The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful

Good weather, that's the Good, and it seems to want to go on forever. Of course it won't, but although it is getting cooler, it doesn't feel like summer ever stopped and I just wonder why the shadows are so long and it is getting dark so early in the day. I love that riding my bike around town is still so enjoyable.

The Bad was the destination of today's ride - the dentist's. My old implant is not making me happy and I knew I had to have it looked at before we leave for our trip to Spain next week. I have to admit I waited until almost the last minute. My dentist is good, the cleaning up of the infected area was not really painful, but the news was the bad part. Due to peri-implantitis (degeneration of the bone surrounding the implant), I have to have the implant removed and replaced. Something to look forward to when we get back from our trip.

Relieved to have my dentist appointment over with, I wanted to find some outdoor art for the monthy challenge on Cycle365. That will be the Beautiful part. Possibly, as the saying goes, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and not all the public art I visited will be considered beautiful by everyone. I think the common denominator could be "interesting".

First I stopped at Promenadenplatz for a photo of the statue of Maximilian Joseph Graf von Montgelas. Count Montgelas, 1759 - 1838, is considered an important figure in the history of Bavaria. One achievement of his enlightened politics was the introduction of compulsory education.

The sculpture was created in 2005 by Karin Sander. She digitally scanned historical images for the computer-milled figure made of aluminum.

Next to Count Montgelas is a statue of Orlando di Lasso, an important composer of the Renaissance, and at its foot is a memorial for Michael Jackson. They had little in common, but the hotel across the street, Hotel Bayrischer Hof, is where Michael Jackson stayed when he was in Munich. Even today, nine years since his death, Jackson's fans continue to place flowers, pictures and letters here and light candles in his memory.

Orlando di Lasso and Michael Jackson

Memorial to Michael Jackson

Fresh flowers

I continued my bike ride in the direction of home and without making any detours came to Königsplatz and Munich's museum district or Kunstareal. Here are 16 museums, exhibition halls, and about 40 art galleries. The art isn't all indoors and in the "sculpture park" I had a good choice of subjects for my bicycle and public art pictures.

This sculpture in front of the Museum of Egytian Art is a 3.8 meter tall aluminum figure installed as part of the sculpture park of the Pinakothek in 2011. A red rod extends through the earth and into the subterranean exhibit rooms below. It connects present and past, "all art is contemporary".

Present Continuous, created by the Dutch artist Henk Visch.

The next two sculptures are close together, Buscando la Luz by Eduardo Chillida and Futuro House by Matti Suuronen. Buscando la Luz or Searching for the Light seemed an appropriate title for the sculpture as the last rays of the afternoon sun lit up its contours.

In the late afternoon sun - "Buscando la Luz" by Eduardo Chillida

Buscando la Luz, with the Pinakothek der Moderne to the left and the Alte Pinakothek in the background

Now on to the Futuro House, a round, prefabricated structure designed by Matti Suuronen, of which fewer than 100 were built during the late 1960s and early 1970s. It looks like an Ufo with its airplane hatch entrance and is composed of fiberglass-reinforced polyester plastic, polyester-polyurethane, and poly(methylmethacrylate), measuring 4 metres (13 feet) high and 8 metres (26 feet) in diameter.

The Futuro house by Matti Suuronen, a product of post-war Finland

Part of Munich's Kunstareal

And finally a selfie reflection in the window of the Türkentor: me + bike + Futuro House + Buscando la Luz + Pinakothek der Moderne + Alte Pinakothek