Some quick thoughts on the Ludwig Museum, Cologne’s museum of modern art. The Ludwig was a mixed bag for me. I did see some of my favourite Gerhard Richters - “48 Portraits”, “Nude Descending a Staircase” - which I had caught a few years back in New York and which I was grateful to have the chance to see again. And their late-Picasso collection was very impressive; haven’t seen that much of the master’s late period work, to be honest, so it was interesting to see how he revisited some themes and works.

As for other artists, I felt there was an ample range of modern artists represented, but not by their best stuff (I’ve definitely seen better Dubuffets, Kellys, and Judds). Still, there was some nice Weegee and Ansel Adams photos, a Duchamp bicycle wheel, an Arp sculpture (”Leaf”) whose shape intrigued me, and a great Oldenburg installation filled with Americana (”Mouse Museum”). And down in the basement, the Pop Art collection was superb - great pieces by Warhol (giant Brillo boxes) and Lichtenstein, and a good Patrick Caulfield piece. Lichtenstein’s Ben-Day dots always charm me - they’re slightly off, aren’t they? And Warhol’s seemingly endless “Kiss” video piece was nicely juxtaposed with “Empire”.

I also saw some works by artists that I admittedly don’t know much about - chiefly, “The Portable War Memorial”, a huge Edward Kienholz satirical anti-war piece from 1968 that combined Iwo Jima imagery and other aspects of American iconography, as well as Ed Ruscha’s “A Boulevard Called Sunset”. And put together in one space, I began to have a better sense of the work of Robert Hamilton - what especially caught my eye was one installation of his, “Lobby”, with its sense of the terminal blandness of hotel lobbies, repeated through mirrors and paintings and other media.

But I was a bit surprised to find a German modern art museum without any Andreas Gursky, at least none that I could find. It’s not like German artists were underrepresented - there was a whole wing which was mostly German and unfortunately not as compelling for me - too much representative stuff. I must say I’m not a big Max Ernst fan, which the museum did have a fair bit of.

So that’s some preliminary thoughts….

The Ludwig Museum is on Bischofsgartenstrasse 1 (near the Dom); open Tu-Su 10am-6pm.