Guest post by Sophie Poulter-Patel: Daimler Art Collection

The Daimler Art Collection is hard to find. We walked past it twice before spotting the little door that led to it. You have to ring the bell and then the door opens by itself. We went up in the small lift not knowing what to expect and quite confused before reaching the gallery, which was completely silent. There was nobody else there which is probably the result of its hidden location.

The current exhibition is ‘Visions of Exchange’ which focuses on different perspectives of Berlin and Tokyo and includes paintings, videos, sculptures and photos.

One of the first things you notice is a 3D pentagonal sculpture that at first glance looks like painted plastic. After having a closer look I realised it was polystyrene that had been covered with a very glossy blue paint. This paint seemed to be so shiny that you could see your reflection in it. Around the corner there was different piece by the same artist, Jan Scharrelmann. This time the polystyrene was coated with bright orange glossy paint, which reminded me of mirror glazed cake.

Just as this polystyrene sculpture creates a weird perspective in the middle of the gallery, these Japanese and German artists present us with different points of view from both Tokyo and Berlin.

Rita Hensen is a German photographer who went to Tokyo and created little booklets of different series of photographs, all contained in a small box. The one that stood out for me was about transport. The first thing I saw when I opened it was truck with picture of radishes all over it. When I think of Tokyo I think of tall buildings and crowded streets, and not small details like how the trucks are decorated differently.

From the other side, Japanese artist Taro Izumi, came to Berlin and has two pieces of his experience in the gallery. The first is a map of Berlin that had been turned on its side which is quite disorientating and changes your point of view. Different parts of the map link to videos showing parts of Berlin that are not stereotypical, like trees. The cameras were streaked or splattered with paint, adding to the strange perspective. His other piece was a video of him in Berlin using his body to trace lines of graffiti on a wooden fence. It was quite absurd and funny but also made you look at the different and unusual way he moved through the city.

Another perspective-focused piece was a video that had a double-sided screen suspended in the middle of a separate room. Each side of the screen showed different images, although the dialogue was the same. One of the clips was a close up of a man’s mouth as he was eating. The point of view was unusual and made me feel like I was invading his personal space. The dialogue kept on repeating with different images each time, making you reevaluate what was going on each time. You eventually realise that the man and the woman, who are discussing World War Two, are blind, and that this has to do with historical blindness, patriotism and being blind to what the future holds for you.

The exhibition as a whole focuses heavily on different perspectives which really interests me because I went in with certain ideas and images of Berlin and Tokyo and came out with a different point of view. It’s a very quiet place that I personally really liked despite the complexity of trying to find it. The only problem I had was getting out at the end. To get in you press the bell and the door opens, but, at the end you press a button and the door didn’t open so we ended up in a funny fight with the door. Luckily there was a woman on the other side who opened the door, or else I think we’d still be there.

The exhibition Visions of Exchange is on at Daimler Contemporary Berlin (Haus Huth, Alte Potsdamer Straße 5, 10785 Berlin) until November 4th 2018.

Welcome to Jerusalem at the Jewish Museum Berlin

The Jewish Museum Berlin is a disorientating place. It is made up of various buildings from different periods, most recently The Libeskind building.

Architect Daniel Libeskind created his design around a series of intersecting voids and straight and zigzagging lines. Corridors veer off at angles, and lights, mirrors and installations constantly make you aware of the strangeness of the space.

Shalekhet (Fallen Leaves) by Menashe Kadishman, Jewish Museum Berlin

One of my favourite installations in this are is Shalekhet (Fallen Leaves) by Menashe Kadishman. You hear it before you see it, a distinct clinking reminiscent of chains or shackles. The work consists of over 10,000 screaming faces cut from iron plates, which you walk over as you approach a dark void. It is a disturbing refection of victims of war.

Adding another layer to the confusion of space is the newly opened “Welcome to Jerusalem” exhibition in the old building. The exhibition transports you through the history, sights and sounds of the city in over 15 rooms. One room, dedicated to maps, displays The Whole World in a Clover Leaf by Heinrich Bünting, showing Jerusalem as the centre of the world. Disorientating again, from a geographical point of view, but accurate from a historical, religious and political point of view.

The Whole World in a Clover Leaf by Heinrich Bünting, Magdeburg, 1600, Woodcut © Jewish Museum Berlin, purchased with funds provided by Stiftung DKLB, photo: Jens Ziehe

 

The exhibition successfully shows the changing landscape of Jerusalem, from 5000 years ago to the present day, where old and new constantly overlap and collide. The exhibition is full of interesting insights and facts, for example, that the keys to one of the holiest sites in Christianity, The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, are held by two Muslim families, or that Muslims once faced towards Jerusalem to pray, before this was changed to Mecca, or that when the Jewish temple was destroyed, Judaism fundamentally changed to focus on the study of holy texts. In addition to all this, the exhibition provides you with a good understanding of the current conflicts that occupy the city today.

So, if you’re getting tired of the grey Berlin winter, take a trip to the Jewish Museum to be transported through time and space.

Welcome to Jerusalem is on at the Jewish Museum Berlin (Lindenstraße 9-14, 10969 Berlin) until 30 April 2019.

Jeanne Mammen at the Berlinische Gallerie

Jeanne Mammen (1890-1976) was a Berlin-based artist, most famous for chronicling life in the city during the 1920s.

Born in Berlin, she studied art in Paris and Rome and lived in France until the outbreak of World War One forced her to move. While her family relocated to Amsterdam, she chose to return to Berlin.

At first, Mammen struggled to support herself as an artist, and she took any work she could, creating artwork for movie posters, satirical magazines, books, and fashion plates.

Particularly striking are her sketches and watercolours that depict people from all walks of life with a sympathetic yet unsentimental eye. Much of her focus was on women. Some her works, which capture swinging, glittering 1920s Berlin could be mistaken for contemporary party scenes.

But in addition to these more well-known works, the retrospective at the Berlinische Gallerie also shows how the artist’s work developed over decades, with 170 pieces from a career lasting over 60 years.

The artist lived in the metropolis during some of the most monumental shifts in modern history, and this is reflected in the range of her output. For example, during Nazi rule, she sketched the image of a menacing wolf on the markets page of a newspaper (right), linking war and terror to capitalism. Later on, she made theatrical collages, and moved towards abstract art, using different materials such as sweet wrappers, pipes and wire.

 

An illuminating retrospective of a multifaceted working artist who continually changed yet maintained her unique style, refusing to be pinned down to one particular movement.

Jeanne Mammen, The Observer: Retrospective 1910-1971 is on at the Berlinische Gallerie (Alte Jakobstraße 124–128, 10969 Berlin) until 15th January 2017.

 

OSMO: A musical performance by Sebastian Blasius and the Sonar Quartett at Ufer Studios Berlin

You walk into room at Berlin’s Ufer Studios. Swirls of salt are scattered across the black floor, orange curtains hang from the ceiling, reminding you of segments of an orange, a silver ball, musicians, music stands and chairs are spread across the studio. As you crunch, crunch, crunch your way across the floor, you stop at one of these stands and pick up an envelope. Inside, is a picture and the words: Perform a dance that hardly anyone can recognise as a dance.

Photo courtesy of Ralf Ziervogel

With OSMO, where Beethoven’s last string quartet meets an installation meets an audience, Sebastian Blasius has directed a musical performance with Berlin’s Sonar Quartett that hardly anyone can  recognise as a musical performance. Grating sounds, such as a bow across the hollow wood of a violin, are woven into familiar bursts of classical music. Recordings of children reciting the capitals of countries become a metronome. The musicians keep moving around, and so do the audience.

What results is a space where the line between performer and spectator is blurred. There is also a blurring of the lines separating the arts, so one is constantly stimulated in surprising ways. The ever changing constellations of people, lights, sounds and visuals creates something completely fresh and original. An engaging experience.

OSMO was on at Ufer Studios in Berlin on the 22nd and 23rd September 2107.

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Creative In Berlin: Tess Motherway

Tess Motherway is an Irish filmmaker, visual artist & film curator, based in Berlin. She will be demonstrating her first performance piece ‘Things Men Have Said To Me This Year’ on Saturday, 16th September at 6pm at Alexanderplatz.

You’re used to being behind the camera, so you’re really putting yourself out there – in Alexanderplatz on a Saturday evening no less! How do you feel about the upcoming performance?

I’m really nervous about it. I’d definitely describe myself as an introverted extrovert, so this piece is really taking me out of my comfort zone and is definitely a personal challenge. But that’s part of why I’m doing it too. I like pushing myself and embracing things that feel scary. I think doing things that we’re afraid of is really empowering.

What made you do it?

In Ireland, I grew up under a social pressure to laugh off sexist jokes, for fear of being deemed anything from ‘no craic’, to a bitch. For a long time I followed suit, or buried my head in the sand, not having the confidence to oppose it or wanting to have to have ‘those conversations’. But, I realised that by ignoring the problem, wouldn’t make it go away & that by calling out sexist behaviour and engaging and challenging people about the topic simply felt right.

This last year I’ve been reflecting particularly on the culture whereby comments and judgements about women’s bodies pervade not just social & professional spaces, but more intimate situations for women. There still seems to be a pretty prevalent entitlement and freedom to openly judge women’s bodies. I think this behaviour, even today with all our awareness, is still very normalised for women, which is really sad. I devised this piece because I wanted to do something with that feeling – the feeling of disempowerment that comes from being judged or slighted or commented on inappropriately. By handing these comments back – just some that I have personally received this passed year – I’m taking control and hopefully opening up a conversation.

Why Alexanderplatz?

When I came up with the piece, I knew it had to be in a really central, public place. Alexanderplatz is a pretty iconic centre of Berlin and I thought it would be the best spot to reach a mixed demographic – it wouldn’t feel right performing it in a smaller Kiez or a gallery space.

What is your favourite place in Berlin?

I love all the kinos of Berlin. I’m primarily a filmmaker so I’m in kino heaven here: Sputnik Kino, Babylon Kino, b-ware Ladenkino, Colloseum Kino – the list really is endless and I keep discovering new ones. I live in Neukolln which I love too because you’ve got the canal and so many great parks like Hasenheide park and Templehofer Feld – I love how much sky you can take in in Templehof. I feel like I can breathe there. Maybe that’s my favourite place.

You’ve been here since 2016. Is this your first Berlin piece? How have you found being an artist in Berlin? 

This is my first Berlin piece. I moved last summer and had a piece in an exhibition last June, but it was realised back home, so this piece is particularly special to me because it’s kind of my Berlin premiere. Being an artist in Berlin is great – you can’t throw a stone without hitting another creative and there’s such a culture of collaboration and experimentation here it kind of feels like anything is possible. I love the DIY, can-do vibe – there’s so many amazing spaces it can feel like the city is just handing you the keys and saying ‘off you go’.

I moved here to be around a larger group of international creative people – I’m from Dublin which is also crawling with loads of amazing creative types, but it’s a small place and after years of living there I wanted to change things up. I have also been looking for a place to learn analogue film development and when I was researching places to go, I found a collective called Labor Berlin based in Wedding which I’m now a part of. Other more practical reasons such as being a much cheaper city to live in with a high standard of living.

What else are you working on?

This year has been pretty productive for me – I completed my first ever artist residency in Switzerland where I realised an experimental short film called ‘8’ in response to the Repeal the Eighth campaign which is fighting for a referendum to legalise abortion in Ireland. I also just finished a new short documentary called ‘Company B’ about Ireland’s only all boy contemporary dance group and I’m currently programming for the next Dublin Doc Fest short documentary film festival which I founded in 2013 back in Dublin. The next few months will see me learning analogue film development and gathering archive and photos for a series of personal, experimental short films.

Does this relate to the rest of your work in any way, or is it completely different?

I haven’t had a clear trajectory with my practice. In fact, when I finished art college, I took a creative hiatus and it’s taken me time to explore, experiment and find my way back to a focused practice again. I never used to put myself in my work before – both literally and in terms of drawing from my own experiences in a deep way. I was always looking outward – which is great – but I guess really putting yourself in your work comes with confidence. For the last two years I’ve really thrown myself – literally – into my work. So in terms of the use of my body, and the performative element, this piece really is a new thing for me. Regarding the content, though, my work has always been anchored in feminism and equality.

Tess Motherway will be beside the fountain, outside Primark, at Alexanderplatz at 6pm on Saturday, 16th September. The performance will be one hour long — check it out! 

Weekend Trips from Berlin: documenta14 in Kassel

Kassel is a 3-4 hour train ride from Berlin. It is a strange mix of regal buildings and monuments from its time as a princely residence, and bland concrete.

In the town’s main square, fountains arch hopefully into the sky only to land directly into to drains a couple of metres away. However, the small town is most notable for documenta, a contemporary art exhibition which takes over its galleries, museums and public spaces for a period of 100 days every five years.

Máret Ánne Sara, Pile o’ Sápmi (2017) Curtain made from reindeer skulls and metal wire

After I had exhausted my two-day exhibition ticket, I visited the marble bath, where the tour guide asked me if I had enjoyed documenta 14. I said I had, very much.

“Gut,” she said, surprised. “Alle meckern.” (Everyone’s complaining.)

And she’s right. Everyone is complaining. The well-known writer Moritz von Uslar went so far as to tweet that he found the Zeit’s weekly journalists meeting more inspiring than anything he experienced at this year’s documenta. Here’s the thing: He is wrong.

This year’s documenta was surprising, wonderfully curated and impactful. For this first time this year, the art exhibition was split between two locations: Athens and Kassel, acknowledging the two different sides of Europe, one destitute, one rich, one central, and one at its southern edge that deals with a stream of migrants from the Middle East and Northern Africa.

And it was this alternative, disorientating, multi-sided view of Europe that dominated the exhibition. For example, Janine Antoni’s wonderful Slumber posits the idea that the fabled adventures of Ulysses had perhaps all taken place in  Penelope’s dreams. The Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara presented us with an alternative perspective of Norwegian history, and Gordon Hookey hit us with a big, bold, political statement about Aboriginal people and Australia.

Altogether, the exhibition was political, unapologetic, anti-neo-libralist, and anti-capitalist. Probably, exactly, the kind of thing a white, German man like von Uslar, who is primarily interested in other white, German men didn’t get it, or didn’t want to, or whatever.

I found that looking at art for a couple of days was nourishing. The fresh and interesting ideas, the visual and cerebral excitement, the new perspectives and experiences you engage in, if you are open to it, makes you look at everything in a new way. At one point, me, and the entire group of people I was with, all stopped to look at this lamp fixture on the side of a building. Wasn’t it weird?

Fascinating lamp fixture

Artists and their works only do half the job, you have to meet them half way. Obviously, not everything is for everyone, but to call an entire, massive exhibition uninspiring and to rubbish the work and ideas of some of the most exciting contemporary artists in the world in one tweet reveals more about the tweeter than about his subject.

Documenta14 is on until 17th September 2017 in Kassel.

 

The Friday Image: King Kong TV Tower by Berlin Ninja

Berlin Ninja asks, “What would Berlin look like with a superhero or villain in it?” Follow @berlinninja on Instagram.

The Friday Image: Where Did You Hide the Sun? by Sandy Di Yu

Image courtesy of Sandy Di Yu

Sandy Di Yu is a Berlin-based artist. For more, check out her Instagram.

The Friday Image: Coffee is a Social Activity, by Sandy Di Yu

Image courtesy of Sandy Di Yu

Sandy Di Yu is a Berlin-based artist. For more, check out her Instagram.

The Friday Image: Waiting for the Bus, by Sandy Di Yu

Image courtesy of Sandy Di Yu

Sandy Di Yu is a Berlin-based artist. For more, check out her Instagram.

STATE Festival Berlin: The Sentimental Machine

Berlin’s second STATE Festival, which brings together leading scientists, innovators, social-scientists, artists and members of the public to explore one topic took place recently at Kühlhaus in Gleisdreieck. The topic in question was emotions.

Emotions are a fundamental part of being human, and our understanding of them not only illuminates our experiences and interactions but also raises important questions about our growing reliance on machines and the nature of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

We often think of emotions as immaterial and internal, but the festival demonstrated how physically palpable and measurable they are. Adam Anderson from Cornell University’s Department of Human Development and Human Neuroscience Institute talked about how our sight and emotions are linked. Emotions, like colour, are created by the visual regions of the brain and everything we see is affected by emotion.

The Festival’s screening of Stefan Sagmeister’s The Happy Film, in which the prominent designer embarks on a navel-gazing journey in the search of happiness confirmed the strong link between the body and emotion. Sagameister pursued happiness using three methods; meditation, therapy and drugs – and drugs was the most effective. The chemical changes they affected in his body made him deliriously happy to the point of falling in love and almost getting married within a matter of weeks.

The link between the emotion of love and physicality was put to the test at the festival’s interactive Sniff and Date session, in which participants did an aerobics session, captured their sweaty scent on a small patch of material, then sniffed out a potential partner. Although smelling numbered patches of sweat felt dubious, it worked! I matched with a lovely Romanian artist with whom I had a lot in common. Yes, it was a woman, who was there with her boyfriend, but it was nice to have a drink with her.

In such social situations, the hormone oxytocin plays a big role. It helps in social bonding, sexual reproduction, birth and nurturing as well as increasing the recognition and mimicry of facial emotions. Neuroscientist Sebastian Korb explained how he used electromyography (EMG) to detect facial mimicry which is so fast and subtle that it is difficult to inhibit. Facial mimicry is important to social interaction as it is key to feeling empathy (therefore procedures such as Botox, which restrict people’s facial movements, impact their ability to empathise).

As we become more dependent on technology, the ability of machines to understand and respond to our emotions will become more important. The Android game Emotion Hero demonstrated what computer recognition of facial emotion could look like. Naturally, this led to questions about whether machines would eventually be able to experience emotions themselves and what the implications of this would be.

If machines could feel, would they be granted the same rights as people? As it stands, scientists use the human brain as a model to make intelligent, self-learning robots. Of course, companies like Nvidia, Google and Intel are nowhere near creating something as powerful as the brain with its 100 billion neurones and 250 billion synapses, but the possibility is on the distant horizon. Toby Walsh, one of the world’s leading experts on AI, said he did not think the Singularity – the point where robots overtake humans – was coming any time soon.

Still, the warnings of prominent people such as Stephen Hawking, who said AI “could spell the end of the human race” and Elon Musk, who compared developing AI to “summoning the demon” were at the forefront of many discussions. Clearly, AI and its implications must be thought about. In fact, people are already thinking about it, but they belong to an elite with commercial interests. For example, those developing the self-driving car are already making ethical decisions such as who the car should kill or injure in certain crash situations.

One of the most interesting interactive sessions was the critical thinking workshop AI Ethics and Prosthetics run by Marco Donnarumma, an artist who explores human-machine corporeality. The conversation took interesting turns, exploring questions from “Would you live with an autonomous prosthesis?” to “Where does the fault lie if a machine is responsible for killing a human?” The conversation raised more questions than answers, highlighting the complex nature of this crucial time in human history.

What was unique and fulfilling about this festival was how it hit all senses – with music, sound, visual art, films, talks, discussions and physical activities. It stimulated anxiety about a machine-filled future, passionate debate, and joy at the meeting fascinating minds – an important, emotional experience.

This year’s STATE Festival took place between 3-6 November.

Glass Making in Berlin Schönholz

Jesse Günther plies a molten blob on the end of a red-hot pipe, turning it this way and that as he tugs out a shape. Within minutes, he has created a glass figurine of a graceful, long-tailed horse, which he taps off the end of the pipe with a clink.

We are at the Berlin Glas e.V., a non-profit association that offers glass making courses and opportunities for students, refugees and artists. Their studio is located in the complex of an old brandy factory in north Berlin. Jesse adds his figurine to a crowded shelf of glass objects and mythical-looking creatures. He likes working with glass because it’s collaborative and challenging.

I had never really thought much about glass or how it was made before going to the 3-hour introductory workshop, so I’m not sure what I was expecting, but one thing is right: It is challenging. And hot. At the centre of the studio is a furnace that runs at over 1000 degrees celsius, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is only turned off for one month during the year, when everyone goes on holiday.

Powdery pellets of raw glass are thrown into the furnace, where it then sits in liquid form, waiting to be ‘gathered’, or spun onto the end of a hot pipe. Then, there is the ‘glory hole’, another furnace used to reheat pieces while you’re working on them, and finally the ‘lehr’, where the finished glass pieces slowly cool at around 500 degrees. Altogether, it’s hot work. I was on the course with a couple of blacksmiths, who seemed more used to working with such high temperatures.

Together, we attempted to make one paperweight and one glass each – a task that kept us all intensely occupied for the afternoon. There is a lot of be mindful of in the workshop: making sure you don’t burn someone with the 900 degree pipe you are wielding, making sure you don’t burn yourself, constantly spinning the pipe so the molten glass does not just drop off it (I lost a paperweight in the glory hole because I stopped spinning the pipe for a couple of seconds), getting a feel for how malleable the glass is – a quality that is constantly changing as the glass cools – while twisting, shaping, blowing, plying and re-heating…

The workshop certainly gives you a new appreciation for glass, ensuring you’ll never look at it the same way. They say the strongest steel as forged in the hottest fire, but glass is forged at the same temperatures and can turn out to be brittle or strong, with certain qualities, like air bubbles and colours, not fully visible until the glass has cooled, giving it a certain unpredictability and nuance. So, after a week of cooling, how did my pieces turn out?

As you can see, the glass didn’t really turn out to be a glass – not even a vase, which was my next aim. Maybe I can claim it’s simply a piece of art – after all, as well as being collaborative and challenging, glass-making is also creative and beautiful.

Berlin Glas e.V. offers a number of courses as well as opportunities for students, refugees and artists.

No Compromises! The Art of Boris Lurie at the Jewish Museum Berlin

It is rumoured that Boris Lurie’s No!art movement got its name when a woman entered an exhibition on 10th street in New York, looked his Railroad to America collage (below), and ran out screaming “No! No! No!”

Boris Lurie, Railroad to America, 1963, © Boris Lurie Art Foundation, New York

Whether or not that story is apocryphal, the art of Boris Lurie is indeed provocative. Interestingly, he was very much against Warhol and the pop art movement, which also sought to be political and provocative. Perhaps this is because pop art lacks the harrowing depth of Lurie’s work.

This fresh, visceral quality is probably due to the fact that Boris Lurie, who grew up in Riga, was interned by the Nazis at Buchenwald and other concentration camps. His art is particularly Jewish – a visual and textual attempt to express a European Jewish experience. It seems apt, therefore, that the largest exhibition of his work – including pieces that have never been shown before – is now on at the Jewish Museum Berlin.

The retrospective presents an over-arching view of Lurie’s œuvre, consisting of over 200 collages, drawings, paintings, texts and sculptures, as well as documentary videos about the artist.  His vast body of work grapples with a number of subjects, from modern American society and politics, to concentration camps and depictions of women. Most impactful are his collages, combining photos of the Holocaust with pin-up photos from American magazines.

Perhaps the best sum up of the exhibition is the welcoming text at its entrance, by Lurie himself: If your eyes and mind serve you well, you will see something new. You will find no secret languages here, no fancy escapes, no hushed, muted silences, no messages beamed at exclusive audiences. Art is a tool of influence and urging. We want to talk, to shout, so that everybody can understand. Our only master is truth.

No Compromises! The Art of Boris Lurie is on at the Jewish Museum Berlin (Lindenstr. 9-14, 10969 Berlin) until 31st July 2016.

 

Exhibition: There’s no place like time

There’s no place like time is an art exhibition with a twist. It’s a retrospective of the work of video artist Alana Olsen, curated by her daughter Aila, who lives in Berlin. So far, so good. It’s only when you look at the exhibition brochure, dated December 2018, that you realise something is awry.

Printing error? No. The video artist Alana Olsen and her daughter Alia are actually characters out of Lance Olsen’s novel Theories of Forgetting. We are looking at the work of a fictive artist, curated by her fictive daughter. Olsen’s book has spiraled out of its binding and into our reality, or perhaps we have circled into its fictionality, becoming characters ourselves.

The exhibition is, in reality, a collaboration between author Lance Olsen and video artist Andi Olsen. Between them, they have brought the spirit of the fictive artist alive as well as her daughter’s attempt to put the pieces of her mother’s life together to try to grasp her and stop her spiraling away into oblivion.

The themes of time, place, deterioration and winding down run through the exhibition – themes which are also important to the novel. Lance Olsen’s creation can be seen as a spiral itself – first inspired by Robert Smithson’s famous earthwork The Spiral Jetty (above), the novel has unconventional page-layouts and two back covers so you can start from either end, it has now spun back out into a physical space and collaboration with a visual artist once more.

An immersive, multi-dimensional and unique approach to art, which people can delve into in many different ways.

There’s no place like time is on until Sunday 15th November at the Greenhouse Berlin (8th floor, Gottlieb-Dunkel Str. 43/44, 12099 Berlin).

Short Film: Rhino Full Throttle, A Berlin Love Story

This beautiful, award-winning short film Nashorn im Galopp (Rhino Full Throttle) directed by Erik Schmitt plays with a bunch of crazy filming techniques and perspectives all over Berlin.

Check it out:

Exhibition: Obedience at the Jewish Museum Berlin

God said, ‘Take your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains.’

Caravaggio, The Sacrifice of Isaac, ca. 1603. Videomapping auf Repro © bpk | Scala

The story of Abraham is one of the oldest and most intriguing in the Bible: God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, and Abraham obeys, although ultimately a ram is killed in Isaac’s place.

The text, handed down in Judaism as the “Binding of Isaac”, is also significant in Christianity and Islam. All three religions interpret the episode, and the questions it raises, differently. In Islamic texts for example, Abraham’s son Ismail, not Isaac, is sacrificed, and there is no binding at the altar.

Multimedia artist Saskia Boddeke and British film director Peter Greenaway have revived this old text into an immersive installation. Their new exhibition Obedience, at the Jewish Museum, takes you on a journey through 15 rooms, focusing on the different episodes and characters of the story.

It is heavy subject matter, and the rooms are loaded – with video installations, music, objects, modern images and old manuscripts. Every room has different floors, lighting, smells, sounds and visual stimuli, resulting in a heightened sensual experience.

However, subtle aspects carry through, binding the narrative together. For example, the pebbles on the floor of The Devil’s Room, that glow like hot coals in the dark, red light, take on new significance when we read about Hajj pilgrims stoning the devil, like Abraham, in The Islam Room. The sacrificed ram of Judaism becomes the Lamb of God in Christianity; the firewood that Isaac gathers becomes the wood of the cross.

What becomes a constant, ever louder echo reverberating through all the rooms is a focus on Isaac / Ismail, the child Abraham was willing to sacrifice. Boddeke and Greenaway have interpreted the story as a human drama, in a modern context. Images of children and their parents make us question Abraham’s obedience, for which he was praised and rewarded.

A video of children from all over the world repeating the lines “I am Isaac” or “I am Ismail”, allusions to child refugees, and contemporary images of suffering children make us question whether we, like Abraham, are sacrificing children in obedience to wealth. Provocative.

Obedience: An installation in 15 rooms by Saskia Boddeke and Peter Greenaway opens at the Jewish Museum today and runs till 13 September 2015.

The Bode Museum marks the 70th Anniversary of End of World War Two

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two. To celebrate, Russia staged its biggest military parade, involving thousands of troops marching across the Red Square in Moscow, displays of ballistic missiles and over 100 war planes.

Here’s a clip of what it looked like:

While such scenes of nationalistic machismo, mirroring those that led up to the second world war in the first place, are clichéd and shallow, here, in a quiet corner of Berlin’s Bode Museum, a much smaller display makes for a deeper impact.

The Lost Museum Exhibition is about the hundreds of art works from the Berlin collections that went missing, were stolen or destroyed, due to the second world war. It consists of partly destroyed works, reconstructed pieces, photographic reproductions and information about the lost works.

The partly charred or smashed statues are devastating to see, but worse are the black and white photographic reproductions of paintings, like this Rubens:

A masterwork like this, drained of the colour and brushstrokes that bring Rubens’ paintings to life with fleshy sensuality, makes one feel the absence of the original even more.

Other stand out pieces, like this plaster cast of Donatello’s John the Baptist – the original has disappeared – demonstrate the value of such a restitution project as it reintroduces the piece to the narrative of art history.

The exhibition also raises interesting questions about itself. For example, should the few remaining fragments of works that survived the Friedrichshain Bunker fire be reconstructed, taking the artists’ original visions and intentions into mind? Or should, according to the standards of historic preservation, any change in the state of a work of art be respected? In short, is it more important to show the original idea of a work of art, or its history?

The exhibition is insightful and questioning and, on a positive note, is possible due to the ongoing and ever-strengthening collaboration between German and Russian museum professionals.

What remains though is the feeling of loss for all those hundreds of works that have vanished. It is a loss to civilisation. A fissure in art history. The visions and spirits of the people that lived in those works, forever lost.

The Lost Museum: The Berlin Sculpture and Paintings Collections 70 Years After World War II is on at the Bode-Museum until 27th September 2015.

Creative in Berlin: Jenny Brockmann

Berlin artist Jenny Brockmann, whose exhibition Chronicle of a Place is on at Die alte feuerwache in Friedrichshain, talks about her work and relationship to the city.

photos courtesy of Jenny Brockmann

You were born in Berlin. How do you think the city has influenced your work as an artist?

Although I spent 16 years of my life abroad, I feel at home in Berlin. I am convinced that architecture and urban landscape shapes us as individuals as in the idea of Leib (connection between body/senses and mind) described by phenomenologist Merleau-Ponty and I am sure it subsequently affects our interaction with others. My work is deeply influenced by Berlin in particular in how I deal with space and built structures and the resulting social and societal references.

What’s your favorite place in Berlin?

I like those places which give us a different, unusual view of Berlin. The small port in Treptower Park for example, the Tempelhofer Feld or Teufelsberg, with its derelict radar station, telling us about former times.

Tell us about your current exhibition.

The exhibition ‘Chronicle of a Place’ shows part of a huge archive of drawings, texts, material samples, photos and film recordings I collected over the past one and a half years in three different places: Istanbul, Tel Aviv and New York. I followed paths in these cities which are connected to the migration of German people in the last 150 years. However, the work is not primarily  about looking back in history; it is more about approaching the city in a situationist kind of way, exploring the structure of the city in present time.

What themes are you concerned with in your work?

The main idea behind this work is dialogue. Starting with the interactions that occur when working in public spaces, affecting people’s perception of their daily routes, then bringing the collected materials into the exhibition space in a distant city and last not least creating space for dialogue through workshops, talks and events. Taking a different perspective and experiencing new ways of thinking is one major point. The aim for dialogue is also the reason I invited the curators Kristina Kramer and Ece Pazarbasi to talk about their perspective on my project, which will take place tonight in the exhibition.

Where do you work?

I work throughout the city, in scientific laboratories, in the middle of nature, in the workshop, in the exhibition space, in my studio, at home or in a cafe. It depends on how the actual project needs to be conceived.

Describe your process.

Working on a project involves considering it from many different angles. In terms of output, this includes many different media such as drawing, sculpture, photo, film, collected materials and measurements, texts, installation, performance.

What are you working on now?

I am working on a participatory project I began last year, in which I ask Berliners for a photo of their horizons. I want to share what people see. These photos give us the opportunity to look at the horizon from a proximity; I think the horizon that is close to us is predestined to be looked at in an abstracted and thus interpretative way. It reveals something about the people who photograph it. I believe the horizon of people in Berlin is different to that of people in Tokyo or New York.

Curators Kristina Kramer and Ece Pazarbaşı will talk about their responses to Chronicle of a Place tonight at 7 pm, followed by music by Jeff Özdemir and friends at 9 pm at die alte feuerwache / Projektraum – Galerie, Marchlewskistraße 6, 10243.

If you are being creative in Berlin and would like to chat about it, contact me.

Creative in Berlin: Laura Fong Prosper

Visual artist Laura Fong Prosper has been living in Berlin since 2007. Her solo video exhibition Gēn opens tonight at the Vesselroom Project.

Here’s your chance to meet her and find out about her work and relationship to the city.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

My name is Laura Fong Prosper. I am an artist and film editor from Panama. I love yoga, cats, nature, music and good food. I am a melting pot with legs. I am Chinese, Native American, black and white.

Why did you, like so many artists, choose to live in Berlin?

Since I came in 2004, I knew I wanted to live here. Freedom and creativity breathe in Berlin’s air. Since then, of course I’ve seen some dramatic changes; everything is more organized, controlled and less anarchic than it used to be, but I think change also brings other possibilities. More opportunities for artists, more spaces, more global exchanges and local community work. Let’s hope Berlin grows for the better.

What’s your favorite place in Berlin?

I can’t have one favorite place in this city. That’s why I love it so much. Some places are, Treptower Park, Richardplatz, Tempelhof Airport, Prinzessinnengarten, the Thai Park, Teufelsberg and anything in the outskirts of the city all the way to beautiful Brandenburg. I usually spend my weekends outside the city in the countryside of Brandenburg.

Tell us about your work.

I mix VJ (video jockey) techniques and film editing techniques into my work. I also like to use analog formats, and mix it in with newer media. I love color saturations, over impositions and glitch. I am into experimental film making, video installations and visual essays. My VJ work is more about video painting on a canvas and live video art projections than syncing video bits to music beats.

What themes are you concerned with?

Identity, the expat life, being a foreigner since 2001 in different places all over the world gave me a constant nostalgia or homesickness of missing family on a daily basis. But also, being a walking melting pot, I can’t relate only to one culture. And that’s how I feel every time I go back home. I feel I don’t belong there anymore. So I like to deal with that space in between. That identity limbo and its consequences.

Describe your process.

Trial and error and free play. There’s no other way for me. I came from film school where everything is very strict, pre-planned and hierarchic (especially fiction filmmaking). With my art I like to break from all those conventions and just play. I like unexpected – accidental – results the most.

Editing is on one hand intuitive/dreamlike and on the other about story-telling and construction – your video art seems to rely more on the former than the latter – or do story-telling principles still apply?

You’re completely right. When I work as a film editor, even though I bring my intuitive abstractions once in a while I have to rely on telling a story, thinking about the spectator… is it clear enough? Is it boring? How can we make it shorter? My art work is the complete opposite. Its more about feelings than rationality. Sometimes, I like to leave the interpretation open to the spectator. It’s more about telling fragmented stories than a linear one. I pay a lot of attention to trying to show moments of my life, seen through my eyes. It’s about creating an ephemeral experience.

What are you working on now?

An experimental film about Berlin. After all these years here, I haven’t done any project on the city yet. It’s about time. You might be interested. I’ll keep you posted…

Laura Fong Prosper’s solo video exhibition Gēn opens at 7 p.m tonight at the Vesselroom Project, near Kottbusser Tor and runs until 12th December 2014.

If you are being creative in Berlin and would like to chat about it, contact me.

Erich Kissing at Galerie Schwind

Last night was the opening of an Erich Kissing exhibition at Galerie Schwind on Auguststrasse in Berlin Mitte. The artist, as well as gallery owner Herr Schwind, attended.

Erich Kissing, painter of the Leipzig school and former student of Werner Tübke paints fantastical tableaux in a precise, realist style. He is known for his high-precision glazing technique which consists of several layers and takes months to complete. This fine technique in combination with images of flying, centaurs and dream-like landscapes creates a stunning effect. You can see his work on his website.

The Erich Kissing Exhibition is on at Galerie Schwind, Auguststrasse 19, 10117 Berlin until 8 November 2014.

Studio Visit Berlin

Berlin has long been known as a city of artists, but it’s often difficult to find them; galleries are hidden away and have strange opening times, and many Berlin artists exhibit elsewhere.

Studio Visit Berlin is a door to the city’s vibrant art scene. They provide personal tours (no more than six people per group) that take you into the homes and studios of artists and designers. Tours vary according to the interests of the tour group, take between 2-4 hours, and cost €40 per person, which includes a Prosecco sack lunch and a valuable goodie bag of prints and books from participating artists.

Here’s a summary of the tour I took this weekend:

Meike Legler

We started in the home of artist and host Kottie Paloma and his wife designer Meike Legler, whose workspace is a nook in their apartment. She designs colourful pillows with geometric designs, and fun bed set sheets and shower curtains.

Diego Rodriguez-Warner

Diego Rodriguez-Warner was born in Managua, Nicaragua. He studied under Cuban Minister for Fine Arts Lesbia Vent Dumois, in Havana, and completed his Bachelor of Arts in COIN Theory and Fine Arts from Hampshire College. He received his Masters of Fine Arts from the Printmaking Department of Rhode Island School of Design.

Diego’s solo show will open at Das Gift, Donaustrasse 119, 12043 Berlin at 8 pm, 2nd August 2014.

Sophia Domagla

German artist Sophia Domagla processes the naive, ugly and the beautiful moments of life, with a view to humor. After a two-month scholarship in September last year in Kiel, she is now back in Berlin until the end of 2014 on a Goldrausch program scholarship. She was recently nominated for the Berlin Art Prize 2014 and won the Prize for “Best Script.” She lives and works in the same space, and yes, that’s a doll house next to the bed…

Sophia currently has a solo show at Agora Collective, Mittelweg 50, 12053 Berlin.

Yorgos Stamkopoulos

Yorgos Stamkopoulos‘s abstract paintings are composed of multi-layered minimalistic colour fields. His process is super-interesting (in fact, the process itself seems to be one of his main concerns). He refers to his current series ‘blind paintings’ because his method of masking the canvas ensures that the final result is random and unexpected.

Yorgos will exhibit at a solo show At CAN Gallery in his native Greece this Autumn.

Jadranko Barisic

Bosnian artist Jadranko Barisic works in icons, replicating paintings from the 1200s to the 1500s. His works can be found in private collectors’ homes all over Europe as well as in churches that wanted to replace lost paintings and restore their collections. He mixes paints the old way, using substances like egg whites and gold leaf. Barisic is a master forger!

Johannes Rodenacker

A graduate of the University of the Arts, Berlin, Johannes Rodenacke deals with abstraction, figures, and comics. He is in charge of an artist’s project space called Poseidon Projekt and recently launched his book and Risograph print publishing house called Nebenb’ Art.

Franziska Jordan

In 1984, Franziska Jordan‘s family escaped from the Communist block of East Germany into West Germany in the middle of the night with Franziska smuggled in the trunk of the car. In 2000, she enrolled at UdK, Berlin where she was a student of H.J. Diehl and Daniel Richter.

Kottie Paloma

The last stop was host Kottie Paloma‘s studio. His paintings, drawings and sculptures reflect the darker sides of society in a humorous yet poignant and gritty manner. Many collectors consider his art the darker side of pop. His art is in private and public collections throughout the United States and Europe. Some of the public collections include MOMA in NYC, Harvard and Stanford University and the Bavarian State Library in Munich.

Kottie’s solo show will open at Das Gift, Donaustrasse 119, 12043 Berlin at 8 pm, 8th August, running till 10th August 2014.

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For me, it’s always a pleasure to visit artists’ studios. Often, it’s more interesting to see the space where art is made – the creative mess, the half-formed paintings and sculptures, the paint spattered surfaces – rather than looking at finished works in a sterile exhibition space. It was also fun to meet the artists themselves, talk to them about their work and processes, and have the opportunity to buy from them directly – who needs galleries?

For more information about the tours and how to book, go to Studio Visit Berlin or check out the SVB Facebook Page.

Villa Grisebach

On Sunday, The Bavarian and I previewed some works that are to be sold over the next week at one of Berlin’s finest auction houses – Villa Grisebach in Charlottenburg – because the Bavarian has registered to bid in their Autumn Auction.

He dragged me from room to room and floor to floor, past stone statues from the Song Dynasty and 19th Century Berlin-made hanging crystals, pointing at things like this – “Kneipe” by Käthe Kollwitz, expected to fetch between €70,000 – 90,000:

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And yelling things like “Shall we buy it? We can bid on it next week! Or how about this?”

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“It looks like that guy from Boardwalk Empire. I like Broadwalk Empire. I’ll make a note of the number,“ he enthused at the painting above by Conrad Felixmüller, estimated at between €40.000 – 60.000, before dragging me across the road to the contemporary exhibits and settling on a Daniel Richter:

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“But don’t they check whether you can afford this stuff?” I asked.

“Nah. You just have to register online,” he said – delighted.

“But what if you bid on something that you can’t pay for?”

“Ha! We’re gonna find out soon, eh?” said the Bavarian, pulling on some white gloves and studying a Max Beckmann print…

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Then yesterday, a woman from Grisebach called him.

“She asked for bank references and stuff,” he said.

“So we’re out of the bidding game then,” I said.

“No. I told her that I was considering bidding for something in the under €3,000 category and she agreed that there was no point in checking our bank statements for such a small amount.”

“Oh, so you can only bid in that category,” I said, kind of relieved that at least there was a limit to how much damage he could do.

“No – that’s just what I told her. Technically, I can still bid on whatever I like!”

Great. Now my entire week has become a mission to distract him from this auction that he is set, not only on going to, but participating in. He’s even honed in on a particular piece he likes by Berlin artist Georg Tappert (1880 – 1957), called called “Clown and Girl”, which appropriately sums up our relationship:

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So  if you don’t hear from me again, it’s because I no longer have a computer, or a home for that matter, and the Bavarian and I are out on the street, sheltering under our newly aquired Sigmar Polke.

Gallery Weekend, Berlin

Friday 26th April to Sunday 28th April was Gallery Weekend – when galleries all over Berlin had exhibition openings. There were 51 official participants, but a lot of other galleries opened their doors to visitors during this time too, which was useful, because most Berlin galleries have random opening times. The Bavarian and I took a stroll down our favorite gallery-lined street in Mitte; Auguststrasse, and saw some fantastic art. Here are our highlights:

1. Silvia Gertsch and Xerxes Ach at Michael Fuchs Galerie

This exhibition is called Silent Moments – Cosmic Light, and they could not have chosen a better name.

Silvia Gershe”s works seem to emanate their own light, whether it be the glinting sun, or the glow of street lamps at dusk. They are placed behind glass, giving them a reflective, photo-like quality. In fact, her starting points are photos that she takes herself.

Xerxes Ach’s works are more abstract meditations on colour. They are beautiful, sensual, pure. The work of these two Swiss artists go together really well, and I was interested to find out that they are a couple.

Silent Moments – Cosmic Light is on at Michael Fuchs Galerie, Auguststrasse 11-13, 10117 Berlin until 1st June 2013.

2. Photography at CWC Gallery

Just downstairs from Silent Moments – Cosmic Light, is a photography exhibition at the CWC Gallery featuring more than 100 chosen works from seven prominent photographers; Helmut Newton, Jeanloup Sieff, Herb Ritts, Nick Brandt, Jean-Baptiste Huynh, Paulo Roversi and Yoram Roth.

It’s worth noting that all these photographers are men, and of these, four (Newton, Sieff, Roversi and Roth), have a strong focus on female body / erotica, so it’s a bit like being stuck between the covers of an artsier version of PlayBoy. However, relief is provided by Nick Brandt’s African panoramas, Jean-Baptiste Huynh’s portraits from around the world, and Ritts’ series of ballet dancers. It’s a rare treat to see so many high quality photos and famous images (including disturbing close-ups of Jack Nicholson as the “Joker” in Batman) in one place.

The exhibition is on at CWC Gallery, Auguststrasse 11-13, 10117 Berlin until 24th August 2013. Opening times: Tuesday – Saturday 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.

3. Mariana Vassileva at DNA

If you like contemporary art, DNA’s Fold & Break exhibition of Berlin-based Bulgarian artist Mariana Vassileva is for you. It features video, installation and sculpture. I particularly liked the way she uses everyday objects in unexpected ways with a minimal style. Check out the illuminated tree of shoes in the basement!

Fold & Break is on at DNA, Auguststraße 20, 10117 Berlin until 25 May 2013.

4. The Drawings of Ernesto Tatafiore, 1965 – 2012 at Galerie Dittmar

This collection of drawings from Neapolitan artist Ernesto Tatafiore focuses on the French Revolution; its polarities, contradictions and ambiguities. The drawings are simple – they look like they have been done on papyrus – yet funny, thought-provoking and sophisticated at the same time.

The Drawings of Ernesto Tatafiore, 1965 – 2012 is on at Galerie Dittmar, Auguststraße 22,  10117 Berlin until 8th June 2013.

5. Juan Miguel Pozo Cruz at Liebkranz Galerie

Juan Miguel Pozo Cruz is a Cuban Berlin-based artist, whose paintings reflect this combination, representing scenes relevant to both Havana and Berlin.

His paintings have a flat quality, yet are composed of peeling layers, scratches and deliberate gaps, reflecting his concern with history, nostalgia and the falseness of visual propaganda. Very interesting work.

Juan Miguel Pozo Cruz: Market is on at Liebkranz Galerie, Auguststrasse 62, 10117 Berlin until 1st June 2013.

R.B. Kitaj: Obsessions Exhibition at the Jewish Museum Berlin

The first large-scale retrospective of R.B Kitaj‘s work in fourteen years is currently on at the Jewish Museum Berlin.

R.B Kitaj (1932 – 2007), an American Jewish artist, spent almost 30 years in England. Like his friends David Hockney and Lucien Freud, he turned to figurative art in the 1960s.

His work is highly referential and collagic, drawing on a wide range of literary and artistic sources. He frequently uses newspaper cuttings and other texts in his work. Literature played a significant role in his life – he was a “self-professed bibliomaniac” and part of his huge collection of books are on display in the exhibition. The painting above is entitled ‘Unpacking My Library’, alluding to an essay by Walter Benjamin.

Kitaj’s circle of friends included philosophers, writers, poets and other artists. He drew from their work, and also represented them in his paintings. Below, ‘Two London Painters’, shows close friends Frank Auerbach and Sandra Fischer.

Other friends and role models included Philip Roth, Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Ezra Pound.

Much of his work, such as The Murder of Rosa Luxemburg, La Pasionaria (a.k.a Isidora Dolores Ibárruri Gómez, a leader of the Spanish Civil War) and Dismantling the Red Tent, painted in the aftermath of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, refers to historical and political events. Another obsession of Kitaj’s was his Jewishness, reflected in works such as ‘Drancy’, which was an internment camp from where Jews were deported to death camps.

The last retrospective of Kitaj’s work, held at the Tate in 1994, received bad reviews and proved a traumatic experience for the artist. He blamed critics for his wife’s death following the end of the show, and left England soon after, never to return. For him, the ‘Tate Wars’ confirmed his position as an outsider. Several works made after this episode reflect his feelings – the most obvious being ‘The Killer-Critic Assassinated by His Widower, Even’ painted in 1997.

In 2007, Kitaj committed suicide. A couple of years ago, The Guardian blog asked, Did Art Critics Kill Kitaj? Whatever the case, the current exhibition proves he was unfairly judged. For more about the artist, read his obituary in The Guardian.

Obsessions is on at the Jewish Museum Berlin, Lindenstraße 9-14, 10969 Berlin, until 27th January 2013.

Exhibition Opening: Condition Humaine at the Laden Gallery

Eva, by Lilli Hill

Yesterday saw the opening of Condition Humaine, an exhibition organised by the Ingeborg-Leuthold-Stiftung, a foundation promoting the art of women – especially realistic fine art in Berlin, at the Laden gallery in Tempelhof.

The exhibition brings together the work of three artists living in Berlin from different generations:  Lilli Hill (b.1976) Ingeborg Leuthold (b.1925) and Heike Ruschmeyer (b.1956).

Although they are distinct, their work displays a common theme; the body.

Heike Ruschmeyer, winner of the Marianne Werefkin prize 2005, paints corpses. Her huge canvases are most affecting, depicting blown-up images of the dead subject up close, taut in their rigor mortis, tinged yellow, purple and green. The images invoke eeriness and contemplation, reminding us that violence and death are part of the human condition.

In contrast, Lilli Hill’s paintings of fat women are solid, celebratory, lacquered and Rubenesque in their sensuality.

Ingeborg Leuthold’s naked bodies, bejewelled and tattooed, with mobile phones and sunglasses, are displayed in the context of modern leisure, evoking a bright, lively atmosphere.

Gehen, Bleiben, Durchdringen, by Johannes Grützke

In addition, the Laden Gallery is crammed with paintings and drawings by Berliner Johannes Grützke, whose works were celebrated in a retrospective at the Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg earlier this year and of which the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (09.29.200) said, “In a hundred years, people will hardly use our contemporary art to look for information about our life and bustle. Primary image sources are photography, film, television. The work of John Grützke is a rare exception because Grützke’s images are unique…They comment on bizarre social role- playing, attempts at emancipation and infantile regressions, single culture and obsessive group behavior, the battle of the sexes, women’s power, sexual liberation and sexual tensions, ideological contortions and collective neuroses…”

Condition Humaine by the Ingeborg-Leuthold-Stiftung is on at the Ladengalerie, Alt-Tempelhof 26, 12106 Berlin (U-Bahn 6 Alt-Tempelhof) until 26th July 2012. The gallery is open on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays between 12.00 and 18.00 or by appointment.

Gerhard Richter: Panorama at the Neue Nationalgalerie

Gerhard Richter: Panorama, a comprehensive retrospective of Germany’s greatest living artist at the Neue Nationalgalerie near Potsdamer Platz, is awe inspiring.

Around 130 paintings and five sculptures, made between 1962 and 2011, are exhibited in the light, open space of the upper floor of the gallery. The work is displayed chronologically, although there is no strict path from one painting to another, leaving one free to zig-zag between them, presenting figurative paintings next to abstracts, seascapes alongside landscapes, his recent large-scale squeegee paintings near smaller works of acrylic on glass.

Gerhard Richter was born in Dresden in 1932, where he studied wall painting at the art academy. In 1959, he visited the international art fair, documenta II, where he saw the abstract works of Pollock and Fontana. Looking back at the event, he said: “Their sheer impudence! I was deeply fascinated and moved by it. I could almost say that these pictures were the real reason why I left the GDR. I realised that something was wrong with the way I thought.”

Although Richter left the GDR in 1961, just months before the construction of the Berlin wall, he did not fall in line with the prevalent Western trends in painting, but rather started thinking about the medium of painting – a concern that has occupied his work ever since, most notably in his ‘photo paintings’, where he starts with a photographic image, mostly culled from magazines or a private albums, and transfers it, enlarged, onto canvas before smudging the oil paints while they are still wet, resulting in a blurred effect. The brushstrokes are so fine that upon first sight, you are not sure whether it is indeed a painting or a photograph. The effect makes you scrutinise the image, ache to bring it into focus and scratch beneath its surface.

In Richter’s own words, his work is an “attempt to probe the possibilities of what painting today still can achieve and may achieve.” It is a question that recurs as you experience the exhibition – down to noticing the incidental detail – a common phenomenon in galleries nowadays – of people taking photos of paintings with their iPhones or digital cameras; what is the point of taking a photograph of a painting that was based on a photograph?

Richter’s huge colourful multi-layered and textured abstract paintings make you wonder how on earth such an effect was achieved. Luckily, Corinna Belz recently made a film about his process:

The sheer diversity and number of the works on display in the exhibition demonstrate just how thorough Richter’s inquiry into the medium of painting has been over the last five decades and is well worth seeing.

Gerhard Richter: Panorama is on until 13 May 2012 at the Neue Nationalgalerie, Potsdamer Straße 50, 10785 Berlin

Berlin Street Art 2

Following on from my last post about Berlin Street Art I recently discovered what must be the best Berlin Urban Art Blog, run by JUST, who’s been recording the street art movement for over ten years.

You may have seen the word JUST graffitied across buildings all over Berlin – that’s him…

Preview Berlin

We went to the opening of Preview Berlin: The Emerging Art Fair last night.

Sixty-one international galleries, from London to Israel, have set up exhibits in the open space of Hangar 2 of the former Tempelhof Airport.

Most of the galleries are from Germany, and of those, the majority are from Berlin, presenting a good overview of the city’s art scene, unlike the poorly curated Based in Berlin exhibition earlier this year.

As can be imagined, the range of art on display is wide, and each gallery has used their section in a unique way. Sculpture, photography, installations, drawings, paper art – it’s all there in different styles, sizes and materials.

In addition, there are two new projects this year: Video Art Box, presenting contemporary video art by Israeli artists, and Focus Academy, showcasing work from a new generation of young and promising artists from the Bauhaus University of Weimar, the Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Kiel, and the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg.

Preview Berlin is open from 1 – 8 pm, 9th – 11th September 2011 at Hangar 2 of the former Tempelhof Airport. Public Transport: U6 to Platz der Luftbrücke (exit Columbiadamm) or bus no. 104, 284 to Flughafen Tempelhof.

Berlin Street Art

Berlin is a world hub for the street art scene. It is everywhere and, as is the nature of street art, forever being re-plastered and re-painted over. Here are some photos I took in Friedrichshain at the weekend…

By a well-known Berlin Street Artist called Alias (helpfully, you can always identify his work as it always contains the word ‘Alias’ in it somewhere)

Tape Art

Tape Art

Another work in the free graffiti space in Friedrichshain

Graffiti on the free wall in Friedrichshain…There’s a lot of stuff around by this artist, whose signature is that little scorpion at bottom right hand corner.

For more on Berlin Street Art, this blog has info about well-known artists and crews working in the city,  The New York Times covered the subject a couple of years ago, this blog has some cool recent photos, and there are masses of images on Flickr.

Turning the Seventh Corner

Turning the Seventh Corner is an installation by Tim Noble and Sue Webster currently at the newly opened Blain|Southern gallery in Berlin.

The installation, made in collaboration with architect David Adjaye, was inspired by the tombs of the Egyptian Pharaohs and is an allusion to the Book of Proverbs, 9:1 – “Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars.”  The work focuses on light and shadow, which the artists are most well-known for, although this has been described as their most ambitious project to date. 

The visitor walks through a dark passageway turning a series of corners at the end of which… well, I don’t want to spoil the surprise for anyone who wants to experience it for themselves.

The gallery space is impressive; it is a spare concrete, steel and glass structure in a hof just off Potsdamer Strasse which used to house the printing presses of the Der Tagesspiegel.

The hof is also home to a cluster of about three or four other galleries including the also newly opened Maerz gallery, which specialises in works from the New Leipzig school and features work by Hans Aichinger, Tobias Köbsch and Ilkka Halso. At the moment, this gallery has quite a small collection (there was nothing, for example, by Aris Kalaizis when we went) so hopefully they’ll get some more stuff in soon. 

Turning the Seventh Corner is on until 16 July 2011 at  Blain|Southern Potsdamer Straße 77–87, 10785, Berlin

The Boros Collection

This former bunker at Reinhardstrasse 20 in Berlin Mitte houses a private art collection belonging to Christian Boros.

Built in 1942 by the Reichsbahn, its two metre thick exterior walls and three metre thick roof slabs sheltered thousands of people from air raids during the war.

After the war, being in the Soviet part of the city, it was briefly used by the Red Army as a prison and then as a warehouse for tropical fruits – in particular bananas from Cuba, lending it the name ’Banana Bunker’. (It was not destroyed after the war as many other bunkers were because of its situation in a residential area. After the fall of the wall, it was classified as a listed building.)

In the 1990s, it was the setting for illegal raves, fetish, Gabba and techno parties, and was nicknamed ‘the hardest club on earth’. This is where Berghain began. After police raids and building restrictions ended these, the Deutsches Theatre used the space to occasionally stage plays.

The building was bought by Christian Boros and his wife in 2003, who, along with architect Jens Casper, redesigned it to house his collection and build a penthouse on the roof. The process took five years and saw the removal of 450 cubic metres of concrete.

Despite the changes, walking through this artificially lighted five storey building, with its concrete walls, concrete ceilings and concrete floors, its remnants of graffiti from the 90s, ‘Rauchen Verboten’ wartime signs, and old ventilation shafts, gives you an excellent sense of its history.

The first artwork to greet the visitor is “For Whom” by Kris Martin; a three tonne church bell which stops, swings and moves back and forth over the reception area at random and in silence because the clapper has been removed.

An allusion to John Donne’s line, ‘for whom the bell tolls’, it is a reminder of mortality, death, and the original function of the building. That it is an old church bell being re-used as art in a former bunker raises questions about changing values and the relationship between spirituality and art.

Most of the art that makes up this collection comes in the form of light and room installations, but also includes abstract paintings and sculptures. At their best, these works highlight the history and the space of the rooms that they occupy. For example, a jagged sculpture by Monika Sosnowska that is awkwardly crammed into one room, and that visitors can use as a tunnel to walk through into the next room, exploits the relationship between space and emotion by creating a feeling of claustrophobia and disorientation.

Another work, by Denmark’s Elmgreen and Dragset, is a life-like dummy of a man lying in a hospital bed that looks out of the window at the hotel room opposite. When the exhibition first opened, guests occupying the hotel room, upon seeing an unmoving man lying in a former bunker, made frantic calls to the emergency services. (Now, the hotel offers a discounted rate for that room as well as signage by the window explaining that the disturbing view is a work of art.)

Particularly effective is the work of Olafur Eliasson, which is concerned with perception and space and makes you aware of the act of perceiving.

At their worst, the work on display is pure nonsense, but then Boros has remarked, “I collect art that I don’t understand,” so that was bound to happen. (You can read an interview with Boros at ADP.) Other artists featured include John Bock, Kitty Kraus, Henrik Oleson, Tobias Rehberger, Florian Slotawa and Sarah Lucas (who I can’t stand, but interestingly, whose work is showcased in the former toilets of the bunker…) There will be a new exhibition on from September.

Visits are only by pre-booked tours, which are available in English and in German and can be booked on the Boros Collection website. Entrance is €10.

The Deutsche “Guggenheim”

This gallery has a big name but small scope. One usually associates Guggenheim Museums with vast collections, famous artists and notable works; the Deutsche Guggenheim has none of these. To be precise it has one room currently showing 8 works by relative newcomer Julia Mehretu. So for your € 4 entry fee you get each work for 50 cents (they are very big though). But here’s a tip; entry is free on Mondays.

Once you are settled with the fact that the Deutsche Guggenheim is not a proper Guggenheim Museum but a gallery born of some collaboration between Deutsche Bank and the Guggenheim Foundation (I’m not sure exactly what the details of this dark pact are, but there are more Deutsch Bank logos in the place than there are pictures), you’ll find current exhibition quite interesting.

Mehretu is an Ethiopian-American artist who was resident at the American Academy in Berlin in 2007, and her theme is the urban landscape and memory. Berlin, a city of layers and erasures of history, suits both her subject matter and technique. Her paintings are both abstract and exact, and while contemplating them amidst Deutsche bank logos, one begins to think about German Art – or lack of – and its relationship with history and money. Predictably, it’s got a lot to do with the Nazis.

Mehretu, Berliner Plaetze

The Nazis systematically tried to prove that all Modern art was degenerate, which, at a time when Germany (the birthplace of Expressionism) was home to many great artists including Max Ernst, Max Beckmann, Oskar Schlemmer, Otto Freundlich and Wassily Kandinsky was detrimental. Many of these artists left Germany, or were forbidden to work. The biggest devastation was that most Jewish artists either fled the country or were sent to concentration camps.

Not only did the Nazis get rid of Germany’s artists, they got rid of Germany’s art. They rounded up 650 works – including Picassos and Kandinskys – and chucked them into a Degenerate Art Exhibition, which opened in Munich in 1937 and was a propaganda stunt to prove just how mad and talentless all these modern artists were.  The idea was originally for the exhibition to run for only a few weeks and then to burn the whole lot, but it proved so popular that they kept it open and toured it throughout The Third Reich. Moreover, the Nazis received a lot of interest from buyers for these works, and subsequently started selling them off to finance the war.

On top of this, many works were physically destroyed during the war and after the war a lot of Germany’s remaining art works were taken as compensation by soldiers from the coalition armies – and that’s how Germany lost all of its art and artists and its best ideas, and why there are only 8 works – and even then by a non-German – in this gallery.

The Gemäldegalerie

Not many people visit this gallery in Potsdamer Platz due to its slightly out of the way location in relation to Museumsinsel. However, it holds one of the most important collections of European art dating from the 13th to the early 19th century.

Rembrant

Most notably, it is home to the second largest collection of Rembrants in the world after the Rembrant Museum in Amsterdam. The collection would have been bigger, had not a fire at the end of the second world war destroyed 11 Rembrants as well as hundreds of other works. 

The gallery currently exhibits about 1500 works, including those by Eyck, Bruegel, Dürer, Raphael, Tizian, Caravaggio, Rubens and Vermeer.  If you don’t have time to take all of them in, here are my top three highlights.

Caravaggio: Amor Vincit Omnia

 

Amor Vincit Omnia

This painting caused a big fuss, not only because of the erotic representation of Cupid, but also because of the realistic touches Caravaggio gives him – such as dirty feet which are unbefitting of a god.

The painting has a photographic quality and striking chiaroscuro lighting. A recent article in The Guardian explains why Caravaggio may have been ” the first master of photographic technique, two centuries before the formal invention of the camera”, and it is interesting to view his paintings in the gallery with this in mind.

Bruegel: Netherlandish Proverbs

Netherlandish Proverbs

This painting is a lot of fun. A first glance it looks like the lunitics have taken over the asylum, but it’s a pictorial depiction incorporating 119 proverbs.

You can spend hours trying to make sense of it all – be warned, Dutch proverbs are very different from English proverbs. However, we have quite a few in common as well, such as “To bang one’s head against a brick wall”, “It depends on where the cards fall”, “The die has been cast”…

Raphael: Terranuova Madonna

Terranuova Madonna

Raphael’s Madonna was ground-breaking as it imbues her with a human, earthly quality, which diminished some of the distance and respect previously attributed to her, but at the same time brought her closer to the people. For example, the background shows that she is on earth, not in heaven surrounded by angels as was traditional.

To her right is St John, from whom her child accepts a scroll on which is his fate as the sacrificial lamb of God is written. In a motherly response, Madonna’s left hand is half raised – which became a noted gesture.