Highlights from Louisiana Museum of Modern Art

I have been wanting to visit this museum ever since I moved to Denmark but was told it is absolutely necessary to visit in conjunction with good weather, as the outdoor aspects are as much a part of the experience as the indoor. Sun has been an elusive character since it disappeared some time after June, so I lucked out last weekend when I happened upon the combination of a toddler-free day and late summer sunshine.

An enjoyable train ride spent reading Murikami's The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (why not go all the way and overload on modern) and I arrived in the town of Humlebæk on the Zealand coast. Contrary to my earlier assumption, the museum's name has nothing to do with the American state or anything Creole for that matter. It is derived from the name of the villa that housed the original museum. Built and named in 1855, its owner was (un)fortunate enough to be married to three women over the course of his lifetime, all named Louise.

The expansion of the museum beyond the original villa has been a work in progress since the museum's opening in 1958. Referred to as "a masterpiece of Danish modernist architecture" it showcases themes that reverberate through Danish culture and society, like human-scale design, creature comfort, texture and bringing nature inside.

Okay, I'm a little obsessed with stairwells...

 The landscape figures just as prominently as the architecture and a large lawn sloping down to the sea is complemented by a secluded Lake Garden and scattered small, quiet spots to sit and contemplate throughout the grounds.

Taking its cue from New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Louisiana's broad definition of modern art includes architecture, film, design, photography, music and other mediums. Originally, the museum opened with the purpose of showcasing Danish modern art, but it expanded relatively quickly to encompass international art and has since drawn artists whose reputation and renown solidifies its position as a well-respected exhibition venue.

The museum's own permanent collection comprises over 3,000 works of art from such artists as Picasso, Giacometti, Warhol, Calder, and Baselitz.

Giacometti sculptures

At the time of my visit, the museum featured a large exhibit called LIVING that took up the majority of the indoor exhibition space. The last in a series Frontiers of Architecture, this installation explores how we live from both an architectural as well as anthropological perspective. 'Case studies' highlight different themes and development within specific communities, while at the same time exposing broad and overarching concepts in how we live, communicate and create. The exhibit also featured an amazing diversity of mediums, from the recreation of physical structures, to photography, to video, to performance art, to electronic art and more.

Who says kids can't enjoy architecture?

Light cells as interactive art

West 57th, Danish-designed addition to the NYC skyline

Me, as a house.

Equally as impressive was the museum's attention to childrens' experience of modern art. The 'children's wing' was not merely an afterthought, but architecturally interesting and integrated with the rest of the museum. The activities were thoughtful and playful, engaging and educational. As with many of my experiences in Denmark, someone really took some time to consider things from a child's perspective.

Child's representation of their 'dream home'

One way to give your kid a 'modern perspective'

Spectacular weather, a thought-provoking exhibit and one of the most beautiful places I have had the pleasure of wandering through in a while. And finaly, if you're as into food as you are art, be sure to stop by the cafe... Well worth it.

Random Nature Shot of the Week

"Time sometimes flies like a bird,
sometimes crawls like a snail;
but a man is happiest when he does not even notice
whether it passes swiftly or slowly."
-Ivan Turgenev

Seriously

A long hiatus. Some major life changes and upheavals. Serious stuff.

So a serious post for serious times.

A few months back I noticed an interesting phenomenon. I'm not sure whether it's genetic, sociological, or just my imagination, but Danes do an awful lot of brow-furrowing. At first, I chalked it up to their coloring - nearly universal blue eyes, more than (the American) average amount of blonde hair, skin so white it could be causing reflective glare. But to be sure, I checked on cloudy days, in the shade, and indoors only to determine that it is a national facial expression somewhat akin to the identical horror/shock face on all the vacuum packed fishes' faces in the refridgerated grocery case.

Trust me, you'd be wearing this expression too.

In all situations, regardless of the weather, amount of natural or artificial light, or nature of the conversation, a distinct line emerged between the eyebrows of almost all Danes at some point during my highly amateur anthropoligical investigation.

As with all good scientific theories, I referred back to my trusty research ally, Google, and also Facebook for this project, for some highly scientific confirmation. [In an effort to preserve anonymity, and of course respect, for my unwitting subjects, the majority of facial elements have been eliminated, save the one in question.]

Here are just a handful of my examples.


Søren Pind, Denmark's Immigration Minister

I said I would remove facial features. I never said anything about names...

Future eader of the free (Danish) world = double furrow

Possible evidence that boxing knocks the furrow on a slant.

The universal wearing of this expression has lead me to some deep thoughts about what exactly it is that Danes are so serious about. They have been called the happiest people in the world. I don't generally tend to equate brow furrowing with happiness. Maybe stress, duress, confusion, disbelief.

Like this guy, who certainly has a lot to be furrowing over these days.

This was not in the job description...

I am feeling a new pie chart coming on. It has been long overdue. It shall be titled, "Things Danes Think About When Furrowing Their Brows" as I am interested in asking and discovering the answer to this question. I am pretty sure none of the responses will be the monumental loss of value of certain personal retirement accounts, the ridiculously exorbitant cost (more akin to extortion) charged by Montessori preschools, or road rage... Just an amateur guess.

So, "Hej igen Danmark." I'm back. It's time to get serious.

The Neighbors Have a Birthday

Springtime in Copenhagen is turning out to be a wonderful time to practice my ever-growing Danish vocabulary on the various crowds I seem to stumble across. Just the other day - May 17th to be exact - I was walking around my friend's neighborhood on Amager (a smaller island suburb of the city that I also happen to live on - think the Staten Island of Copenhagen) and I came across this:

Questions that instantly came to mind:

• Why are all these Norwegians standing around this building where someone is giving a speech and a band is playing oompah music?
• Why are a lot of them dressed up like they just got off of work from Norway's version of Colonial Williamsburg?
• And more importantly, what's with all the beer?!?!

Now to attempt to answer as best an expat can. Thanks to some friendly Norwegians who kindly answered some of my questions (and let me photograph them in their finery), and the always helpful resource that is Wikipedia, I think I may be able to do it some justice.

Let's start with the day itself. Unbeknownst to me, Syttende mai which literally means May 17th, is Norway's national holiday. It's a day that celebrates the signing of their constitution, in which they officially declared their sovereignty from Sweden back in 1814. It has a similar significance to July 4th in the US but with some distinct differences:

• Americans have no national dress and so you will never see a picture like the one on the right, which is a traditional Norwegian women's bunad. More on them later.
• Norway's national holiday has evolved to focus on children, with childrens' parades taking place across the country and abroad. Ours focuses on blowing stuff up.
• It is also an a-political, non-militaristic holiday. Like a pacifist version of July 4th. No fireworks. No elected leaders giving regurgitated propaganda speeches that no one ever pays attention to. In Norway, elected officials, including the prime minister, have no official duties related to this holiday. Instead they give thanks for their monarchy.
• If you are disappointed in a lack of any similarities, rest assured. While nothing explodes on this holiday, many people get fabulously drunk, hence the enormous mountain of beer waiting to be consumed. 

Now for some interesting facts about the building itself. What I inadvertently stumbled across was Copenhagen's Norwegian Church Abroad, or Seaman's Church. It's a really amazing concept - it was founded in 1864 as a religious as well as cultural resource for Norwegians, and other Scandinavians, traveling or living abroad. They're community centers sponsored by the state church and government where homesick Norwegians can go to buy a newspaper, eat some rakfisk (fermented trout) and make some guttural throat sounds. They can be found in obvious places, like New York City, Paris, London and Singapore, but also in some surprising places, like Miami, Pattaya (Thailand) and one apiece on three of the four largest Canary Islands.

And finally, the clothing! They are called bunad, which broadly refers to both rural, historical Norwegian garments as well as modern folk costumes, as I saw on Syttende mai. They have always been used as proper formal attire but are becoming more and more common as celebratory dress, for example at weddings, festivals and other religious holidays. They are often elaborate affairs, with intricate embroidery, matching shawls and handmade silver or gold pins and jewelry. The women's costumes are generally more colorful, with the different patterns indicating a regional affiliation, much the same as a Scottish tartan.

So, from one expat to a whole bunch of others, "Tillykke med fødselsdagen Norge!"

Random (Non)Nature Shot(s) of the Week

Happy Monday

Much Ado About (Almost) Nothing

Just the other day I was walking along Strøget, Copenhagen's pedestrian shopping street, when I came across a large crowd of people. Curious foreigner that I am, I moved in closer to investigate and see what was going on. A large, fancy car, with an even larger escort of vehicles and motorcycles was parked outside the Georg Jensen shop. I noticed the South Korean flag flying from the fancy car and had heard that some dignitaries from there were in town. I was curious though why so many people had gathered. Could one small country's residents be so interested in another small country's semi-famous politicians?

I started asking around to see what people thought was going on (the fancy car being empty of its passengers who were presumably inside the shop browsing at Denmark's most famous purveyors of fine silver). I got some pretty interesting answers. Most people were hanging around with their cameras hoping to catch a glimpse of Queen Margarethe. But as to who she might be with, the jury was out. Here were some possibilities, as told to me by people in the crowd:

• The Prime Minister of Bulgaria
• A princess from Japan (this woman even told me she knew this because the news had reported it)
• And finally, the queen of South Korea

Another commentary on safety - look
how close we are to the Queen's own car!

Somewhat mystified, I asked a police officer who was really inside and he told me it was the visiting First Lady of South Korea. I told him that most people I had asked thought it was the queen of Denmark, to which he explained that it was indeed the queen's car which she had loaned for this shopping trip. I decided not to stick around, as there were about to be some pretty disappointed Danes, and kept walking along.

On my stroll, I thought about all the Danes I'd just encountered who either were unable to identify a South Korean flag or didn't know that modern South Korea is a monarch-less democracy. The other day in Danish class, one of my studiekammerater was giving me crap about Americans thinking Spain is located in South America. I don't know where this perception comes from, other than some Americans who mistakenly (or ignorantly) call Central and South Americans "Spanish" after their language and not their origin. But who knows, maybe he's right.

It is true that young Americans may be particularly geographically illiterate. A 2006 poll sponsored by National Geographic found that 6 in 10 Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 could not locate Iraq on a map of the Middle East despite its regular appearance in news coverage. But are we any worse than Europeans?

 Sadly, yes.

In 2002, a similar study comparing geographic literacy among citizens from nine countries found the US second to last in knowledge, with only Mexico faring worse, and then, only slightly. Swedes came out on top. (Note: Denmark was not part of the study but, given proximity to and competitiveness with Sweden, would have likely beaten the US as well.) The study also found that Americans don't "get off the farm" much. Only 20 percent of Americans had traveled internationally in the previous three years compared to almost 70 percent in countries with the highest geographic literacy.

So I will have to chalk up my experience to not having queried enough crowd members. Perhaps only one in five or seven Danes are that familiar with South Korea. Which is probably higher than the Americans statistic. Or I should follow my Danish friend Per's advice and just stay off Strøget to begin with...

Look Up!

Don't forget to look up sometimes, or you'll miss some interesting, strange, and beautiful sights.

#15: Risky Business

"... if there were any logic to our
language, trust would be 
a four letter word. "

Another new book came out recently about how a lawsuit-happy generation of Americans is breeding a culture of fear and distrust. Needless to say, I won't be running out to a Borders or Barnes & Noble any time soon to pick it up so I'll have to come to my own conclusions as to what this might entail. But I have some ideas. And living in Denmark for these last six months has definitely given me new insight into assessing and taking risks and the cultural impact of our perceptions of risk.

To the average American (okay, me), Danes seem to engage in an awful lot of risky behavior. I'm not sure if I notice this more because I am the mother of a toddler or because things are so shockingly different from the U.S. but I will point out that more than a few non-parental, non-Americans have at times echoed my sentiments.

True exchange between me and my single, childless, Spanish classmate.

So deceptively steep I almost
broke my coccyx

Me: I have to keep my son home today because he fell on the playground today at daycare and has a huge bump on his head and scratched his face up.
Classmate: Danish playgrounds, made of concrete... crazy people.

And that's also true. Many of the playgrounds in Copenhagen, even the newer ones, are built over concrete. A few are built over sand and today I found the first playground with rubbery cushioning underfoot hidden away in a small neighborhood of summer houses.

Which is good, because it also had the world's steepest slide. This "kiddie slide" had the kind of pitch you'd associate with water park rides named "Kamikaze Flume" or "Max Velocity". When not flinging themselves down killer slides, Danish children can also be seen around the city's plentiful playgrounds climbing cargo nets, riding zip lines, getting loads of splinters from all the untreated, natural wood play features, and lots of other things that, in the U.S., we'd categorize as "a lawsuit waiting to happen".

But it's not just the playground antics that have set my mothering "danger radar" abuzz. I come across something nearly every day that would make the average American's heart skip a beat. I'll begin with some hypotheses and try to illustrate with some of these examples.

To start off, here are some of my theories as to why Danes take different risks than Americans:

1. The activity they are engaging in is actually safer in Denmark, either by its method of execution or by a matter of being.
2. They perceive less risk (or correctly assess the level of risk) in engaging in an activity.
3. They have a much higher level of cultural trust in one another to do the "right" thing and therefore have a much different expectation of negative consequences.

There are some examples where the activity itself is actually safer and so Danes behave accordingly due to an understandable lack of fear. For example, it is much more difficult to kill yourself while casually riding a 25-pound bicycle than while driving a 2-ton car. It's even more difficult when, as in Copenhagen, you are given your own lane that's on a separate level in between the sidewalk and the street, your own set of traffic lights and drivers who are always on alert for you.

That said, Danes do some amazingly dangerous (to me) things while cycling. I haven't yet seen a Dane cycling while applying makeup, as I once saw in another car while on my regular American morning commute, but I think I've seen just about everything else. Bikes are also used to transport pretty much everything. Literally. Like a three children, or a houseplant, or a mattress. I also understand that this feeling of perceived (and actual) safety is a contributing factor to the Danish drinking age being set at a shockingly low 16 years old. Interestingly enough, the rates of drunk driving in the U.S. and drunk cycling in Denmark are somewhat similar so take note, all you policy makers. You can't change the drinkers, only their method of transportation.


In addition to the oddly un-American sight of intoxicated cycling, another shockingly fascinating thing to see in Denmark is unaccompanied children. They walk alone down city streets, ride the Metro without a parent in sight, and play in courtyards or on street corners. I was watching an old episode of Sesame Street from 1989 on YouTube the other day and there was a scene with a bunch of grade schoolers playing jacks on the street outside an urban apartment building while a young teen babysitter watched from an upstairs window. I think these days in most American cities that would get you arrested for child neglect.

Actually, that did happen not too long ago to a Danish mother visiting New York City. In Copenhagen, it is nearly ubiquitous to leave your sleeping infant or toddler outside a store or restaurant while you are inside. NYC authorities were upset because the child was left unattended for over an hour. Here in Copenhagen I think most Danes would be upset that a perfectly good nap was ruined. Many Danish parents put a small baby monitor inside their strollers, in case the child starts to cry or wake up, but most of my Copenhagen mom friends would be more worried about their iPhones getting stolen from their diaper bag than their children from their strollers.

Two factors contribute to this behavior - first, it is statistically safer in Denmark and second, you can generally rely on your fellow Danes to do the right thing (i.e. not take your child). Denmark does have a relatively low rate of kidnapping and abduction. The U.S. has a much higher rate of missing children but then it depends on how you interpret "missing" and in turn read the statistics, which tend to skew our view towards a more hostile, dangerous world than it may actually be. Though most Americans have been conditioned and admonished by shows like America's Most Wanted and Inside Edition to guard their children vigilantly, the majority of "kidnappings" are actually family abductions. So you'd be safer trusting Junior to the folks on the street than your mother-in-law... at least statistically.

Still, there are some situations and behaviors that defy all three of my theories and so must be categorized as:

     4. They are f-ing crazy!!

Shocking - literally!

My American friend has what I have dubbed an "elevator of death". It's this ancient contraption that has more in common with a dumbwaiter than an elevator. It only holds three people, though really only two can comfortably fit. So what makes it so "deathly"? First, there are the massive doors - a metal exterior one and a double, tightly strung interior door that are like the jaws of a Venus fly trap. Second, you can open the double interior doors at any point during your upward or downward travel and stop the elevator. Theoretically, a good move, except that it can stop mid-floor, leaving a huge gaping hole for a small child or dog to leap from. And I saved the best for last. There's an exposed metal plate that is the "sensor" for when the elevator has reached a floor. If you happen to accidentally touch that plate (or do it on purpose just to see what happens), you'll be shocked with a cattle prod's worth of electricity for your trouble!

 Here are a couple more of Copenhagen's finest risky scenarios.

Front-facing child car seat in front
passenger seat of SUV

Woodworking tools for kids
at the local Nature Center

Spring, Danish Style