Puppets

There is a authentic, old looking marionette shop in Lesser town that has these moving puppet contraptions.  I don't think that they work anymore, but I think that you put a euro in and a little scene plays out, just like in the first Shrek!

St. Stephen's Cathedral

While in Vienna, in between a few museums, I went to check out the main cathedral in Vienna, St. Stephen's.  It has a massive gothic spire tower that is one of the most ornate and decorated that I have ever seen.

The roof itself, I think is pretty ugly, but it is impressive that it is tiled in a way that creates a giant mosaic.

Check out the vaulting of the roof, as well as the columns running through the cathedral.

The stained glass was nothing compared to St. Vitus, or any other cathedral I have seen.

Each of the columns had ornate stories and figures that were sculpted onto the column itself.

Some of the chapels were in the center of the cathedral instead of off to the sides.

The organ, was one of the more impressive features of the cathedral, this was only the center piece, there are one on each side of this centerpiece.

One of the columns toward the back of the cathedral had a stone staircase which led up to a stone pulpit.  We even took a tour of the catacombs.  They had rooms full of bones and a huge pit of plague victim bones.  Since Vienna was the capital of the Hapsburg empire, there was a room full of Hapsburg bodies, and another room full of Hapsburg organs in jars., these jars were many times sent all over europe so that different countries can say that they have some parts of the Hapsburgs.

Rosh Hashanah Dinner and Latkas

I decided it was necessary to make a homemade meal for Rosh Hashanah, because its not quite the same without.  Above and below you can see the vegies.  A nice colorful mixture of onions, carrots and broccoli.  They were just sauteed with some olive oil and garlic.  Then there were the potatoes which were covered in garlic and a spice mix made primarily of cumin.  On the right is some of the main dish, honey/apricot/balsamic chicken (sweet for a new year).  The glaze caramelized really nicely and left the inside of the chicken nice and moist.

It's nice when vegies look and taste good!

Here was the dinner spread, in the two trays were my pride and joy, potato and noodle kugel.  I have never appreciated a food processor more then after making the potato kugel.  I had to wash all the potatoes, peel them with a knife (the kitchen didn't have a peeler), then grate them on the finest setting.  After the potatoes were grated I had to do the same to the onions.  Once those were mixed together with some flour and eggs I put it in the oven to bake.  The noodle kugel was made by mixing together cooked noodles with a mixture of butter, sugar, raisins, apples and eggs, and like the noodle kugel baked in the oven.  They came out perfect, its really nice to have comfort food while away!

Speaking of comfort food, today I decided to make latkas with the left over potatoes.  Grinding them up this time was an easier task since they were ground to bigger strips and the skins were left on.  The onions only had to be finely chopped too.  I added the flour and eggs (I'm starting to detect a pattern in Jewish cooking) and fried them up and salted them.  They got all crispy and browned and was an excellent finish to the week!

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.