15th May 2015 at Otterlo, Kroller Muller Museum

For the first time I photographed some of the installation sculptures outside the KM entrance, something I'd neglected before.
The indoor collection was disappointing as the main collection of Van Goch's was not on show, unlike on  our last visit two years ago. A guardian said they did not lend pictures but on t'other hand one other person reported on a good show at the VG museum in Amsterdam so perhaps they had loaned out their best ones.
The main temporary exhibition was of a small number of VG's with some of his contemporaries and their comments on each others paintings. This was illuminating and included a few of VG's biggies.
A second exhibition was of collections of museum objects chosen by individuals and illustrating a particular theme. This we found trivial.
In Otterloo town there was a large campaign showing VG picture replicas for a campaign "A taste of Van Goch". this turned out to be an advertisement for a new tented restaurant in the museum's grounds supplementing the rather small restaurant in the museum itself. This was a large amount of fuss for a small project perhaps designed to draw attention away from the lack of VG paintings.
the museum grounds were of greater interest to us, including old favourites like the floating "swan" in the shade of an oak tree and Dubuffet's Jardin D'email with a large number of children happily running about on it. Sadly safety concerns have forced the museum to put barriers all the way up the "endless staircase" thus visually wrecking it. Unfortunately several people have climbed it and been injured or killed. It is now watched by two remote TV cameras. At the far end of the grounds we visited a gallery with some newer sculptures including a Paoluzzi and we found a new sculpture made of a mobile office coupled with a mobile toilet and a strange growth on one side which was the alleged bedroom. This was called "mobile home" and clearly intended as a caricature - very amusing. Because of our age we'd travelled to the Museum by car and stopped in Otterlo centre at the supermarket, finding it open and much more important, having good Belgian beer. We bought 48 bottles for our summer stock with great relief.