The one in Den Bosch

A couple of weeks ago mum and me went to Den Bosch, there is another post about this city, which you can find here. This time we visited the Stedelijk museum and the Noord Brabants museum.

One of the temporary exhibitions was about the eighties. On display was the dress worn by our former Queen Beatrix when she was crowned in 1980. I am digging the Queen Beatrix wallpaper adorning the walls!

 Happy as a bird with a French fry when I spotted some vintage cars

The other exhibition showed work from Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota. This installation was made from about 2,000 balls of wool, held together by approximately 10,000 staples. If you're interested, and would like to know more, you may want to check out this short video.

Staircase inside the Stedelijk Museum

Seen on our way back to the train station

 

Some pretty doors were spotted along the way too, but I'll show those in a separate post. I think they deserve a post of their own :-) Have you visited any museums lately?

The one with a visit to Museum Kurhaus

On april 27th we celebrate King's Day in the Netherlands. It's a national holiday, where we celebrate King Willem-Alexander's birthday. Traditionally the festivities involve music, flea markets, red-white-and-blue flags adorn houses and we eat orange coloured 'tompoucen', typically Dutch pastry that's pink coloured normally, and it's impossible to eat them in a chic way! The King himself celebrates by visiting a different city each year.

Me and my mum fled the country and hustle and bustle of the city. We wanted to visit Museum Kurhaus in Kleve for quite some time and we thought it might be a perfect day to do some art-watching. Kleve is just across the border in Germany, and only half an hour away by car. Does it sound familiar? Whenever you are on a holiday, you do all sorts of stuff and visit special places, but the things that are closer to home go onto the one-day-I'll-do-that-list? And my apologies for the picture heavy-ness of this post!

The museum is housed in a former spa, isn't it gorgeous?

We had a lunch break, with waffles, warm cherries and cream, big Yum!

I love that there's a printing press in the background of this photo!  

 

After visiting the museum, we had a stroll through the park.

 

The museum is definitely something I would recommend. There something for everyone, photography, paintings, sculptures, textiles. I really liked the variety. Also, if you like architecture, the building by itself is worth the visit. More info on the museum can be found on their website (only in German and Dutch).

A little blast from the past, more Kings Day posts over here, here, and here

The one with the Afrika Museum

Two weeks ago I visited the Afrika Museum with my mom. Although it's only a 10 minute car ride away, the last time I visited the museum, was over 20 years ago. It has a unique collection of both traditional and contemporary art from Africa. The museum consists of two parts, indoor and outdoor. Indoors were two temporary exhibitions, one with photographs from the Masaai in Kenia, and the other one was titled Mythical Animals. Outside, visitors can experience rebuilt African architecture, from several countries.

 Part of the Mythical Animals exhibition

View from the museum to the main road. It was such a beautiful, warm and sunny day!

Not a part of the museum, but this could be seen from the outside part of the museum. We have absolutely no idea what it was, or how to get closer to it. I wanted to ask, but I forgot....

And some sort of selfie

The one with all the hats

The sunday after Christmas me and my friend R. decided it was time for a bit of a fieldtrip. It had snowed and the roads were very slippery, but that didn't stop us! First we had coffee and sandwiches at Credible (highly recommendable, you can have breakfast for dinner, woot-woot!) right across the road from the museum. After all the yummy food, we slid to the other side of the street, and started our visit with the exhibition we came for. One of the temporary exhibitions showcases a collection of hats, designed by Dutch designer Marianne Jongkind. I loved the different shapes, colours, materials and textures. Makes me wish I was more of a hat person, I would totally rock that merry go round one! In case you want to enjoy these hats, and want to pay the museum a visit, there is some need to hurry, it's up until the 11th of January.

Another exhibition showed how life was during WWII in my hometown Nijmegen. I didn't feel it was appropriate taking pictures at this part of the museum. There is a video made by the museum that gives an impression of what can be seen over here. The end of the exhibition was used to commemorate unidentified war victims. At a large table, you could take a sheet of paper and fold a boat, and add these to the other visitors' creations.

The one with a visit to the Van Abbemuseum

Two sundays ago, mom and me took a trainride to the city of Eindhoven. It's a 45 minute trainride and our destination was the van Abbemuseum. The museum is named after it's founder Henri van Abbe, a collector of modern and contemporary art, with works of artists like Wassily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall and Karel Appel. We took the audio tour, which was awesome! Theatre actor Lucas de Man was the voice of the soundwalk, and took us everywhere around the museum, telling all sorts of tidbits about the building and collection, and interviewing museum staff. The art was amazing, and just the building is worth a visit too. I loved the musical elevator it has, starting with a low voice in the basement, getting more soprano-like the higher it gets. 

The 'knitted' snakes in the restaurant (where I had the most mouthwatering asparagus soup) aren't just for decoration, they also make the space less noisy. Thumbs up for art that isn't just there for it's good looks, but has a function as well.

You might have seen the hi-ha-ha wall on my instagram, I also made a little video. When I grow up, and have a grown-up-people's house, I want this in my living room! 

And as a bonus, we saw this on out way back to the train station. Have you been to a museum lately? Or taken any other trips out of town?