Aarhus, Denmark

Today, we arrived at our penultimate stop on the trip, Aarhus in Denmark.

We’ve been here before, if only briefly, and remembered visiting the large art centre, known as ARoS, a modern art museum in the centre of the city, so after breakfast, that’s were we headed; the port is close enough to the city centre to not have to use a shuttle bus.

ARoS is an absolutely brilliant place, and we must have spent the better part of three hours in there. It’s quite large, and we started by taking the lift the top floor, which promises ‘Your Rainbow Panorama’. Bolted onto the very top roof of the building is a circular, raised, enclosed walkway. That in itself would be exhilarating, but the windows are tinted, with colours that change as you walk around it, covering all the colours of the rainbow. The effect is surprisingly moving, not only changing the view out across the city but also with the potential to change one’s mood as you walk. It’s difficult to describe with any accuracy, but everyone we saw walking it appeared to be enjoying it immensely. I would say it was worth the ticket price to the museum alone.

We worked our way through the many floors and multiple galleries, which covered all disciplines, styles and ages, gradually descending through the building. There were landscapes and portraits, abstract and many installations; the gallery seen in the photograph below featured an installation called The Populace, by Nina Beier and John Miller, and consisted of many life-sized mannequins, dressed in a variety of clothing styles, like a crowd in a busy mall frozen in time. Walking amongst them felt slightly odd and voyeuristic; I’m not entirely sure what the underlying message was, if any, but it certainly left an impression.

Another room featured a sculpture by Australian artist Ron Mueck, simply titled Boy. Unsurprisingly it is a crouching boy, what is a surprise, however is that it stands a whopping 4.5 metres high and weighs 500 kilograms.