Weekend at de Panne

As friends of us are in Budapest, they left us the keys to their apartment in De Panne (Belgian coast). Very good weekend thanks to the beautiful weather. Great walk through the Westhoek (nature reserve just before the border of France) and along the coast. Ended, as almost usual when we are at the coast, with a great dinner at Ocean in Oostende - a must.

Day out

Visited the Castle of Horst - disappointing - no furniture, almost a ruin. This castle is part of the 'Vlaams Erfgoed', but there is a lot of restauration to be done. Went afterwards to a nature-reserve, but as the time was a bit wet the last days, we couldn't do a lot of walk due to the mud. After all a bit of fresh air did us well.

Day in Hilversum (The Netherlands)

Went for the office to a training at a firm in Hilversum and took a long walk in the evening through the city to see a bit of the architecture. I was lucky ... the first realy sunny days over here in western Europe.

Saw a few buildings from Dudok (influenced by the school of Berlage - another famous Dutch architect). I surely liked the town-hall of hilversum. Architectural cubes put together and covered with creamed colored glazed bricks/tiles with some hints of bleu and black. Very structural and very beautiful.

2nd weekend in London

Local London restaurant, Portobello Road, Indian Tandoori, and for the second time Tate Modern.
An this with my friend Hubert.

Evening in plane Madrid-Brussels

Working in Madrid has come to an end. Have seen some beautifull things. For modern art I guess it must have been the 'Museum reina Sofia' that impresses me the most, more than the 'Bornissem-Thyssens', but the contemporary art-collection in the Conce Dunque is very, very good.

Weekend in London

Visitid the Tate Britain galery with some fine pre-raphalites and some fine Turners, Dali-exhibition (0/10 - do not go !!!) - 'The mikado' operette of Gilbert & Sullivan, British museum (go also to the top-top-floor for the japanese contemporary dishes and bowls) and Tate Modern (in superb renovated old power-station - no not the Battersee).

Holliday Malta

Went to Malta for a few days ... If you like visiting and like prehistorical (megalithical) age and you want to know a bit more about the knights of Malta... don't hesitate ... go for it. Don't go to Malta for beaches (there are anly a few small ones). Have done some beautifull walkings through the island ... very dry but beautifull. Colours, taste, sent, almost all the senses are filling me up with impressions ... even wanted to paint at a certain moment !!!

5 days in Bourgogne (France)

Food, wine, sleep, colors (especially the vineyards in their autumn-colors) and history (from prehistorically paintings in caves and dolmens of the Celtic age till the 18th century in Dijon ...) : absorption of many thinks into my head ...

Lucerne - Switzerland - Hotel-room 10pm

..I visited the mirror-palace, it reminds me of my childhood, of those mirror-palaces at the Brussels-fair, where we got through, bouncing our head against those mirror-walls, while the people outside were laughing. This one is much better. By the way, do you know that you can get through 75% of maze by always turning rights - or always left...
...I visited also the Picasso-museum and have been attracted by an oil-painting of a boy looking at a lady who’s doing her hair ‘La coiffure’, where you can see the principle of his ‘art’ – looking at a person or an object by all the sides at the same time. But the image that impressed me the most was a photograph of the master himself, putting his first stroke of paint on a ‘virgin’-white canvas. It makes me think of the text I’ve written a week ago for my first exhibition, where I talked about the moment of creation. Then, thanks to the beautiful weather, went to the Tribschen-peninsula, where Richard Wagner lived a couple of years. Even if the museum was closed (I knew it beforehand), walking through the neighborhood gave me some kind of satisfaction. Afterwards went to the museum of art (in their temporary rooms till 2000). It was the first time that they asked me to put a cow - really a little object that sounds like a cow if you turn it up-side down – by the object of art that I disliked the most. I’ve put it on a kind of sound-art-environment that irritated me from the moment I’ve entered the room till the moment I left. But my god … what is art expensive. Should I reconsider my prices for my first exhibition in March?...