{"id":24715,"date":"2016-10-20T18:38:11","date_gmt":"2016-10-20T17:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/?p=24715"},"modified":"2021-03-09T15:40:59","modified_gmt":"2021-03-09T15:40:59","slug":"light-and-dark-in-aros-aarhus-denmark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/light-and-dark-in-aros-aarhus-denmark\/","title":{"rendered":"Light and Dark in ARoS, Aarhus, Denmark"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zagan the motorhome’s still alongside mothballed yachts, facing the Baltic Sea at Marselisborg Havn, a few km from the centre of Aarhus in Denmark (N56.13956, E10.21995<\/a>). For reasons unknown (thanks to the gods), the leftover credit on the electricity supply here is failing to countdown, so we’ve freebie leccy. Also, the sun has opted to shine today, gleaming through the windows of the ARoS Kunstmuseum (art gallery) where we’ve spent a few fascinating hours. We’ve used the city’s free bikes (pop a 20 DKK coin into the bike, ride away, no cards, get coin back at end, perfect) to ride the couple of km to the edge of the city and back, and are now dead keen to get the bike rack back onto Zagan and a couple of old bikes plonked on it.<\/p>\n

\"Motorhome

Motorhome Aire in the Marina at Marselisborg Havn, Aarhus<\/p><\/div>\n

There are myriad ways to look at a thing. Anyone telling me that such and such is, for certain, a bad thing, or a good thing, probably hasn’t looked closely enough at it. Or they’ve an agenda they want to push, and getting me to agree is important to them. Either way, the closer I look at anything, the more complex it becomes, the less simple, the less obvious, the less straightforward. Life would be far simpler without having made this realisation, but hey ho, there you go.<\/p>\n

\"An

An exhibit we got to see today. Look closely. It’s made up of plastic knives, forks and spoons<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Another

Another look at the same thing<\/p><\/div>\n

Take the UK for example. Nick Danziger wrote about it in Danziger’s Britain<\/a>, and chose to look for the absolute worst in the place. Same for Italy in the Dark Heart of Italy,<\/a> and for Scandinavia in The Almost Nearly Perfect People<\/a>. I can’t disagree that you could<\/em> look at the world in this way, seeking out the grimier and more depressing elements to it, because the world’s not simple, nor is anything. But that said, I’ve made a conscious choice, some years ago, as did Ju, that we’d not look at the world in that way. We’d be aware of it, but we’d look for the good, the colour and the light. Right or wrong, we’ve opted to turn our gaze from the darkness, and we both hope this blog reflects our chosen outlook on life: we look to the good.<\/p>\n

Where’s this all come from anyway? Well, partly recent musings on the meaning of life as this tour comes to an end (is there such a thing as ‘a tour’ and ‘an end’ for us any more?), and partly the modern art gallery we’ve been to today – the ARoS – which did an incredible job at throwing the dark and light into wonderfully sharp contrast. Even the building itself is intended to mirror the journey from hell to heaven described in Dante’s 700 year old Divine Comedy. The ground floor’s pitch dark in places, with exhibits deliberately poorly lit you can’t get your bearings, while the top floor is like walking the warm curves of a radiant rainbow. In this way the building’s pure white steps lift you up from hell to heaven.<\/p>\n

\"Darkness

Darkness in Hell, Ground Floor<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Brilliance

Brilliance in Heaven, Your Rainbow Panorama, Top Floor<\/p><\/div>\n

But hey, enough of the heavy. The gallery was an unknown to us before we went. In three years of solid wandering, we’ve not hit too many art galleries as we’ve not been naturally drawn to them. The ARoS sounded interesting though, and we needed a change of scene, so in we went. Did we enjoy it? Hell yes. I recall reading something before we went to the Uffizi in Florence<\/a> (one of the few other galleries we’ve been to): you don’t have to like everything in there: even if only one of the thousands of pieces reaches out and touches you, has a deep meaning for you, then the place has worked. This bit of realistic advice worked well for us today, as we experienced a wide range of reactions to what we saw, from nothing to joy to intrigue to shock to wonder.<\/p>\n

\"Ju's

Ju’s favourite exhibit was ‘Boy’. All 500kg of him looked alive, brooding and, unsurprisingly, imposing!<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Boy's

Boy’s Feet – incredibly real<\/p><\/div>\n

My favourite was The Bride, a huge chandelier which hangs low from the ceiling. The best part of it for me wasn’t the thing itself, but watching people’s reactions to it as they walked in, especially the men.<\/p>\n

\"The

The Bride<\/p><\/div>\n

You see, the whole thing was made of tampons. Even here in Scandinavia, where folks are even more guarded in their reactions than us Brits, emotions quickly played out on faces when the realisation was made. Ladies would smile, while men would either pretend to be above it all (me), or let our nervous laughter. Some folks just spun round and walked straight out.<\/p>\n

\"The

The Bride – close up<\/p><\/div>\n

As I’m writing this post, I’m giving myself a second favourite too (wahahahahhaha, evil laughter). Surroundings by Olafur Eliasson (the same chap who designed the glass roof walkway) was a clever walk-in device using the old favourite of mirrors facing each other to give the illusion of infinity. It worked magnificently, invoking more disorientation than a four pack of Lidl Strong Lager.<\/p>\n

\"Surroundings\"

Surroundings<\/p><\/div>\n