Berlin

Berlin has been drifting into my brain, what with Kate over there making herself homesick (and me) and Carly back for her show at Helen Gory. It's great to see Carly, and her work, and I recommend you have a look if you can. Precision paper milk crates and smashed clocks, barriers and signs, the detritus that washes up all over the city, and becomes an integral part of the experience. I am not really getting homesick for trash, just the other stuff that lives alongside it.

goodbye to berlin

... goodbye to pink phones

Our last days were hot and busy and mostly pretty lovely... you know playing ping pong in the park...

... drinking sexy lager...


Three little girls appeared offering me a hand painted candle 'shöne kerze'.
I was delighted, and confused, until Mark clarified that it was a present for me. They disappeared like the little elfin princesses they were... We burnt it later in the beer garden and stared into it in awe... See, a fascinating movie.



Swimming in the lake with the ever lovely Marieke. I love fresh water lakes, Berlin has them and it was hot... Another reason my heart is breaking that it's such a long expensive plane ticket away from home.


Sad story, happy story...

the hof, the wall, the art, the love

We went to the sculpture park this morning. Like a treasure hunt through wasteland, trying to pick which bits were art. Lucky we had a map. I loved the film by Lars Laumann about a woman who married the Berlin Wall. Yes, apparently. Amazing pictures of her standing in front of it, holding a replica. She felt cheated when her hero* celebrated the demise of her husband, crazy but true. I was transfixed by the blurry footage of The Hof dancing at Brandenburger Tor when the wall came down, in an LED Jacket and piano scarf. Fascinating slice o' history.
*'David Hasselhof, you are nothing without that talking car'.

At KunstWerke yesterday Pushwagner's Soft City was my favourite thing. We have had two days of full time art so really I am quite exhausted. The biennale is officially a bit of a disappointment but afternoon beers and pingpong make everything ok. I really want Melbourne to embrace the public pingpong table. It is SO good. Maybe Mr Feary and Mr Cruickshank can help with that campaign?

We realized we only have 8 days to go in Berlin, everything happens too quick when you are running out of time. In the meantime, some lovely grey art loving creatures camoflaged in their natural habitat.

yay for visitors

Andrea & Cam made me very happy by visiting me in Berlin. Andrea is looking pretty up the duff, in a, you know, glowing 'oh my god, SO beautiful lady' way.
Apart from some blatant coercion to have a baby, it has been SO nice to have close friends to chatter with for a change.

We went to see Alasdair Roberts and Bill Callahan last night. I liked it. Sweet scottish accents make me happy. Bill's voice is amazing even if he gives nothing much away live (cold-blooded old man). Diamond Dancer made my night. Anyways, here is a flying duck by oberbaum brücke.

The bearded building is flowering!

shöne Dinge

Here are some of the pretty things from the last post...




Like I said, I need a large container to bring it all home. Or just take a photo and walk away.

Adam just made a delicious banana cake, so it's tee und kuchen hour. Just prior to tisch tennis hour, to work off the cake ache... PING PONG.

um...

Due to a lack of anything interesting to say about anything (not unusual, I know), I will just tell you some things I saw today. Not even a particularly interesting set of things maybe, but still I liked them. In order of appearance...

Adam

A nice miniature model train scene...

Ostbahnhof Antik Markt; lots of amazing old German childrens books. I need a crate to send them home in.

Lots of drunk old punks sitting with giant dogs & beers outside the station...

Um, then I came home... It looks abit like this...



It has a rather grand entrance... Evened out by the fact that as soon as you walk out onto the street, the vague smell of the sewer has earned it the name sheisse strasse, though granted that is not unusual for many streets in Berlin...

And just now, whilst searching for beard growing time-lapse videos, this video of a man who stuck 1600 toothpicks into his beard. I don't know why, but I was pleased because of the striking similarity to the video I posted here yesterday of the hedgehog...

OK,

Bye!

getting fresh

Mayday officially welcomed the sunshine, and it's here. The city has been transformed over the last few weeks, so lush and new and fresh. It's green & growing from every crevice and piece of wasteland. Bleak streets are transformed into leafy, friendly boulevards, crammed with tables and people... It's looking lively.

For some quiet we walked in the woods today, wandering around Schlactensee... Picnicking, hunting for mushrooms & building up the courage to go swimming in the lake, next time...

We also saw lots of people walking their dogs with boat shoes & cashmere sweaters draped casually across their shoulders... We didn't raise an eyebrow with paper hats, sticks of power and my hobo picnic bundle.

pretty much it

Losing motivation, it's hit all summery, and have been drinking too much beer and hanging about in parks and playing pingpong.

twilight

youch

I am feeling why it's not a good idea to start drinking beer at 2 in the afternoon, when it is light until ten....
Now I have a cold glass of SCHWIP SCHWAP, which is also probably not a good idea since despite it's catchy name it tastes of bad cola and maybe an orange flavour tablet or sachet (TANG!) and is vaguely cloudy looking.

And I have some kunstschmertzen, after visiting the Neue National Gallery yesterday for the biennale. It's a handsome giant glass cube. The outside is strewn with coloured flags, I was already charmed... Inside, was kind of disappointing, on a piece by piece basis I wasn't that into it, but as a whole, a series of ephemeral pleasures, the spaces between the art were evocative and interesting, sometimes only because of the people walking around the pieces...

Big glassy spaces are hard to pin down, and despite my essential un-feeling towards any single piece, I actually loved the experience of the thing as a whole. That may be more about the architecture than anything. I liked the dirtied up window, and the recordings of disappearing and extinct languages. Anyways, here are some snippets from my day...

hanging about

A nice post about my rainbow over here along with lots of lovely textiles, if that's what you're into...

entertaining the monkeys

We've been watching Metalocalypse, in between annoying old LOST... pretty good... Metalocalypse that is... Dethklok Dethklok DETHKLOK... They have such good faces for cartoons...

Adam is nursing some injuries, trying to cultivate impressive bruises... He is also playing some game with persistent atmospheric loops and horsey sounds, and when I look over his shoulder I just see a flapping cape (bad sign) in the woods, a sword fight with a lady in a swimsuit and some smoking fires, and I ask about the object of his game, and he doesn't know... 'maybe just to kill the others...'

Anyway it's kinotag so we are going to the movies... OMG big screen... Like tv... But bigger, and more discerning, kinda.

* we just saw 'be kind rewind' and have vague plans to swede a music video or something... Also, I am a little in love with Mos Def and Michel Gondry...

WHEN THINGS CAST NO SHADOW

The Berlin Biennal opened last week, so there's a hectic art schedule. Have seen a million shows, and haven't even been to the main venues yet... Last night we went to the opening of Pushwagner at the Schinkel Pavillion. Pretty amazing to see, in the grand honeycomb ceilinged octagonal space, crazy detailed, huge mad paintings of the apocalypse. It seemed kind of perfect to me, GDR modernism meets sci-fi stage set presenting apocalyptic visions. The man himself looked pretty sharp last night, here he is, fresh* off the internet...



Went to the Kunstlerhaus Bethanian for open studios, saw some beautiful work and got some studio envy. Saw some BAD stuff too... It's hard to have much recall. I've been pretty vague, hopefully I remember some of it.

We are making plans, moving to The Netherlands in June for two months in a studio, thinking of packing up in a month makes me feel abit sad and anxious... But excited, we are going to live on a street between canals full of sweet little boats and beautiful old buildings. How delightful.

around about

beer & cigarettes

beer is good for your complexion, chocolate cigarettes aren't...

woodsy

Went to the woods, was lovely. We saw wild pigs trampling through the forest, and wood peckers and ponies and lakes and boats and ducks and swans and we picnicked and climbed treehouses.

kitchen

the sun comes in the window now, this is new, it's good. it's goodbye dark days. at least as a general pattern. yup, that is good. What is also good is that Adam just baked almond and chocolate brownies... mmm...

lets talk about art baby...

Its a tuesday in Berlin and we are home from some big white cube gallery love...

Went to the last day of Martin Parr sunday at C/O Berlin
gross and grand and terribly familiar... not very white cube though... Berlin has some lovely dingy spaces... this is one.

Went to True North at the Deutshe Guggenheim last week, I loved the series by Roni Horn, Pi. A circle of photos set in Iceland, connected and disconnected and repetitive, and dramatic like the blips on the horizon.
And Stan Douglas's work made me wanna get all quadraphonic soundtrack for my next exhibition...

Today we managed about 10 new shows, about a half marathon, one of which was truly horrific paintings; in a nothing really horrific about it, but fuck, it's bad type way... lets not talk about it.

Then a beautiful video installation at DAAD, by Sejla Kameric, 'WHAT DO I KNOW' I left feeling it needed a harsh edit, but then was told it was a 15-minute short film extended to a 23 minute 4-part installation, GOD, no wonder... why does art need to be more impenetrable than film?

Enjoyed the show at ngbk, Don't Worry, Be Curious, ARS 4th Baltica triennial of fotokunst, complaint choirs, collages and beautiful photos.

At the show paper 8 at Upstairs Berlin there was one really beautiful detailed ballpoint drawing by Butt Johnson which also made me quite happy, old school still life stying, lovingly rendered games consoles. Go to his website for more, like this weird portrait of kermit in repose...



I forget the rest for now. Oh September gallery had something going on, which means I liked it, but have lost all ability to talk about art, baby.

Let's talk about you and me. I hope you are well. It's an amazing day here, I'm going outside.

sunshine

After days of cabin fever inducing non-stop rain, we had a much needed sunny day, so dropped everything and went walk about. Along the canals and the river and Museum Insel, we decided to walk to the top of the Berliner Dom. It was a clear perfect day to look out over the little people below...

We went to the movies last night and saw Shwarze Shafe (black sheep) It was good, funny. In watching german movies, I still just pick up the swearwords. What that says about me and my language, I don't know. Something bad?

Ja, Ich habe kliene deutsche... and it's all filth...