reflective of the other wonderful works they have!

millesgården! definitely better in the summer than the winter, as the gardens are awake then, but the exhibitions are worth a visit on their own.

the vasa ship, very dark, very hard to photograph (especially with an iphone), but it is huge and amazing to see in person

astrid discovers the source of her name...and we were all very afraid of her after that (astrid actually means "strength," and our astrid is well-named)

and while i'm not writing a post specifically about non-museum cultural events, the ballet is particularly lovely in stockholm as well. this is from "swan lake," in late november.

1 comment:

  1. You have packed so much in! We'll miss you all. See you in the US or Dublin or who knows?! Marianne

    ReplyDelete