This post is a continuation of Friday’s, which began to recap my travels of the past month.

Tuesday, 06 July. Dresden.
Near the Elbe is a museum called the Albertinum. It’s part of the Staatsliche Kunstammlungen Dresden (Dresden State Art Collections; Kunst = art). The museum was badly flooded in 2002, but rebuilt; it’s quite nice (if sort of expensive). There was supposed to be an audio guide that came with the ticket, which would’ve made it less so, but although they advertise it in English, it’s only currently available in German. For the most part, it’s a modern art museum, although they go back into the early 1900s. To be fair, I like modern art.

The lower floor has a sculpture museum, including this cool piece by Birgit Dieker, “Captor of Souls,” a ball made up of life saver rings (as in, the kind you use on a boat) and mooring roaps, reminding me of that Japanese video game where the objective is to roll everything in the world into a big ball, Katamari Damacy (you can see her piece here). Upstairs there were these amazing giant sculptures of the kind I really like, “Giants” (2007), by Martin Honert — literally giant human-like figures, quite realistic. (Reminds me of Ron Mueck) Two men, dressed in normal clothing, but towering a good meter or two above me. There were also a few really cool Otto Dix pieces, on the floor above, including “War” and the super-cool “Family Portrait (The Family of Dr. Fritz Glaser, Lawyer” (1925). Also some paintings by Paul Klee, some cool upside-down portraits by George Baselitz, and this piece, “9 Upright Standing Panes (879-3)” by Gerhard Richter which did surprisingly intriguing things with repeating reflections in glass.

After, I sat outside by the Elbe for a bit. Windy and actually vaguely cool. It had been raining all morning, but stopped to be nice to me.