In a recent visit to Chicago’s Art Institute, I saw these works through a door and knew exactly who had painted them. They reminded me of the work of Ferdinand Hodler that I had first seen in the Zürich Kunsthaus. They are indeed, Hodler’s paintings.
These works are in the new (2009) modern wing of the Art Institute.
Switzerland is also represented here with a few of Alberto Giacometti’s human figures.
Since learning about her sculpture garden in Escondido, California, I have been wanting to visit this Niki de Saint Phalle installation. Although it is free to enter, the hours are limited. It’s open Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 a.m. to noon, and the second and fourth Saturdays of the month from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
I happened to be nearby on the recent second Saturday, a sunny day.
In her final years living in San Diego, Niki de Saint Phalle became enamored of the story of the black warrior queen who ruled the mythical island of California (also spelled Calafia). The queen sits in the center of the circle astride a five-legged eagle (egg underneath) surrounded by eight totems covered in symbolic mosaics of drawn from Native American, Pre-Columbian, and Mexican art in addition to the artist’s own imagery.
The outside walls are topped by undulating snakes.
As much as I love her angel in the Zürich main train station, this might be my favorite installation of hers.
The time has come for this blog to rest. Although I will not be posting regularly, sometimes a post will present itself to me. I plan to see more Niki de Saint Phalle art in San Diego. Perhaps I will come across a photo as I troll through my archive that needs to be shown. Any journeys to foreign lands will end up in posts here.
Until those times, I will leave these two photos.
A sunset over my adopted city.
And an Auf Wiedersehen (literally until we see each other again) from the air.
I know that a number of you already subscribe to my California blog. In case you don’t, and you’d like to take a look-see, it’s called claremontography. I post on Mondays and Thursdays there.
I simply like this photo. I happened to catch a moment when almost nobody was on the street. The yellow building is home to Schipfe 33, a furniture maker. The road on the right leads to the Lindenhof.
When I visited the Niki de Saint Phalle exhibit at the Zürich Kunsthaus, I learned that she lived her last year in San Diego. A little research led me to find that she has a number of sculptures in that city and in Escondido. While visiting our kids in San Diego on Saturday, I wanted to see the sculptures in Balboa Park. These two are outside the Mingei International Museum which features Folk Art.
This one, called the Nikigator, was crawling with children. I used Magic Eraser to remove their likenesses for their privacy. So excuse the smudges.
More photos at glampinginswitzerland’s Instagram.
More Niki posts here.
Last year I got my fall pumpkin fix at the Jucker Farms with the walking group I had joined. Here are photos from last year.
Here is a photo that didn’t make the blog then. Note the keyboard which is the German version. It exchanges the positions of the Y and the Z. Confusing for us Americans!
This year the theme is “Frauen Power” (Women Power). There are a few photos of this year’s creations at the Jucker Farms here.
Last November I blogged about a day-trip to the Lindt Home of Chocolate. To make the experience even more fun, we took a boat back to Zürich on Lake Zürich. The bus ride there is only 15 minutes. The boat ride back is longer, but on a clear day in November, these are the views looking south.
Sigh.
Last October I blogged about our day visiting the Landwasserviadukt. While waiting for fall colors to kick in here in Southern California (it takes awhile), I looked back through my photos from that hike. Here are some that I did not post.
We got off in the town of Filisur in the canton of Graubunden.
How I miss hiking in Switzerland!
This past weekend on a visit to Oregon, we visited the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum. One of the first airplanes we saw is outside the entrance to the aviation building. It is a Douglas C-47 Skytrain.
These are the planes that kept West Berlin alive during the Berlin Airlift at Templehoferfeld.
Knowing the story behind the plane helped me appreciate seeing it up close and in person.
Inside the aviation building we came across this section of the Berlin Wall.
A little research led me to this Wikipedia site which lists all the places around the world with portions of the Berlin Wall. Nine cities in California have sections. We’ve seen the one across the street from LACMA.
The name “Adolf Honnecker” seen above is “a combination of the names Adolf Hitler and Erich Honnecker to criticize the German communist politician that led the German Democratic Republic.”
This is the only part of the wall in Oregon.
Tomorrow I will post about other parts of the museum on my claremontography blog.
So, we lived on Hochstrasse this year in university housing. The building itself was nothing worth noting (although I did show some photos of our decorating endeavors).
After we had lived there for 9 months, my daughter and son-in-law came for a visit and pointed out this detail that we had not noticed.
It holds open the shutters! Look very closely, and you will see them at the bottom of an open shutter. (You can see that our building is in need of a paint job.)
Fun fact. A recent book called The Ministry for the Future takes place in Switzerland, in Zürich, and several of the buildings mentioned are on Hochstrasse!
Glamping in Switzerland 