Thursday, February 08, 2018

GORCUMS MUSUEM: Glass 4 Ever


A benefit of buying the annual Museum Card here in the Netherlands is getting to pop into museums anywhere almost any time we want...including our museum where we live here in Gorinchem.

What I love most about our museum is what they call it:  Gorcums Museum.  In other words:  Gorinchem's Museum.  And now you know how to pronounce it, except with an 'h' sound for the 'g' (HOR-cums).  Easy-peasy, right?

So, right now we're in the middle of a 5-month exhibition on glass called Glass 4 Ever.  And as we have done a couple times before, we invited Margreeth to join us...as well as her daughter, Natascha (a co-worker of Astrid's).

We begin in the lobby of the old city hall on our main square.
This is the appetizer, which everyone can get for free...before going upstairs into the exhibit.

Would this be enough to whet your appetite for more?
I hope so.

Glass is a wonderful, useful material, like window glass, drinking glass or vase.  But there is another application:  art.  In the Glass 4 Ever exhibition, the Gorcums Museum shows what glass looks like when it has no other use than as the creativity of the maker.  With the work of 30 predominantly Dutch artists, the Gorcums Museum shows...how versatile the material can be glass:  
fragile or strong, transparent or opaque, flat or baroque.


Once you're upstairs, you're immediately presented with a few objects in the lobby.

But the real show begins as you enter the adjoining rooms.
Look and be amazed.

You can get a feel for what amazed ME.
All glass!

Wouldn't you love to read a book about women who only wear red gloves and red stockings?!

Did Darth Vader have children????
A Mickey Mouse Darth Vader?

Notice how the erotica and macabre themes are mixed in with the fun and games....

....the elegance....

...the opulence.

Then there's the "disturbing" Facebook addiction.  YUP.

Look at Astrid's fabulous take on it for our Shutterchance blog.
(Did you find her signature??)

Or what about the...???...from here to there...addiction pathway?

In case you look away too quickly from addiction, you can enjoy the seaweed?
Who thinks up these things!

Let your imagination soar, right?

 If you can imagine it, you can make it.

Why not.

But would you want to dust it?

Just laugh and drink a toast to it.

Which is what we all did!
Well, what we then did is go outside and eat an ice cream, thanks to Margreeth.


In case you want to see it all again but with Dutch subtitles.  HA!
And the things I missed in my own show, of course!
(The exhibitions always start out with an overview in the Grote Kerk on the square.)


10 comments:

  1. I think we can be very proud of our own 'Gorcums Museum'. They always have something special and this 'Glass4ever' was an amazing exhibition about glass in general. The creativity, the visual, the everything about it. And of course in good company too that made it into a well spend Saturday afternoon again. Your pictures are so good, a joy to see the exhibition all over again. IHVJ.

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    1. We are so lucky to have such things at our fingertips, Astrid, just a 5-min. walk away. And to have friends with whom this is becoming a "tradition" makes it just that much more special. Bedankt.

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  2. Wow. Loved it! That lion! So much to take it. I’d have to go back more than once I suspect!

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    1. Actually, Marie, I thought it was a lion, too, but it's a dog...well, a lion-dog, and is all about enlightenment. Interesting. But yes, it's definitely something we could go back to check out again!

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  3. One medium and thousands of interpretations. How phenomenal!

    I love that the two of you get passes so you have incentive to get to these!

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    1. YES to both comments, Ruth. And to think this is only a couple blocks away from us!

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  4. wow!!! i really love glass work toooo, remember that shop you went into with all the beautiful glass stuff for sale?? i would have loved to have a spree in there....

    here i think, sorry lol, that my fave is the facebook addiction lol and the curly cue spirally thing after it... i would LOVE to have that for a lamp!

    thanks for the fun tour!!

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    Replies
    1. Glass is so amazing, when you think about it. Who knew you could be so creative with it! Thanks for coming along for the ride....

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  5. Oh, wow, wow, wow! How wonderful to have so much inspiration in your very own "home town" museum!

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    1. I know, Robin. I often think of how lucky we are to be living in this citadel city, right dead in the center of it all!

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