[🏔️ yodel ⛰️] Day 5: Lucerne ➵ Interlaken
Hallo from Interlaken!
This newsletter comes from my hotel's cozy lounge, written casually while I wait for my laundry to be done. I'm thankful that there's a self-service laundrette here, even though it does cost a total of CHF 11 to wash and dry a load. The air is cold and somewhat rainy here, so it takes an abnormal amount of time (as compared to Singapore) to dry things naturally. We kind of miscalculated the time needed to wash and dry our clothes and now we'll have to leave our laundry in the dryer overnight, because the laundry room closes at 10pm.
Again, coming from Singapore where 24-hour services are normal and expected, not having constant access to laundry, convenience stores, banks, or even supermarkets takes some getting used to.
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Today was a day spent doing mostly nothing. As someone whose mind is always racing a thousand miles a minute, who is always preoccupied with doing shit... today was kind of tough. I am the kind of person who felt proud if I accomplished a million things on a vacation day — did all the things, visited all the places, ate all the food — and ran myself ragged. A vacation was something where I had to continue to be productive, it was never an excuse to just relax and be still. I had to check off everything I put pain-staking effort into planning, or face a 'failed trip'.
So I had a minor bout of anxiety, worried that not doing anything would disappoint my partner. (Spoiler: He couldn't care less if we just sat in a cafe the whole day.) We ended up having a very leisurely morning at the hotel, before visiting an art exhibition, chilling at a cafe for a couple of hours, and now we're spending time with each other in the lounge.
Well... I'm spending time with all of you for the time being.
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The art exhibition we went to was David Hockney's Moving Focus. I had immensely enjoyed the huge Hockney retrospective at the Seoul Museum of Art, back in 2019, so it was really interesting to see how Lucerne's Kunstmuseum presented Hockney.
Moving Focus is a lot more serious as a retrospective. Hockney's works are presented through large overarching time periods and themes, and the write-ups are thoughtful. Taking up a quarter of the entire floor, the exhibition had a number of colour-coded rooms. And while there is a route to follow, you could also easily wander through the rooms randomly and still get a good sense of Hockney's journey as an artist. There weren't a lot of people when we visited — just a group of university students, and a smattering of old and young couples.
No one seems to want to take photos and save a record for later. People take time to view each piece, take it all in, and be in the presence of art. If there was anything mediating their experience, it would be an audio guide or a conversation with friends. No looking at art through their phones.
It's a stark contrast to what I experienced in Seoul. First, Seoul-Hockney took up at least one entire floor of the museum. It might have even stretched across two floors, but my memory fails me. The pieces were obviously selected for their Instagramability. People were encouraged to take selfies and share Hockney's brightly coloured works on social media. There were queues of people waiting to go into each room. There was a particular focus on Hockney's giant paintings. There was a lot of merchandise.
Visiting Moving Focus made me think about organising an exhibition itself is a chance to cater to or present a specific perspective. Which is perfect, because Hockney himself thinks that "perspective is tunnel vision". What is the tunnel that each museum is constructing?
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For me, Hockney represents freedom and experimentation. I love how he plays with perspective: painting across different canvases of different sizes, painting on the frame and the glass... In his giant landscapes, some of the lines in between the panels don't match up but it still works. Your eye still sees everything as whole, even though the individual details might be misaligned. It's all still very moving, all still very beautiful.
His work makes me think about how my writing and creative process can also benefit from this play of and with perspective. How can I turn simple lines, scrawlings and sketches into something that is full of texture and emotion? How do I pull my voice through a variety of styles? How do I make my words sing with colour? Can I create convincing portraits of people, that are equally true to myself and my audience? I want to create works that are temporary tunnels.
I'm not sure how, though.
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I hope that I will have a bit more time to think tomorrow. We'll be visiting the St. Beatus Caves, because I have a thing for caves, as well as touring Lake Brienz. It's kind of a packed schedule, because I couldn't help myself when I planned everything, but I think I'll be OK if we end up just calling it a day after the cruise. If the past six days has taught me anything, is that it's OK to just be lazy on a holiday.