Beaufort04

Thursday, June 7th, 2012

I think that as scappers, we all are artists. We create beautiful pages to preserve our precious memories. I love art and I love it in every way. From layouts to dances, from paintings to poetry. And of course, I like modern art too.  And That is what this blogpost is about.

Last week, I took some days off from work to visit Beaufort04. With its saying 'Kust brengt Kunst' (Translation: the coast brings art) it's a free art festival at the Belgian Coast every 3 years.
Our adventure starts on Thursday. The plan was to spend 3 days at the Belgian Coast visiting Beaufort. Because the weather reports announced bad weather all week long, we didn't book a hotel. We were doubting what to do. It's not fun if you have rain 3 days long and all you want to do is some outdoor activities. Thursday morning, where we live, the sun was shining so we took our chances. We didn't have to go to work, so we could just do whatever we wanted. If the weather at the coast was bad, we could return home if we want to. 

So we took our camera's, umbrella (just in case), boots and  jumped into our car, ready for a 2 hour drive! The weather was great! I felt bad I didn't book a hotel or that we hadn't packed our bags with extra clothing, our toothbrushes etc... 
Just before noon we arrived at Nieuwpoort, our first stop. The weather was just beautiful! We were glad we took our chance!
The piece of art that we wanted to see in Nieuwpoort is called Erratique made by 2 brothers Chapuisat and it looks like a big rock. Nothing special, but there's a tiny door where you can enter. When you're inside, it looks like you're staring at a starry sky.
When I saw this on television, I knew I wanted to visit this.

We couldn't leave without taking some photos of ourselfs.

Next stop was a restaurant, because wow, we were hungry. We found a little restaurant in Nieuwpoort. The food was good, but pff, we had to wait loooong. 
When we finally finished our food, we drove to the next piece of art.
This was a actually made for Beafort03 (in 2009), but we didn't have the chance to visit the expo that year. We were lucky that they had kept the artwork and moved it somewhere else. I found it on the Beaufort04 website.
We had some trouble finding the location, but it was so worthwhile!
Unfortunately, when we walked down there, it started to rain. So I just took some photos and then we had to RUN!

This is called Le vent souffle où il veut (that's French) :) by Daniel Buren and I loved this one.

A photo from when we got back to our car... a bit wet from the rain.

We had seen the art works in Nieuwpoort that we wanted to see, so we went on to our next stop, hoping the rain would go away.

I can hear it by Ivars Drulle is located in Middelkerke-Westende and this piece of artwork is located at the beach. Yep! With the bad weather (it was still raining) we took our shoes off and put on our boots! Armed with an umbrella we got out of the car and walked to the beach, which was all ours. No-one was there!
(And yes, you CAN hear the water very clearly when you listen.)

After taking some photos, and reading all about the artwork, we hurried back into our car. I think people must have thought we were crazy, but we loved it!
And although it was still raining, we didn't care.

The next artwork we wanted to see was in Bredene. This piece is called Analgesia/Temi Perenni (Cani) and is made by Paolo Grassino. I have no idea what it means, but with a abandonned beach and the pouring rain it was creepy!
It really gave me the creeps. But I guess that's what art can do.

For some reason, I think it was meant to be that we saw this in the pouring rain. It would have been a lot different if we had seen it with a blue sky.

But we still had some things to visit, so we had to move on to the next location. Blankenberge! This is one of Belgium's most popular Beach cities. The children in Belgian are now taking their final exams for the end of the school year, so the vacation season didn't really start yet. We were lucky that there weren't any tourists yet.

This is called Monument voor een Saltimbanque (monument for a Saltimbanque) by Folkert De Jong. For some reason it made me think of Bootstrap Bill from the Pirate Of The Carribean movies. The look on his face, the way he stands their, his attitude, the way his feet are on the floor.

For some reason I felt sorry for this statue.

It was getting late and we were hungry again, so went for a snack. H took the apple pie with ice cream and strawberries (yes, it's a weird combination!) and I took pancakes with sugar. Yummie! Lucky for us, we didn't have to wait that long this time. And we were even more luckier... it stopped raining.
We took a stroll on the pier and walked to my favorite shop in Blankenberge. A shop where they sell Jim Shore Disney Traditions. H promised my I could pick one out for my collection. But the shop was closed. They were moving and they would open the next weekend. :-(
So we just walked back to our car.

We had one stop before we had to go back home.... Zeebrugge.
Sansoussi by Stefan Sous is a real cool piece of art and they had put in the perfect location. We were like: HU?!
Oh and for those of you who wonder... yes, it's made out of real mobile homes!

Unfortunately... it started raining again and it was raining hard, so we just took some photos and hurried up, back to our car.

Back in our car, we decided it was time to go home. It had been a long and busy day and we had a 2 hours drive ahead of us. On our way home, we saw a sign of a cute little village, with a wind mill. H knows how much I like taking photos of wind mills, so said 'if you want to take some photos, just say and we'll stop for a moment'.

You don't have to say that twice!

I just love how these have turned out with the dark skies.

A few minutes later, the sky had cleared!

And after a 2 hour drive, we came home. We watched some television and went to bed. It was a beautiful day, even though we had rain.


Friday, June 8th, 2012

We woke up and it was a beautiful day. I wanted to go back to the coast, but not before checking the weather report. It should be a better day, but with more wind.
So once again, we took our changes and drove to the coast. Yep, again a 2 hour drive.
We started in Blankenberge. We arrived a little before noon, so we had time to visit an artwork before lunch.
Kneaded memory by Dalila Conçalves. I loved this one. I loved the tiles in the stones. Every stone had other tiles. Just like you can see in some old houses.

We were hungry so we decided to go to the pier for lunch. We didn't have to wait long and the food was very good.
We had a lot to see today, so we had to hurry up.

The next piece of art we wanted to see is called many dreams. Unfortunately it was ruined so they have to repair it. It won't be visible for the public until July! It's so sad, artists give people the chance to visit their artwork for free and then people destroy it. I really wanted to see the many dreams, but unfortunately you can't have it all.

The next stop would be the Sandworm by Marco Casagrande, but we had trouble finding that. By accident we came across 216.5° Arc x 21 by Bernar Venet. I wasn't sure what to think of it.
It was very windy at the pier, so we decided not to stay that long and move on.

So, on to the Sandworm that we finally found!
Unfortunately, because of the bad weather and the wind, the Sandworm wasn't open for the public. They had to repair it and make sure it would stand up to the storm. But oh, I loved this one. It was huge and you can see and hear it move because of the wind.

LOL, a dog was looking for shelter from the wind. It looks like he was allowed to go in there.

This wind was very heavy and it was hard to stay at the beach. We went back to our car and moved on to our next stop. Olnetop by Nick Ervinck. Especially H. loved this one. I think I would have to see the bright yellow in constrast with a blue sky. It's so explosive and fun.

You can see by my hair how hard the wind was blowing.

The next one wasn't far away from the yellow one. So we walked to it. But hey, wow, it was hard because of the wind and the sand. It was not even a mile, but it took us forever to get their.
Coast to coast by Flo Kasearu are 3 boats made out of containers. I didn't know hat to think of it, but H found it really impressive.

I was so happy to be back in the car. My hair was a mess and I had sand everywhere! Lucky for us, our next stop was in the backyard of a museum, a museum of an abbey.
The site was beautiful and so peaceful. We really loved this. It was like a hidden tresure.
When I saw the photos of the statue (Yorkshire Soul I by Jaume Plensa) on the internet, I didn't knew what to think of it, but once I saw it live, I loved it.

Back in the car, we were getting tired. Just one more place to visit and two more art works to find. I can tell you, this journey was so much fun, but really exhausting. And the windy weather didn't help at all!

Players by Michal Gabriel can be found in De Panne. You can see on the sand it was very windy. But I loved how the photos turned out, just because it was so windy. Oh and we loved the players of course.

Our last stop in De Panne... Waiting for the climat change by Isaac Cordal. When I saw the poles on the internet I wasn't very excited. I didn't like it at all, but when I noticed the little men standing on top of them... I loved it. So I wanted to see this one so badly.
It's definately in my 'top 3' from art work I had seen the last 2 days.

To give you an impression how high the poles are.

Unfortunately I don't have a close up of the little men, my camera out of battery. Maybe a good reason to come back before September 30th. :-)

On our way home, we stopped in Bruges. The owners of the shop in Blankenberge (the shop where they sell the Disney Traditions) have a shop in Bruges too. So we hurried up so we could be in Bruges before the shop closed. And we were lucky, when we arrived, they were still open and I could pick up a Disney Tradition. I chose a Minnie Mouse. :-)

After the little shopping trip, it really was time to head home. We stopped near Antwerpen to grab a slice of pizza. And after a 2 hour drive home, we finally arrived!

Although we didn't spend 3 days at the coast, it still was fun.

And I hope you enjoyed reading our journey.

(If you click on the photos, you'll see them in a larger size).