Hallein

So. I am here.

Hallein is a small medieval town on the Salzach river. It reminds me a lot of Tallinn in its medievalness!

I'm glad I took these photos when I first arrived and the sun was shining as it is now raining and is apparently going to rain for a month!

The Hallein campus of the Salzburg Summer Academy is in an old salt store on an island in the middle of the river. Salzburg means salt castle and they mined a lot of salt around here. Hallein actually comes from the Celtic word hall for salt - Hallein has a Celtic history (at least according to wikipedia)

The Barmstein mountains that preside over Hallein

I am staying in the student accommodation about 5 mins walk from the academy. It is very simple but clean and comfortable and I am in a four bed dorm by myself with my own bathroom and fast internet. There is a shared kitchen and laundry.

 I don't know if this kind of stuff is interesting or not! But here's the view from my window...

Nice, huh? Shame about the telegraph wire but it's easy to ignore.

And check this out!

It's a sign!
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NotFair

Well, if I was in Melbourne this weekend, I'd be going to NotFair

Lauren Cross from Artnews

Billed as an event that merges the “curatorial notion of a major biennale with the commercial potential of an art fair”, NotFair’s title and raison d'être is more an assertion about its participants’ experience of the commercial art world than a stab at Melbourne’s major commercial art exposition. Featuring 32 of Australia’s most undervalued or underrepresented artists, the not-for-profit event aims to eschew the high commissions and outlays of the commercial art model and the gallery focus of the Melbourne Art Fair to, in essence, bring the artists directly to an audience. 
from Broadsheet Melbourne

Akira Akira, Spillberg (Black) No. 1 from Broadsheet

Not that I've got anything against the Art Fair. I'd probably be going to that too
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More Munich

I went to Galerie Isabella Hund which is a sleek jewellery shop/gallery in the city centre...

The work was contemporary but traditional in style. Isabella Hund is a jeweller and she also represents other artists. I was amazed to see that some of the large rings had the prices written directly onto the work in washable texta! There was quite a lot of large geometric style jewellery and not much of the more organic cast forms that seem to predominate in Australian jewellery galleries. I wonder if this is a question of identity or isolation. Or just the style of that particular gallery.

I stumbled across another jewellery gallery called Schmuckgalerie tal 20.

It is owned by Elke Sunder Plaßmann and Petra Waibel-Grotjans. It's a really lovely space and their workshop is at the back of the room which can be blocked off by sliding blinds.

Elke in the gallery

They exhibit other jewellers' work as well as their own.

I also went back to Henriette Schuster's gallery workshop but she was closed.

Closed too were Galerie Spektrum and Galerie Biro  but across the rod from Biro is a beautiful garden cemetery.

And there were many people enjoying the beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon picnicing and sunbathing amongst the deceased. You have to admit there couldn't be any place more peaceful than that.

On the way I came across an odd memorial to Michael Jackson...

There must be some reason why Michael is associated with this statue. There seemed to be attendants who were keeping the offerings clean, the candles lit and the flowers watered.

One more thing... On the recommendation of my honorary jeweller friend Ute, I went to Lodenfrey (fashion since 1842!) to shop for traditional Bavarian clothing.

check out those racks of leder-hosen!

and dirndls. 

I would have loved to have bought one of their winter coats but 1000 Euro is just too far out of my budget! Thanks for the tip Ute.

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Gallery Wittenbrink

I found Gallerie Wittenbrink through the Klimt02 website. I didn't know very much about it as not much is mentioned on Klimt but the gallery has a long list of jewellery artists on their website so I went for a look. It turns out that the address I found for the gallery (which is in a really pretty part of Munich just south of the city center) is their painting gallery which is closed for the summer. Luckily for me the gallery attendant happened to be there and when I said I was actually wanting to see jewellery he said, "this is your lucky day"! It turns out that this gallery attendant is the jewellery curator of Wittenbrink, Christian Hoedl who is also a jeweller and graduate of the Munich Academy. And he told me they have a second smaller gallery in a large and prestigious shopping arcade in the centre of town. And he would be there after 3pm and would love to show me around.

In the main space, which you see in the photo, there was an exhibition of paintings by Peter Thol, I really liked the paintings and I would like to tell you more about him but the catalogue Christian gave me is in German... So I can't.

Around the corner there is a window gallery where they permanently show jewellery - they also have jewellery exhibitions in the main space.

At the moment there is an exhibition by Tabea Reulecke who I have posted about before. (interestingly, that first link is to the Pieces of Eight website but it was the best link to her work that I could find!)

I love that the works are figurative and they incorporate movement. The horse hinges at the back legs and I imagine that, as it is worn, it appears to clop along with the wearer. 

This piece is called housekeeper. And Christian liked the idea of wearing it while posing in front of the gallery. Him being the housekeeper of the gallery and all! Thank you Christian for being so generous with your time and showing me the jewellery from the stock room.

The window gallery looks out onto this beautiful garden...

I like that.

I'm sorry about my photos. They appear to me to be underexposed and my dodgy neck means my right arm is a bit shaky so they're not the best
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When in Germany...

...Buy German!

2 pairs for 50 Euro (where do I find the symbol for Euro like $ for dollar? anyone?)

That's about $70
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