MUMOK (Vienna's Museum of Modern Art)

One of the many museums I visited in Vienna was the MUMOK (full title above).  It was a really great museum in the conglomeration of museums that make up MuseumsQuartier.  The building itself if a piece of modern art.  I started out on the top floor (their permanent collection) and then worked my way down to the bottom.  On the way encountering, "Bad Painting, Good Art"  an exhibit about artist who purposely used "bad" painting techniques to make a statement.  And the other exhibit was "Mind Expanders", an exhibit about protest art, and all different kinds of city planing/inflatable/instillation art.

Piet Mondrian, Composition with Double Line and Blue (unfinished).  While I do not usually like Mondrian's paintings, I did enjoy this one.  Perhaps because it was "unfinished", as you can see in the second photo the boxes were not filled in to the edges, it gave it a raw, exposed feeling which appealed to me.

Alexej Jawlensky, Pink Vetch.  It does not really come through in the photo, but in person there is an incredibly warm colored amber light that comes from the painting, I also liked the more abstract brushstrokes.

Oto Gutfreund, Viki.  The style of this sculpture reminds me of a style of animation that is used in Japan.

Richard Gerstl, The Schönberg Family.  Gerstl painting above has the ability to draw you in.  I kept looking at this painting from different distances and angles.  It had an effect similar to the pointillism used in George Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte.

Eric Olson, Optochromy H.  This was one of my favorite pieces in the museum.  It was made of two pieces of laser etched glass, which gives it a polarized quality.  As you can see in the bottom photo, from the side they look like two pieces of tinted glass, but as you across the front, the two pieces line up to form two blue rectangles and the rest is blacked out.  There are a million different ways of percieving this piece since it changes as you move across it.

These are some posters that were created by Viennese design firms.

Paul Klee, Scarecrow.

Francis Picabia, Portrait of a Woman.  This is the first photo of the "Bad Painting, Good Art" exhibit.  The portrait it self was nothing special to me, what really intrigued me was the "finish" over it.  You may have to zoom in order to really see it, but it seems as if after Picabia finished the portrait he covered the whole painting with a fine coat of wax and then baked it so that it all beaded up, the reason she looks part leopard.

Neil Jenny, Girl and Doll and Man and Mirage.  I liked the simplicity of this series.  Also, note how the figure was sketched out roughly in pencil in the close up of the man.

Francis Picabia, Maternity.  There was an intense warmth that came from the mothers shawl, especially in contrast to the midnight blue in the background.

Francis Picabia, Nude in Front of a Landscape

André Butzer, Pluton.  This looked like some take on Steamboat Willie era Mickey Mouse.

Werner Büttner, On Evil VI.

Julian Schnabel, Painting without Mercy.  This one was a really neat mixed media piece.  Schnabel covered the canvas with whole and broken plates, bowls. and pottery before painting.

John Currin, Thanksgiving.

Hans Hollein, Architecture Pill.  This is where the "Mind Expanders" exhibit started.  I took a picture of this one because I would like to take an architecture pill and be really good at designing buildings!

These moch-ups reminded of the waterfalls that were in NYC this past summer.

Hans-Rucker-Co., Yellow Heart.  This artist conglomeration, had a bunch of pieces at the museum.  They worked in really neat inflatable structures.  Im pretty sure they even created inflatable structures for a world expo.

Hans-Rucker-Co., Air-Spa Hotel.  They also had fun layover mock-ups of their structures over existing buildings.

Friederike Pezold, Mundwerk.

Maria Abramovic, Breathing in - Breathing out.  I thought it was interesting how the photo was used twice to represent two different actions resulting in a different interaction (as stated in the poem) every time.

Maria Lassnig, Chair.

Valie Export, Body Sign C.

Birgit Jürgenssen, Apron.  These last two were some examples of the very visual social stances of the artists.  I strongly suggest visiting MUMOK if you are visiting Vienna.  It had a really great mix of modern art that kept things fresh.

Zanoni & Zanoni (So Called Berthillon Competition)

This is the ice cream bar at Zanoni and Zanoni, the world famous Viennese ice cream place.  They had about thirty flavors which was pretty impressive.  There was a nice outdoor sitting area that was heated so that it can be used all winter.

The first night (thats right, we went twice!) I stuck to some basics, pistachio and chocolate.  The pistachio was good, not to sweet very creamy.  The chocolate was milk chocolate, there was no dark chocolate, and it had a light flavor.  These two blended very nicely which was good because they pretty much inserted the chocolate into the pistachio as you can see above.

The second night I went with mango and biscotti.  This pair did not blend as well but at least the scoopers put them side by side.  The mango was there in flavor, but the texture was just too light.  The biscotti was warm in flavor the texture was helped out by the addition of easy to chew biscotti pieces.  Down to business, while this was very good ice cream,  much better than anything that I have had in the Czech Republic, this was no Berthillon.  The texture was too light and airy, and there were times when the flavor was just not making it to where it should have.  The chocolate was just not rich enough.  Also aside from any bits that they put it, all of the ice creams have the exact same texture, something that made the ice cream boring.  If you are in Vienna by all means you should go and enjoy some Zanoni and Zanoni, but if you are an ice cream lover, make sure that you travel to Paris to taste the true "best ice cream in Europe" at Berthillon.

Über Gigantic Viennese Market

One of the best parts of Vienna (where I spent the weekend) was the gargantuan market that I believe is only on Saturdays.  It consists of two parts, a flea-market/antiques part and a food part.  The regular market has between four and five hundred stands.  Stands range from piles of ten euro-cent pieces of clothing in huge piles, to antique dealers selling pocket watches for 120 euro and up.  You can find everything in between as well!  I was looking for a souvenir that was not something kitchy, but would be something I would enjoy and that would have a story behind it.  The first thing that caught my eye was the stand that had drawers and drawers full of olde style type face.  He had all different fonts and he even had image plates.  I was going to get my name, but Steven is not very german.  I decided to get über in two different types of font.  The letters are backwards above for obvious reasons.  I will have to do some printing with them when I get back.

The other object that caught my eye was this WWII (I think) medic bag.  I have been looking for a messenger bag and this was perfect.  It can fit some books, is very sturdy and it looks pretty cool.  It was only twenty euro so for a messenger bag it was really cheap too.  It smells a bit like old people and has a few stains here and there but i have some dryer sheets working their magic and ill scrub out the stains the best I can.  The best part is if any one asks where I got it, I can say its a one of a kind from a viennese market!

Being that medics carried around lots of individually wrapped items, there are a ton of compartments inside the bag.  Folded off to the side there are even two pouches that would be perfect for a cell phone or a mp3 player.

Now on to the food market.  This section of the market was literally magical.  It reminded me of the market in Harry Potter.  The lane went on for at least half a mile and there were stands and shops on each side, there was not a single stand that did not make my mouth water.  The pictures above and below are taken back to back in one section of the food market, I would say that this is about one fifth of the whole food market, there were a lot of turns in the path.

Some stands had all different types of dried fruits and nuts.  One really interesting fruit I had never seen dried before was Kiwi (the green one).

Other stands had vast arrays of pure spices and spice mixtures that were bagged up and ready to go.

Some vendors stacked there fruits and nuts against a window making a wall of deliciosity.

There were many antipasto vendors.  Each individual stuffed pepper, olive, eggplant, and so on were absolutely picture perfect.  Take a close look at the stuffed pepper in the lower left hand section of the display case, look at the intricate design that makes up part of the stuffing.

Here was one of the many cheese shops.  Aside from the cheese shops there were also butchers and fish shops.  The butcher shops were full of thick cut steaks of all different kinds of cuts, tons of salamis and sausages, and gorgeous looking prosciutto.  The fish shops had large varieties of whole fish as well as fillets.  I was famished at this point as well as dehydrated since my mouth had been watering for a good half an hour so I got a gyro.  It was a bit different then in the US.  Instead of a pita, they serve it in a section of inch-and-a-half thick, seeded, flat bread.  It was really good. 

Passing bye all of the pastry shops, I could not avoid ending my meal with some authentic apple strudel.  It was very warmly spiced and it had a bit of ginger in it as well.  A perfect ending to a successful viennese market trip.