What am I doing in Basel?
There's a huge art event here every June called ArtBasel with galleries from all over the world that have to heavily compete to get in. There are major young, emerging artists' events which are the rebel offspring of highly established ArtBasel.
Will be catching up with Lauren, Roz's daughter and with Effie from the Shalom Eastern Europe tour. We discovered we were both heading for Basel! Peter and Janet have friends for me to see that live here too.
Basel is a mix of ancient and new.
Tinguely's fountain right where 15 years ago Mum, Alex and I admired these sculptures covered in ice!
You load your plate and have it weighed. I want to taste everything so I load up my plate! A huge fruit tea to match. This healthy restaurant called tibits is an offshoot of the fabulous parent one in Zurich called Hiltl that started in 1898! Mum took me there in 1996. She loved it because it was a kosher and healthy option. The food there is the finest and most creative vegetarian I've ever had.
Theater Basel building is fronted by Jean Tinguely's amusing machine fountain. Am finding my way around.
Hearing Swiss German everywhere. People will speak English and French with you to varying degrees of ability.
Look at the gifts I bought today at the jobfactory store. This enterprise called jobfactory trains unemployed and disabled youth in retail and hospitality and it sells free-trade items.
These are 6 inch scrolls with one side patterned, the other plain on which to write messages, letters or special greetings. They're on a wooden rod with elastic wound around the scroll.
Am collecting small, light gifts. Russian doll images are in fashion and they make me miss Russia. There are Matrioshkas everywhere in Russia, now popular with vintage collectors in Melbourne.
Matrioshka decorated manicure set and key holders
Tomorrow I contact Lauren, Roz's daughter. I took this photo of Roz and Lauren in Basel last year.
*** the concert at theater basel last night was great. the performers are graduates who already have jobs and roles with major opera companies in europe. watch this space for I saw singers who will be famous. the 4 singers had an informal interview on stage in german and english. see the programme in the photo for the wonderful arias they performed.
I had a couch seat in a central beaut spot. what a cultured city. a charming baritone from texas made us laugh about the cultural shock he had in transition from Texas to Basel.
Crumpled concert programme
my agenda: i have so many choices, architecture museum called Vitra to reach by crossing the border into germany; fringe new emerging artists' exhibitions; a train trip to the countryside Rheinfelden; art museums in Basel....
The Rhein River is high but not creating devastation as Germany's floods are.
From the Münsterplatz lookout, a boat decorated with hand knitting . There are staircase rails and poles everywhere in public covered in playful crochet and knitting.
The knitted boat's knitted launch pad.
Crocheted skeleton in the wool shop window.
In the Münsterplatz, an art exhibition is part of the emerging artists' festival.
Alexia Webster (1979) Sth Africa
From A Village in the Clouds, 2009 - ongoing. "For many generations people have believed that these ancient forests were home to the spirits of their ancestors."
From the Contemporary African photography exhibition in the Münsterplatz
Alexia Webster from ibid, the Wandering Branches of a tree in the old indigenous forest
Wish me luck in getting a ticket to this chamber concert at the Stadcasino ( nothing to do with casinos). baselstring4 Basler Streichquartett performing music by Wladimir Vogel, Michail Bulgakow and Ludwig van Beethoven - who's he?
or acrobatic performance
or food!
This evening I don't go overboard at tibits, had only a few almonds for lunch, so it counts as two meals!
The concert ticket seller gave me a concession, amused that I am a 60 year-old student. My ticket cost 10 CHF, Swiss francs, which equals $11.31 AUD.
Wladimir Vogel's work, Das Verhör (1983) has spoken dialogue from Bulgakow's Der Meister und Margarita with dissonant musical backing punctuating the text very effectively.
Michail Bulgakow's Lesung aus "Der Meister und Margarita" (1929-1939) is a two hander in Deutsch. Lucky my German's good. :)
The Basler Streichquartett stuns us with its performance of Beethoven's Quartet for strings in E flat major, op. 127 (1824). We bring the musicians back with our applause five times.
After the concert I jumped onto the no 11 tram and enjoyed crossing the river Rhein and seeing the Messeplatz (Exhibition centre where ArtBasel's set up). Curious, hadn't seen all this from the no 11 before. Was enjoying it and thought I'll soon get off and go in the opposite direction towards home until I realised we were heading towards Germany and I didn't have a passport nor a hotel booked! :) So I got out and made my way back. Fun having my sense of direction.
Kunstmuseum
kuntsmuseum to see a Picasso retrospective: Die Picassos Sind da! Eine Retrospektive aus Basler Sammlungen (Basel Collections)
and the 19th century favourites: Cezanne, van Gogh, Hodler, Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Vallotton, Rodin
and the 20th century usual suspects: Arp, Beckmann, Dali,, Delaunay, Kandinsky, Klee, Kokoshka, Malewitsch, (saw many of his works in the Russian Museum, St. Petersburg) Marc, Matisse, Miro, Mondrian, Braque, Derain, Kirchner, Leger, Matisse, Modigliani, Rousseau, Vlaminck, Andre, Johns, Rayschenberg, Warhol, Chagall, Jawlensky and Soutine.
Lauren
ArtBasel Design Miami
Most of what I see is inspired by the 60s and 70s. Where is the baroque which is bound to be a reaction against the streamlined minimalism? I thought baroque was already with us!
Nothing new under the sun!!
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