Illuminated CCC logo in front of the bcc @ 26C3

When we arrived there it was freezing cold and there was already a lengthy queue (around 60 m) in front of the ticket office. About 45 minutes later we finally got our tickets and headed over to the so-called Kunstbau, which is located in the underground next to the subway station “Königsplatz”.

What I saw there was worth every minute of waiting in the cold, although it is hard to put it into words: I had already known a couple of paintings by Kandinsky before, such as his famous paintings Composition VIII or Yellow Red Blue, but seeing his paintings in real was totally overwhelming – so colorful and emotional; each one expressing an unique mood of an intensity I have not experienced before for an art drawing. One work where this is IMHO especially prevalent is his painting titled “Overcast”: Created during World War I it probably conveys the mood of that time much better to the viewer than any history book I have ever read. Fortunately, most of Kandinsky’s paintings are not as dark as this one, but have a much more brighter setting. Another interesting aspect of his paintings was explained to me by somebody having synæsthesia: According to his explanation many of Kandinsky’s pictures feature typical synæsthetic perceptions of sound or emotions and are consequently not limited to visual representations alone.

Unfortunately, a textual description falls short of providing a real impression of Kandinsky’s works. So, if you have a chance to visit the exhibition, I’d highly recommend to do so while it is still open in Munich (until Feb/22/2009).

His paintings are still under copyright (to expire only by 2014), so I cannot use any of them into this post. Fortunately there is a web site from Russia that does not seem to care .