Grads took a day trip to Cologne where they visited Cologne Cathedral, one of Germany’s most famous landmarks which can be viewed from anywhere in the city, It is one of the most beautiful examples of Gothic and Neo-Gothic architecture in the world and it took over 600 years to complete. Painter Gerhard Richter completed a permanent replacement for 19th-century glass that was destroyed in World War II in 2007. Richter’s window consists of more than 11,000 square panes in 72 solid colors, arrayed seemingly at random within the many-mullioned window.

Students first visited Museum Ludwig, one of Eu­rope’s most ex­ten­sive col­lec­tions of Pop Art, the third-largest Pi­cas­so col­lec­tion in the world, one of the most im­por­tant col­lec­tions of Ger­man Ex­pres­sion­ism, out­s­tand­ing works from the Rus­sian avant-garde, and an ex­cel­lent col­lec­tion on the his­to­ry of pho­tog­ra­phy. It is home to one of the most im­por­tant col­lec­tions of 20th and 21st art in the world.

On display was Ur­su­la—That’s Me. So What?, which was the first com­pre­hen­sive mu­se­um show on the artist in over thir­ty years. con­taining 236 works. Ur­su­la’s life and work of­fered an un­con­ven­tio­n­al nar­ra­tive of artis­tic in­de­pen­dence. Her art ex­em­pli­fied the idea that Sur­re­al­ism is not a style, but an at­ti­tude. Ur­su­la sub­vert­ed re­al­i­ty and found the un­can­ny in the ev­ery­day, chal­leng­ing the au­thor­i­ties of so­ci­e­ty and art by imagin­ing new worlds in which old hi­erarchies are thrown over­board and new ways of life are con­ceiv­able.

Later students visited, Kolumba, an art museum of the Archdiocese of Cologne, originally founded in 1853. Inside grads experienced two millennia of western culture in a single building. Comprising art from late antiquity to the very present, the whole ensemble is filled with a sense of history, visibly intensified through its distinctive architecture. The modern building is a harmonious combination designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor to merge both the Gothic ruins of St. Kolumba and Böhms chapel “Madonna in the Ruins” with the unique archaeological excavation site.