A weird museum because it's very old fashioned - lots of dead looking things in glass cases and somehow not that much information about them. It's like someone had an idea for a museum but didn't quite follow through with it - yet. Maybe it will last and be transformed in time. The building is an old exhibition hall and is very charming in it's heavy iron and glass.
The toy theatres were interesting, partly cos I've been reading about them so had a clear context. This one was interesting because of the false perspective. Also the depth is probably about as ridiculous as real theatres got.
It also looked like it had been played with a lot, so it had a kind of memory imbedded in it. The warp of the cardboard or the chipping of paint on the figures are surely as engaging as the printed perspective of trees.
And here is an interesting one - it is lit very badly in the museum so it's hard to get a good impression of it, the reflection is the museum building itself which seems quite apt. It was very elaborate and heavy heavy heavy made from wood. It seemed very dead as an object, like the fantasy had been squashed out of it.
And this is one of the figures inside. So heavy. So dead.
Atmosphere is a concept I've been thinking and talking a lot about recently. I was speaking with Moko yesterday and he said, 'why isn't atmosphere in the theatre dictionary?' and I turned around and saw him with his head in a book book of theatre concepts.
I don't know why.
Isn't that the most important bit?
There were a few interesting toys too. Again, the mechanics of it were engaging.
This one is from a box called L'Ombre Chenoise, reminding me that the europeans stole the idea of shadow puppets from the Chinese.
I saw some brand new shadow puppets in a coolie coolie design store in Luxembourg. They were of Robots and another of a woodland forest. Have they come back into fashion?
This is a Chinese toy garden, as you would imagine the craftmanship is extraordinary and it had that beautiful compositional complexity of an oriental garden that does not reveal itself from one perspective. It's almost the complete opposite of the Opera House in that sense. Hmmmmm.
