Museum Day

As mentioned, yesterday (Wednesday) was a grey day, aka Museum Day. Anna and I both felt that we didn't want to bite off more than we could chew, so we settled on doing only the Modern Museum (where we'd had lunch the day I arrived) so as not to cause exhaustion from information overload.

Now, while I appreciate art as much as the next person, some of it is just plain ridiculous in my opinion. I understand that artists are intense, but to make a lot of drama out of nothing actually turns you into a joke. Can you take this seriously?

There are variations of the display, the version in the Modern Museum was seven hollow boxes of galvanized iron attached to a wall by. It's called Untitled, by Donald Judd. I do agree with him that not all art has to be on canvas or paper, but I have to laugh if I'm told that he's exploring the direct influence of galvanized iron on the soul!

Das Arbeitbild by Kurt Schwitters was described like this: Imagine an artist who sniffs around in the rubbish like a dog and discovers a whole new world...

While I appreciate that he used what is considered junk to create his picture, I don't think he literally sniffed around in the dirt like a dog, and describing the process in that way to me is melodramatic and makes me want to laugh!

The most striking painting was Salvador Dali's The Enigma of William Tell. It was large in size and somewhat disturbing. Salvador is considered one of the greatest surrealist painters. (I think he considered himself the greatest!) Apparently he was attempting to photograph the unconscious. In an interview on Swedish television he said (regarding the painting) that he hoped that everything was perfectly clear and that if it wasn't, please call him so that he could make it more obscure...

Besides the museum shop, my favourite place in the Modern Museum, was a little room with only Pablo Picasso on the walls.

We left the Modern Museum and went to the National Museum for lunch in the beautiful atrium. I didn't feel that I could handle Rembrandt and Cezanne after lunch, so it's enough to say I've been into the National Museum in Stockholm, even if I haven't actually seen any of the exhibited art.

We decided to leave high culture behind and headed to another institution of Swedish culture: IKEA! The biggest Ikea in the world is just 15 minutes drive from Anna's place. Think Mr Price Home on injectable steroids, pumping iron all day long. You can literally walk out of there with an entire house, except for the bricks. And since many homes in Sweden are built with wood, a Swede may be able to walk out of there with an ENTIRE house!

By the time we left Ikea (it's not possible to go in and out quickly) we were running late for our fancy dinner out.

We had decided to eat at Småk, which means taste. The tables are mini boxes of spices with a glass covering over the top. You choose a flavour and they serve you a dish with that particular flavour. Since the dishes are so small, it's more like a taste, you have to choose 3, 5 or 7 flavours.

The experience was certainly interesting and there were a few dishes that were absolutely extraordinary, but it reminded me a little of an experience I'd had at a place called Ginger in Cape Town... I think the thing is, that I'm the kind of person who, if I enjoy something, I like to have a bit more of it. And if I can only have a very small bite of it, I feel somewhat dissatisfied.

However, I have to admit, that despite my mental block to restaurants like this, I did leave feeling full and didn't need to stop at Mc Donald's on the way home.