jsmith

I can't imagine the world without museums to visit. Doesn't have to be painting or sculpture. Could just as easily be the Railroad Museum in York, the Racing Museums in Saratoga (NY) and Newmarket, the SS Great Britain in Bristol or the whaling museum in New Bedford (MA). All of these collections and celebrations can bring a lift to our lives and travels.

But so can wandering into the fish market in Venice, a lighting fixture shop in Lisbon, a lace store in Brugge, the Europa market in Notting Hill. My wife and I always like to look at the window display in the "knobs and knockers" shop on the way from the V&A to the S. Kensington tube. That's a hardware store for the uninitiated.

We can also sit and watch the insane traffic around the Arc de Triumphe or the kids in the playground in the Luxembourg Gardens.

Converse with the Director of the Botanical Gardens in Lisbon and with a very old man from Poland at the Kensington Palace reflecting pool wondering how he could get a copy of Dante's Inferno in Polish.

What wonderful things we can experience if our minds are open to them.

mcgeezer

Platzer,
?Modern art that they wouldn?t cross the street to see at home?? Are you kidding? While I admit the edifice isn?t what we expect when we think ?Guggenheim?. After all, it?s just a simple building not the masterpieces of Frank Lloyd Wright or Frank Ghery like the Guggenheims in New York and Bilbao. But the Peggy Guggenheim Collection houses some of the most important works of our time. In a small way Peggy Guggenheim was to modern art what the Medici?s were to the Renaissance. Would we know the names of Brunelleschi and Donatello today if not for Cosimo Medici? Guggenheim was on the immediate scene of modern art and bought these works ?fresh off the presses? you might say. I?m not defending the Guggenheim just because my favorite Magritte (Empire of Light) hangs in the great room it?s just that the history of this museum is significant to the movement. Everything that happens to a place becomes a part of that place and for this reason I disagree with the statement, ?It has nothing to do with Venice!? Not all that is important in a city happened when Moses was in diapers. A city, a country, a culture is an ever evolving force and we need to respect all of it.
I did think it was somewhat funny when you said, ?The culture Nazis just can't stand that, probably because deep inside they don't really believe that this culture stuff is so great, eirther. Inherent in every comment "I just luuuv museums" in the implication that "I am better than you." The snobs can deny it, but it comes through loud and clear. Otherwise, they would keep their traps shut and let people shop?
But the truth is I do love museums, I love information and I love to read and write. I?m not sure what it means to be ?better than? someone else. I?ve met many people some with more money or more education then me but it doesn?t make them better then me. Only I get to determine that.
And if you wouldn?t cross the street to see Duchamp, Kandinsky, Klee, Pollock or any of the other 170 plus artists whose works hang from these walls, I say ?bravo? and to each their own. Like Mary Oliver said, ?you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.? It also means that while you are out shopping you won?t be obstructing the view of the great Mondrians for Giovanni, me and the other ?museum junkies? out there. I do thank you for your post because I might not have thought about these things tonight if not for you. Blessings.

mcgeezer

sorry about the question marks in place of proper punctuation. I took this "out' to edit.

Mikex

What does it matter? If you like museums, then do museums. If shopping is your thing, then do it. My wife and I both love art museums, museums, old churches, architecture of many kinds and the unusual -- one of my favorite visits in Paris was the sewers -- ok, so I am an engineer -- my wife and I both visited the famous department stores in Paris not only to shop but to see the famous stained glass domes.
Do your thing and do not worry what others will think.
Oh yes, we also did museums, zoos, etc. in DC, San Diego, LA , San Francisco, Boston and Philidelphia and wherever else we travel at home.
Mike

Sue_xx_yy

"I'm the person who said that most people get talked, actually bullied is a better description, into going to art galleries and museums abroad..."

Platzer

Me and my pal, 'Mugsy' would like to invite youse to a 'cultural' exhibit. Step in da car, kiddo, youse is gonna get 'educated'.

We're gonna park in the Piazzale Roma and then drag you to the Guggenheim. As in, Peggy. Now that dame, she knew how to have a good time! She threw lots of parties in that place, for everyone from Alec Guiness to Hedda Hopper to the Beatles. (She hadda lotta lovers, too!)

As to whether the house has got anythin' to do with Venice, I realize ol' Peg was only a come-from-away, but she did manage to live in Venice for more years than most of us wretches get to spend hours of daylight in that city. Yeah, she liked collectin' strange pictures. You gonna hold it against her? That was her house, man, where she lived. I wanna see that terrace, see that view, check out the grub in the café, case the joint to see how the place is laid out. And who knows, maybe the art'll grow on me. (Some of it might even leave with me, if ol' Mugsy has his way, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.)

Meanwhile, we're 'making' you go to her house, Platz.. You have read the guidebook, and you took way too long about it! So now you WILL follow it, or 'Mugsy' here will help you explore the bottom of the Grand Canal....

Enjoy.

elle

I work in a museum, so if I visit too many museums or chateaux or historic houses on any one trip, it starts to feel like work. Highly enjoyable work, but I've never felt that way sitting in a cafe with a pichet of wine, watching whatever promenande presents itself .

I do love museums, though, and I love to shop, which is why I'm so grateful for museum shops. I also like to visit stores that were not designed with the tourist in mind--supermarkets, hardware stores, pet goods, etc. I have warm memories of finding a tiny mom & pop shoe store off the beaten track in Collioure and spending the better part of a morning talking to the proprietors and trying on shoes.

I loved the Peggy Guggenheim collection! I like museums that not only house art that most people have only seen in books--Picasso, Leger, Duchamp--but are also infused with the vision and idiosyncracies of a particular collector.

I think that people are more likely to visit their local museums for temporary exhibitions. Permanent collections seem to motivate tourists more than local residents. I live three blocks from the Philadelphia Museum of Art and but have visited just twice in the past year--once for the Degas exhibition and once we just popped in to see what was going on.

We missed the Schiaparelli exhibition, but learned that it will be in Paris when we are there. I feel like kicking myself for not seeing it when it was here so that I could compare the two venues.

nytraveler

Well Platzer - to each his own. But I do object to being called a "culture nazi" - as far as I know I'm not murdering anyone - or even forcing them into any museum if they don't want to go. If you hate art, architecture etc and just want to sit in a cafe - fine. But don't call me a culture Nazi - and I won't call you an ill-educated wino! (Not that I am of course - that would be very rude - but just to point out the inappropriateness of your language.)

rex

I am torn about the use of the word "nazi" in other contexts, like "culture nazi" or "soup nazi".

If it was okay for the writers on Seinfeld, do I need to be more sensitive to the survivors of the Holocaust, and to all Jews, gypsies and related populations of people who suffered in World War II? Do I needto be careful about the use of the word "field", lest I show insensitivity over the deaths of the millions who died in the genocide of Pol Pot's "killing fields"? do we surrender certain words to terrible political and military "leaders" once they stain them?

Even more curious to me is that _nazi_ and _fascist_ have become such deplored words... when in fact _nationalism_ (nazionalismus) and _fascism_ (looking out for "our bundle"... our people, our nation) are in fact, very strong, and highly held political perspectives held by many "freedom" lovers around the world today... and throughout all of history?

nytraveler

How do you think the soup Nazi would have liked being called the soup Nazi? Would the customer have ever been served again? And in that context there was at least some element of coercion - even though I would argue that using Nazi in that context does in some sense deman the lives of all those people murdered by the real Nazis. (I admit I do sometimes call people fascisti - but it is always in a political context - and I always do mean to compare them to ultra-rightist, violent political groups).