Pathways to Modernity

There is a new temporary exhibition going on at the moment at the Louvre Abu Dhabi, called 'Impressionism - Pathways to Modernity'. I have already delivered quite a few tours in this international exhibition, and I have really enjoyed every single one. It's a beautifully curated exhibition, which explores the many ways Impressionism came to be in the second half on the 19th century.

This exhibition shows around 150 artworks from about 40 different artists. Most of the loans comes from the collections of Musée d'Orsay, many, many masterpieces. No other exhibition abroad has involved this many paintings from its collection.
It starts with a dialogue between a Monet and a Manet:

The exhibition is unique in the way that it is multidisciplinary. It is a mix of paintings, etchings, photographs, movies, drawings - and even fashion.

One of my favourites, a Renoir - The English Pear Tree, 1873.

This painting by Claude Monet, The Magpie, is my absolute favourite one of this exhibition. I guess this snowscape reminds me of home somehow, that muffled, quiet and still feeling after a heavy snowfall. And that light..! Love!

For the next part of the exhibition, the scenography is absolutely spot on. I think they've illustrated this part of the story really well. The red wall shows how the Salon could have looked like at the time, and just next to that the white wall shows how the first impressionist exhibition would have looked like in 1874. The info panel on the wall says "The SHOCK", ha ha!

Masterpieces, masterpieces, here the Floor Scrapers by Caillebotte.

There are a lot of paintings by Monet in the exhibition. This Gare St Lazare has already been showed once here at Louvre Abu Dhabi, when the museum opened back in 2017.

I like the story about this Degas, The Absinthe, although I can not really present it to all types of audiences, for obvious reasons.

Another Monet, called The Ice Floats. It has fantastic reflections, and can you see the poplars? At a quick glance, it almost looks like a skyline!

This one is a premiere - this is the latest acquisition by the Louvre Abu Dhabi! This 1878 Renoir, was hidden away in a private collection for most of the 20th century, but now it will be a part of the permanent collections here in Abu Dhabi!

The second to last part of the exhibition talks about the many reasons that Impressionism came to an end; age, politics, geographical separation and maybe above all artistic differences. Here there started to be a divergence in the artistic claims of the different artists, for example Cézanne began to pursue other paths and very much became the father of Modernism as we known it.

A late Monet, from the period when he was suffering the most from his cataract, hence the explosion of brushstrokes and colours. This is not an abstraction, it is a Weeping Willow, painted in a mix between open-air and studio practice.

Finally some photos from the tour I gave to the SwedishLadies group today. I always enjoy giving tours in Swedish, as it's not that often.

The last part of the exhibition is a contemporary piece by a French artists called Ange Leccia. It's a video installation which is a tribute to the Water Lilies paintings by Claude Monet. It's a powerful and immersive experience, quite different to the rest of the exhibition. A rather lovely ending to the tour.

Pinktober

Last Monday I organised a special Afternoon Tea.

I had seen that the Westin did a pink-themed Afternoon Tea for Pinktober, and I really wanted to go so I asked Linda to join me. Their spread is always very delicious, super pretty - and good value for money!

We decided to turn it into a SwedishLadies event, to maybe get a few more girls to join us - and in the end, we were 16 people! Dress code pink, of course!

So yummy, and such a lovely afternoon!

Party party!

Linnea wanted to have a bit of a celebration at home for her birthday, so she got to invite 15 friends to come over for a scary movie night. Nathan and I hid away in our bedroom upstairs and let the girls take over the living room. We set up enough space for everyone to lounge around by rearranging the furniture a bit, and adding the spare mattress and Lucas' bean bags.

Linda's Danish friend Laura who returned to Denmark for school this year (Efterskole), was home in Abu Dhabi on holidays. So it suited really well to have the party on the actual birthday as Laura could take part; which meant a lot to Linnea.

The girls watched scary movies and had pizza, sweets and snacks; and when the movies got a bit too scary, they partied on with some karaoke and dancing.

We had organised donuts for "cake", yum yum!

Linnea was very happy with her birthday, her celebrations and her gifts. Her friends spoiled her rotten, with both gifts, cash and mall gift cards. She went to bed a happy chappy!

Seventeen!

I don't know where time goes, but it seems like another year has passed already, and Linnea has had another birthday - SEVENTEEN! Crazy crazy!

Even though Nathan was going to work rather early (and we were on a weeks holiday from school) she wanted to get woken up as per usual in the morning, with presents and balloons in bed. I guess knowing she'd have to celebrate her special day without her brother for the first time, it was even more important to start it as we always do.

Happy face for every present she opened!

She had prepared us quite an extensive and detailed birthday gift wish list, so it hadn't been too hard to find the right things. She got books, a new bag for school, sweat pants, underwear, earrings, her favourite T2 tea, a tea infuser and a tea maker pot.

And, she also got a new phone!
Although, as we were trading her old one in for the new one, we couldn't buy the new one without her - so she just got a drawing of it in the morning..!

Nathan went off to work, but Linnea and I had pancakes for breakfast, also as per usual!

And after breakfast we went straight to the mall to go to the Apple shop.

We had a little bit of fika, before we went home to set up the new phone, and get on with the birthday preparations. Second breakfast at Pauls café, always a hit!

Apart from work...

Yes there have been a lot of work in October, both for me and Nathan - and Linnea, who keeps impressing us with the way she keeps dedicating herself to her school work. But this means there has been a lot of work, and not a lot of play, for any of us.

I invited Linda for Thai on her birthday, still too hot to sit outside but we enjoyed a few hours of celebration together inside by this gorgeous view.

Our friends the McGeeHees came down from Dubai last weekend and we shared a meal at the Mexican restaurant down in Yas Bay after they had been to Disney on Ice on Friday. The following day Linnea joined them in visiting Warner Bros Park, and had fun taking on all the rides with Aiden and Wyatt.

I played padel in the morning (yes outside!), for the first time yesterday, and even though it was hot, it was manageable. So now it's time to get rolling with our weekly Americano-tournaments again! I've been looking forward to that!

The weather has finally changed this past week, now I can have the door open to the garden most of the day without melting away. We are entering into the perfect season! Yay!

Busy busy busy

It has been a busy few weeks at the museum. I have been doing all sorts, from giving tours to celebrities and VIPs to school classes, from delivering tours in English and in French, to training for the new exhibition. One evening I took part in a special after-hours event, the glittery top and the high heels had to come out!

A few of the latest MOOTDs (Museum Outfit Of The Day, ha ha!), trying to bring some colour sometimes!

I also gave the very first tour in the new temporary exhibition that was inaugurated this week. I was there all day for the Members Preview Day on Tuesday, to give tours to the members.

This is an absolutely fabulous exhibition, and a first in many ways. It's the first time Impressionism is brought to the Middle East at this scale, and it's the largest amount of Impressionist paintings ever to leave France for an international exhibition. We are showing over 150 artwork in collaboration with Musée d'Orsay, many, many fantastic masterpieces that are so exciting to present!

Terminale, Kathleen and I supported each other throughout the day, as we were all giving our first tours. They came and shadowed my tour, Termy and I followed Kathleens, and Kathleen and I helped Termy with her time management through her first tour.

It was really nice to see the exhibition "come to life" with the visitors pouring in, and it was lovely above all to see how they interacted with the art. If we are going by the comments at this event, this will be our most popular exhibition for sure.
I was so proud of myself for rocking my tours. I don't think I have ever got that much good feedback and that many positive comments by so many participants in the same way before.

Considering how much we have been training for this exhibition, and after all the studying we have done (during what feels like day and night lately), it was also so much fun finally getting to present the exhibition. I so enjoyed telling the story of Impressionism, which sure is an exciting one, one of rebellion and courage.

The "Charlies Angels", Termy, Kathleen and I, were also in charge of the mediation at the VIP Opening Evening. We donned the heels and dressed up once again, and did the team proud mediating for all the fancy guests. Yay us!

The eternal struggle

I am so off-a-roll with my well-being it's not even funny. So off, it's taken me weeks to even write this post about it...

I lost my exercise mojo somewhere around Christmas last year, and I never found it again. I was in such a good routine after the Covid lockdown, I had lost weight yes (two years ago I weighed about 12 kgs less than today...) but above all - I was moving my body every day. It was like brushing my teeth, I just did it, it was one of my daily habits.

Now, every day looks a bit like this:

I get dressed for sports, I do everything else in the house, and some; or even sometimes go back to bed. If I make it into the guest room (which have now reverted to a guest room again, with exercise equipment in it), I often end up lying on the bed next to my treadmill, scrolling "just a little bit more" on the phone, just thinking about getting on it... aaarrrghhh...

And I hate it! I hate this eternal struggle, cause that's what it feels like - endless! I struggle with my lazy brain who always wants to take the easy way out, and just go and have another cup of coffee instead, I struggle with the disappointment in myself, for being such a quitter - and of course, I struggle with the way I look and feel, and that my clothes don't fit.

I guess some of it is the hormones of my age, realized the other day something was going on when I started crying at a time-lapse of a flowering sun flower on Instagram (well was really beautiful!), but most of it is in my head.
Once I get going, I love the feeling of moving my body - but the hard part right now is actually just starting.
The struggle is real.

1 October 2022 Covid status

So apart from the big media briefing last Monday with the happy news that mask restrictions are no more, there was also another change done earlier in the month,  removing the requirement for the kids to have a green Al Hosn to attend school. In practice, this means that entering school in the morning is a bit of a quicker process finally. But it also means that the PCR-tests are not free for school children anymore; and they still need take them, at least if they want to enter anywhere else than school...

It was also announced in the briefing that the government will no longer publish the daily number of Covid cases, so maybe this is my last monthly report, even if we are not 100% back to normal just yet.

I am so so glad that I have been writing so much about this whole Coronapocalypse throughout these 2,5 years, as some of it already seems so long ago, and like it was all just a bad dream. I'm really hoping we are only going forward from now on.

Here are today's numbers (which you can go find still on the NCEMA website):
* 431 new cases from 170,741 tests
* No deaths. Total death toll 2345.