Today everyone in my family had a day off, so we decided to visit the Gasometer Museum in Öberhausen, Germany.
The museum is located in an old factory that is over theehundred feet tall. The change their exhibitions every so often, but because of the conditions inside the tower there are never any paintings displayed. They did, however, have an art exhibition this time around, which had me very curious. They had large prints of famous paintings and photographs displayed on two floors of their industrial museum.
These painting were sorted not in order, but by subject. This was an approach I had not yet seen before, but it was very effective. Many of the reccuring themes in art, such as death, love and suffering were seen as interpretted by various different artists from various different ages. This was accompanied by dim lighting and metal ceilings that gave everything a mysterious feel.
I expected that the lack of ‘real’ paintings would bother me, but I barely thought about it. The objective, according to the museum, was to show people some of the most important pieces of art on a scale that was bigger than the tiny pictures in your textbooks in the hopes of getting people more excited about art. I think they managed this quite well, as my younger brother (who never entered a museum voluntarily) didn’t complain for a second.
The third floor of the museum, which was the height of nearly the entire tower, had one the most impressive features of the museum: The light show. Visitors could take place on beanbags and watch an array of lines and dots create patterns that suggested dept and movement and wasn’t actually there. My dad said he felt like he was in a space ship and we just lay there for twenty minutes and pretended that we were.
The ‘too-long-don’t-read’ version of this story is that I just had a really good time today. I would definitely recommend this museum, even if it’s just for the incredible space that you find yourself in when you visit.
I hope you’ve had a nice day,
Quinn
Junk Drawer Adventures 