Luxembourg - There and back again exhibition

I am more and more surprised to find people who do not know who J.R.R. Tolkien was and even say out loud they did not see Lord of the Rings, nor The Hobbit, some don't even know that they were books. I must be getting older or something, or maybe not in every country the trilogy was a hit. I have no clue.

For me, the Lord of the Rings movie happened when I was in my early twenties and I remember still the emotion, the enjoyment of every trailer which of course we would get on an unmarked DVD which was already multiplied a thousand times. We did not have Internet, or we did not know its capacity, the movies were released with a year in between. I remember watching the Two Towers in a room at one of my friend's house with basically the whole neighbourhood, because original DVD's were expensive and not everyone could afford one with cut scenes and extras and everything. Do you believe we watched even those pieces that got out of the movie and then discussed what it would have been like?

Those are memories no one could ever take from me, of times when the online life was 0, when true friendships were born and when we all spoke the same language and went around in the same circles where we did not have to pretend to be someone we weren't just to fit in. Easy times!

But enough about that, as I don't think I am capable of putting in words what I feel about LOTR as we'd call it. 

So here we are, in Luxembourg, in a totally online life where I found on Facebook that an exhibition with drawings inspired by Tolkien's work was opening at Cercle Cite in Luxembourg Centre. I must still be on a mailing list somewhere from my time working with Luxembourg Film Festival, cause I've received an invitation to the event opening and I really and truly wanted to go, but adult life meddled. 

So I visited the exhibition on a lunch break as I was waiting for my friend to get out of her office. I've visited the exhibition alone, with no one else around, except for the girl at the reception, and I had that feeling I had to rush it, but I didn't. I've studied each and every drawing and watched the whole movie and read all the explanations, because I owed it to Raluca in her early twenties to do so and to all my friends scattered around the world. 

If you made it this far, I applaud and thank you! 

Technical stuff 

The exhibition is called There and back again - Visions of Talkien and beyond and although you would think there were drawings from the Hobbit, the theme of the drawings leaned more towards LOTR. Nonetheless, the exhibition was interesting and combined with the explanations on the wall and the movie playing on a side made it a round event.

The artist is John Howe, it is at Cercle Cite until March 18th it is opened daily from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and it's free. Here is its description:

THERE AND BACK AGAIN - VISIONS OF TOLKIEN AND BEYOND

Journey to Middle-Earth in an exhibition of John Howe's art.

Artist: John Howe
Curator: Gilles Francescano
Original concept: Eric Necker
Graphic design: Mik Muhlen

Organisation: Le Cercle Cité
Collaboration: Les Imaginales d'Épinal
Under the patronage of the Canadian Embassy in Belgium and Luxembourg
In the context of Luxembourg City Film Festival


Visions of Tolkien and Beyond

In partnership with the Cercle Cité, "There and Back Again - Visions of Tolkien and Beyond", an exhibition centred on John Howe's art and his work on The Lord of The Rings universe will open from 9th February to 18th March 2018.

Embark upon a journey to the edges of the Shire, rub shoulders with Gandalf, walk alongside the Fellowship or tremble during the Siege of Minas Tirith, guided by the hand of John Howe and by his pencil, under the watchful eye of the cheerful elf hiding behind his beard. The art of John Howe is timeless, just like the man himself. Between his work for Peter Jackson’s films, his illustrations for the worlds of authors like Tolkien and Robin Hobb and his own research, John Howe lays the groundwork of a fantastic epic that will influence the dreams and nightmares of the inner child in us for a long time to come.

Exposition from 9/02 to 18/03 2018.
Opening hours: 11:00 to 19:00.
Free guided tour: Saturdays at 15:00

Free entrance.

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Raluca