Back to the Gallery

I used to spend a lot of time in galleries. It was nothing exceptional to go and spend a full day just wandering around a gallery and taking in the images, interpreting them in my own way. When I first moved to the Netherlands, back in 1998, I had a museumjaarkaart. Now digital but back then attached to my discount card from Dutch Railways. I was a shift worker and used the card on the ‘waking days’ when transitioning from night to afternoon shift. A short sleep and then get up and travel from my small flat in the Bos and Lommer area of Amsterdam to the centre. Bos and Lommer is now, apparently, hip and vibrant. It wasn’t then.

Often I would end up in the Rijksmuseum, in the wide and spacious great hall staring a little dopily at The Night Watch. Always seeing something else with my sleep deprived eyes. Spotting something different. Not in any systematic way, not interpreting or looking for themes. Taking it in. Slowly, lazily. Taking it in.

More, Then Less

The fascination grew along with the increased financial resource that comes with a developing career. In the Netherlands I visited Mauritshuis, a really memorable Salvador Dali exhibition at the Boijmans Museum in Rotterdam and more galleries in Amsterdam. Then came the Louvre, Prado and the Reina Sofía where I stared for an hour at Guernica. So much to see in that one, so much to take in.

This all came to a halt due to two things. Covid, which stopped nearly everything for everyone for too long. Then, as we came out of Covid, my walking started to deteriorate significantly. Before walking supports and folding sticks I remember going to an exhibition at the Grote Kerk in Naarden, near where we live, and having the real fear that I was going to trip over and destroy a significant work of art. Foot drop and uneven, historic stone floors don’t go well together!

A visit to the Moca Museum in Amsterdam seemed to be a finale. It was a big effort to get to a museum that was both hip and soulless. People staring at Banksys because they are Banksys. Wow. A sense of wonder? Somewhere else.

Back to the Gallery!

Two years later and that excitement is back. I have started visiting galleries again. What has changed? Well, acceptance of the need to use support. Walking sticks, lower leg supports that keep my unstable right leg straight and my sagging right foot raised. It also helps to have a trustworthy friend with me. On a practical front they give me that bit of support on the stairs or an arm on surfaces where the stick is not practical. Uneven floors and all that. More importantly, it’s another pair of eyes. Eyes from a more disciplined approach to art and the interpretation of it. But also communicative about that.

It is exciting to learn again. At the age of fifty and with my lesion riddled brain slower to understand and interpret what I am looking at. Perhaps not that different to the sleep-deprived staring of a twenty-three year old? The difficulty of thinking logically is not always a bad thing, though. Looking with different eyes and then hearing the views of another is so refreshing. A trip to the gallery is again a massively rewarding experience.

A Fragmented Journey

The most recent gallery visit was to the Anselm Kiefer exhibition at the van Gogh and Stedelijk Museum. The last weekend of this exhibition and pretty unique as it involved two museums. Unfortunately our previously booked tickets coincided with a train strike. A little ironic considering how my love of museums started!

My journey by bus was longer but not bad and had the unusual experience of travelling via an empty Amsterdam Amstel station. I forgot how beautiful the murals were. My friend’s journey was longer and more stressful but they arrived eventually, in need of a strong coffee and some water but hungry for the exhibition.

A Day of Wonder

The exhibition, named ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone?’ (in German, after the song originally by Pete Seeger) was arresting, overpowering, an experience! It was as though the monumental feel of Night Watch was being repeated through the halls of both museums. Not just with conventional paint either. Lead sculptures that had been corroded in electrolyte baths, sand. Perhaps it sounds a little pretentious? A grander version of the Moca Museum?

No, this was someone born in Germany in 1945 reflecting his concerns and perceptions. The scale of the work reflected the scale of the issues as he sees them, perhaps? I will not try to overanalyse. It was enough to simply be engulfed by the works and see the way different materials were used, bringing life to the works on display. Old clothes were symbols of lives that had been removed, experiences gone. Twigs and branches were added to a painting to create a three-dimensional effect that changed the work as you walked around it. ‘Exhibition’ is perhaps too passive a word. Encounter? Difficult to find the words.

An Experience of Scale

All my words around size and scale neglect the subtlety of the display. One of the paintings reflected Starry Night which, unfortunately, is not in the van Gogh. I could not see that initially. My friend, whose knowledge of art puts mine in the shade, pointed this out. They also pointed out how colours were painted on to other colours by van Gogh, whose paintings interspersed the exhibition and whose influence on Kiefer was great. I had seen these paintings many times before but not seen them this way before.

After an hour or so the walking stick was needed. Two hours, both of us were exhausted. Hungry. A reservation at a good restaurant was waiting. Such an exhibition can become overpowering. The enormity of the themes, history, mythology, humanity. I really can’t find the words and perhaps it is better not to try too hard. The memory is enough.

Hunger for More

Others have probably done a better job of summing up the exhibition than I have. I can only summarise what I felt but also I can add one small thing. A sense of gratitude to be able to see this. Not to mention a hunger for more. My third gallery visit in six months and the most complete, for me at least. Just like that sleepy shift worker more than twenty years ago, the sheer excitement, the wonder of what a person can create, is awakened. And I want more. It’s so good that the hunger is back.