Long Night of Museums 2019: Highlights for non-German speakers

• Stuttgart’s New Castle (Neues Schloss) at Schlossplatz is usually not open to the public. On Lange Nacht der Museen you have the chance to enter the castle and dive into the past: watch dancers on a ball and enjoy beautiful harp music.
• The next highlight awaits you just outside of Neues Schloss: the Rolling Museum. Several beautiful oldtimer cars can be marveled at – and you can even hop in and enjoy a short drive through the city center! However, expect a loooong line.

  

• The Marktplatz in front of the city hall has a “dark” secret: A bunker lies underneath it. After the war, this bunker was even used as a hotel! Can you imagine sleeping underneath the earth, without natural light and windows? The bunker is usually closed to the public so don’t miss the opportunity to visit this strange place at Long Night of Museums!
• Did you know that Stuttgart has a harbor? It is an industrial harbor and usually not the place people visit or hang out. But that changes during Lange Nacht der Museen! Artists will present their work and you can even enjoy a moonlight cruise.
• Fly into space at Planetarium Stuttgart! The new 360-degree-projection will take you into galaxies far, far away – accompanied by beautiful music. Definitely a very special treat.
• If you like historical trams you will be delighted to hear that Strassenbahnmuseum Stuttgart offers tours in their oldtimers all 15 minutes.
• How about visiting an UNESCO World Heritage Site during Long Night of Museums?! Weissenhofsiedlung was planned and constructed as an architectonic exhibition in 1927 and the two Le Corbusier houses became a World Heritage Site in 2016. Find out more about this destination in my former post Why Weissenhofmuseum in Stuttgart is a very special museum.
  
• Many small galleries are participating in Long Night of Museums and this night is a great chance to explore some of them! Mumumumumu-Galerie, Kunst-Design+Wohn-Raum and Gallery Stauch are just three examples of many.

Long Night of Museums 2019: Events for kids

• At Altes Schloss the exhibition for kids is all about the children’s book Räuber Hotzenplotz these days. Kids can get their faces painted like one of the main characters.
• Your kids like graffitis? Then take them to Stadtpalais Stuttgart where they can turn into young graffiti artists themselves!
• At Jugendkunstschule young artists can try various materials like acryl and graffiti.
• Linden-Museum offers quite a range of activities for kids at Long Night of Museums. Young artists can decorate eggs for Eastern and young dancers can learn some moves from Africa.
• At Museum am Löwentor you kids can’t only admire statues of dinosaurs and old fossils, they can also watch a live taxidermy at the head of a Triceratops, create jewelry out of amber and bet on the fastest cockroach at a cockroach race.

Long Night of Museums 2019: Good to know

• Make sure you decide which destinations you want to visit ahead and check how you get there. I recommend selecting only four to five locations, otherwise you’ll be stressed out by the end of the night.
• Tickets are available in advance at many of the participating museums and galleries, at the Tourist Information Stuttgart (i-Punkt) and all ticket booths in Stuttgart and the entire region. But you can always buy your ticket on the 23rd at one of the participating venues. More about where you get ticket here.
• Tickets do not only include the entry to all the participating venues but are also valid as a travel ticket for the entire shuttle transport with buses and (subway) trains that connect the participating establishments on the event evening and are functioning as a VVS integral ticket for the entire VVS network. On March 23th from 12.00 a.m. onwards, the holder is entitled to use all VVS operated public transport (2nd class) until closing hour, within the entire VVS network.
• Find more information about the event and all the participating venues on www.lange-nacht.de

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Transparency: This article contains non-paid advertisements. I point out Long Night of Museums and special venues because I like this event personally very much and think you might like it too. I did not get paid by the organizers to do so.

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It was THE scandal that shook the art world last October. At a regular auction at Sotheby’s something not so regular happened: Right after an artwork created by the anonym street artist Banksy got sold for quite some money, it destroyed itself. Well, nearly destroyed itself I should say: The artist has hidden a shredder in the frame and right after the hammer came down, so did the picture. But only halfway, leaving the top of the painting untouched while the lower half hangs down in pieces under the frame.

What a scandal! And what an installation! The so created new piece of art got a new name right away: Love is in the Bin.

Banksy in Stuttgart – A masterpiece or just a hype?

Banksy has never revealed his true identity. And he is known to be quite skeptical when it comes to the art scene. His newest trick can definitely be seen as a statement against the monetarization of art in general. But it also inspires questions and discussions:

• Why did the picture not get destructed completely? Was it really just a coincidence (a weak battery?) or was the real motive maybe to create a new piece of art in one of the boldest stunts in nowadays art history?
• Is this new artwork a new masterpiece or just an object of a world wide hype?
• Are the eyes of the girl, which are hidden behind the frame, a symbol of the anonym artist?
• Does it need stunts like this to create artworks in our time and to get recognized as an artist?
• When everybody likes to show his or her face on social media today, does it need a counter movement where artists hide their identities like Banksy is doing it?
• …

If you want to see the half-shredded picture by yourself you can do so at Staatsgalerie Stuttgart from now on for at least one year. But you will have to find it first as the museum will change the position of the artwork every eight weeks. The idea behind that: “Love is in the Bin” has to stand up to old masterpieces and the different locations and especially the contrast to the paintings it will hang next to should inspire discussions.

And here comes an insider tip: You can visit Staatsgalerie Stuttgart for free every Wednesday! And kids as well as teens up to 20 years enter the museum for free anyway. Definitely something Banksy would like 🙂

More information

Banksy in Stuttgart at Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Banksy’s post on Instragram about the installation

more about Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Transparency: Unpaid advertisement as I did not get paid by Staatsgalerie (nor Banksy ;-)) to write this post. As a journalist and blogger I was invited to the press conference on March 7. The opinion shared in this post is my own.

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The Stadtpalais is located close to the U-Bahn station Charlottenplatz in a beautiful building that’s also known under the name Wilhelmspalais (because king Wilhelm II used to live here). It is home of the new museum of Stuttgart and well worth a visit (entrance to the permanent exhibition is free of charge!) as you will learn heaps about the history of our city. (->If you want to find out more, visit my post A museum for our city: Stadtpalais Stuttgart.)

When you enter Stadtpalais you will stand in a hall. And when you look up you will see a very extraordinary chandelier.

Fun fact: The chandelier is made of five streetlights, the same you will find all over Stuttgart! They are even attached to the energy circle of the real streetlights and will light up with them! What a fun idea and a great symbol of the museums purpose: bringing the life of the streets of Stuttgart into this new museum!

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The campaign is called “Hitzefrei” – a reference to the fact that school kids in Germany are allowed to go home when it’s getting to hot in summer. When the thermometer climbs up to 25 degrees Celsius (which equals 77 degrees Fahrenheit), the Landesmuseum (State Museum) offers free entry to everybody.

At Landesmuseum Württemberg you can explore the history of Baden-Württemberg, starting at the Stone Age. The museum was established by King William I in 1862 as a “state collection of national antiquities”. The Museum of Decorative Arts was merged into the museum in the 60s, which has been housed in Stuttgart’s old castle since 1969.

More information:

Hitzefrei at Landesmuseum Württemberg

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I haven’t been there for a while but went again last week because my once so dear museum mustn’t miss in a series about my most favourite museums in Stuttgart

On 6200 m² you’ll find many exhibits – in fact, the museums holds over 11 million items! – that illustrate life in primeval times.

Many exhibits show replicas of dinosaurs and simulations of interactions.

But of course, you’ll also see lot’s of big bones:

You can even touch some of them:

One exhibit touched me a lot when I was a kid: A mammoth mum in front of a fossilized baby…

My highlight nowadays: The fossilized water lilies:

The best thing about a visit to the Museum am Löwentor for 6 years old Mel was of course the museums shop where I bought the one and other mini dinosaur for my collection .

The Museum am Löwentor is definitely a highlight for kids who are in their dinosaur phase. But I had a lot of fun as an adult, too. And, what can I say, I rediscovered my love for those big creatures:

Fun Fact: The museum offers a variety of special events – for kids and adults! Moreover, you can book English tours (telephone: 0711 – 89 36 -126) and – of course – they’ve got English audio guides.

More information about:

Museum am Löwentor (only in German)

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