Thursday, February 28, 2013

Painting progress...

My new painting is supposed to illustrate themes either of narrative or of the body. It kind of works for both, but honestly I was going to use this subject matter regardless of the assignment. To paraphrase my topic, I am exploring the female id. These are manifestations of the Freudian sex and death instincts in the female psyche when it is free of moral consequence. I am taking this opportunity to get (hopefully) more painterly, impasto, and visceral. Painting blood is very self-indulgent. My only worry is that in transforming bodies into headless objects this will be read as blatantly anti-feminist. Considering I am so disillusioned with the art world and sick of contextualizing my work to satisfy a room of intellectuals, I don't much care about that. It is experimental, I am embracing my studentship wholeheartedly while moving closer to themes and subjects that have, I think, long been sublimated or waiting to emerge.

Now that's out of the way we can see some pictures.

Small legs study.

Phase I.

Phase II.

Phase III.

Phase IV.

Hand and torso detail.

Feet detail.

Hand detail.

The walk home after a long studio session.

Friday's lunch. Yeah, I know.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Berlin II

Thursday morning saw another amazing breakfast. We set off again, this time towards Charlottenburg. Our destination was the Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg to see some surrealism. 

Spotted on a street in Charlottenburg.

Could have used some of this 70 years ago.

One wing of the museum was devoted to surrealist art, featuring Has Bellmer, Max Ernst, Paul Klee, Max Klinger and others. Most places discouraged photography, so here I was sneaky as ever. I bought postcards anyway so I did not feel guilty. The other wing housed a vast exhibit of Toulouse-Lautrec, Daumier and Goya. 


Hans Bellmer's Selbstbildnis.


Part of Max Klinger's Handschuh series.

Forgot the title, but I believe this is also Bellmer's work.

Following the surrealism, we split into two groups. Martina took the photo enthusiasts one way and Áine brought the rest of us to the Neue Nationalgalerie. The current exhibition there was Der Geteilte Himmel, or Divided Heaven
The exhibition was beautifully curated, a pleasure just to walk through. My only disappointment was that the Neue Nationalgalerie's permanent collection contains some Dix, and they were not on display.

Divided Heaven.

Leuna 1921 by Willi Sitte.

Title and artist to follow once I locate them...

Les Noces (The Wedding) by Wifredo Lam.

After the Neue Nationalgalerie I was wide awake but everyone else was falling asleep on big padded chairs in the atrium. They decided to return to the hotel and rest before venturing into the night once more. We had walked here via Potsdamer Platz, and I had spotted the film museum on the way. Áine and Maren also fancied the idea, and we made our way as the other 85% U-Bahned it back to Hotel Tiergarten. 
It being Thursday, admission to the museum was free. Our small group arranged to reconnect at 6:30, and Maren and I dashed off to the exhibits while while Áine went for a cuppa. The first few rooms were about early technical advances. There were old projectors and components behind glass which could be operated via buttons on the exterior. A hall of mirrors and blown-up posters of film stars ushered me into the Caligari exhibit. Screenplays, sheet music, reconstructed set models, posters, and more.
The following rooms were a trove. I have never lingered so in a museum. I read every placard, every piece of information, as much of the German as I could decipher. Screenplays and props from Leni Riefenstahl's films were displayed beside a copy of Joseph Göbbel's Michael, and presented with stone-cold objectivity
Following the Metropolis displays there was a spiral stair descending past a wall of televisions showing black and white montages. The monitors were flanked by mirrors, which created the illusion of hundreds of screens. 
Downstairs and past the death mask of F.W. Murnau, the Dietrich exhibit began. It was extensive, including a large, circular room, which housed a number of pieces from her personal and professional wardrobe. There was a chilling archive of 1930s-40s UFA film clips, documents and paraphernalia. My words cannot do the place justice.
The latter 20th century film exhibits were less interesting, so I meandered on and met up with the other members of my party. We headed back to the hotel once more.

Projected in the wall.


An original premiere invitation.

Script for Das Weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü.

Script and equipment from SOS Eisberg.

Joseph Göbbel's Michael, part of the Riefenstahl collection.

Yes, that is an original script.

A recreation of the classic.

The death mask of F.W. Murnau

The incomparable Dietrich.

A contingent was preparing to assault the Berlin club scene once again, and I went as far as Alexanderplatz, where we had late night sushi (again, incredibly cheap and perfectly standard quality). I called it a night and headed back with a few others.

On Friday morning we savored the last of our breakfasts and divided up. The day was our own, and I had spent some time looking for things to do. The list consisted of three museums, a thrift store and the Reichstag. Of highest priority was the Berlinische Galerie, and it ended up being the only one we visited. There were two shows there, one was Art in Berlin 1933-1938, the other was Art in Berlin 1880-1980. So I guess this particular museum was constructed specifically with me in mind.
We took the U-Bahn with another group headed for the Holocaust Museum, which was not far from our stop. We headed in opposite directions, got just a tiny bit lost and the found signage to guide us to Alte Jakobstraße. The place was a bit out of the way and not remotely busy. I knew I had come to the right place when I saw that the attached eatery was called Café Dix.
Student tickets in hand and coats checked, we headed upstairs. I snuck my camera out for this and that but none of these came out well. I paced myself, knowing I would have to take time with the single Dix painting on show once I got there. And so I did. I was unable to take a photograph, but the internet can easily provide a fine image of his portrait of the poet Iwar von Lücken.
I bought a picture book in the gift shop and we collected our coats. My small group decided Café Dix was as good a place as any to catch a bite. The menu was false advertising, as the staff was quick to inform us that most of their offerings were not available. I settled for a mozzarella tomato salad with pine nuts. The decor was powerfully purple walls and green glass bottles with yellow roses - in homage  those in the resident Dix painting.

Café Dix.

A piece from the Dadaist portion of the Art in Berlin exhibit.

Decor in Café Dix.

We walked in the direction of the Reichstag and stopped off in a Russian military antiques shop. Outrageously expensive but beautiful stuff. Then suddenly we were at the Holocaust memorial. The place is a giant maze of square columns, all cut at odd angles at the top. The paths between dip so that in the center you cannot find your way out so easily. Most unsettling in this place was the laughter of children as they hid from and chased one another through the forest of grey blocks. 
Soon it was on to the Reichstag for a photo op.

An obliging crow makes the picture that much more haunting.

The Holocaust Memorial.

Deep inside the maze.

A Romany woman begging and, I assume, placing a curse on my family.

Struck me as a great spot for an outdoor assembly.

Mel photobombs the Reichstag.

Die unglückliche vier: Luisa, Melanie, Rebekah, und Adam.

We realized at this point that were was not going to be time to visit the Käthe Kollwitz museum. We sacrificed that for a visit to The Garage thrift store on Ahornstraße, just across from the Croatian embassy for those interested. I procured a €15 black, leather trench which has not left my side since. 
We returned to the hotel and assembled, packed up as much as possible, and returned our keys. The bus was ready and waiting, and we wasted no time. We bade farewell to the city as we rolled through the streets and out along the Autobahn to Schönefeld.

Our key.

The Very German Art in our room.

Our flight was a bit of a drama. We arrived too early to check in properly, so we waited for 30 minutes in a paddock-like area past an unavoidable, one-way security check. Then our flight was apparently delayed due either to strikes in another airport or a plane going off the runway at Hamburg (though why that would have affected us is still a mystery). Once we were through security we followed a sign that said something along the lines of "300 yards to Ireland," and arrived at a strange, crowded pub with those awful 3/4 pint glasses. Apparently everyone else was delayed, so the place was so packed that people were sitting on floors and in duty free shops. A few of us bought libations and found a cool spot in a stairwell while we waited for news. An hour or so was all it took for us to get a gate.

From there it was just a moderately turbulent flight to Dublin and a 2 am arrival back in BallyV before we could collapse.

Friday, February 22, 2013

Berlin I

Hallo readers, it has been a while. My computer's hard drive suffered a wholesale banjaxing, and so I was without laptoppy goodness for nearly two weeks. Thus have I been absent from the blogosphere, and now I make my triumphant return, with tidings of Deutschland and art.

The BCA school trip to Berlin took place from Tuesday February 12 through the following Friday. Our departure was 2:15 in the a.m., so most of us only napped the evening prior. Unable to sleep, I watched the first two thirds of Forgetting Sarah Marshall with some housemates and snacked on cereal until Brian arrived with the coach to Dublin. One dark bus ride, check-in, terminal wander and mint purchase later we were on route, courtesy of Aer Lingus, to Deutschland.
From my window seat I watched the sunrise as we broke through the clouds over Dublin. Their topography was soft, undulating all the way over Manchester and onto the continent. I dozed. An hour and fifty minutes later we were making our approach. The first thing I saw once I could see the ground was snow. I was thrilled to see the white stuff, conspicuously absent from Ireland. I have always thought the fields and towns of Germany incredibly picturesque from above. They are organized neatly, clusters of red roofs interspersed with little wind farms.
We touched down in Schönefeld mid-morning. We hopped onto our bus and made our way into the city. From a distance Berlin seems quite industrial. The first few hours were a whirlwind of imagery assaulting our sleep-deprived selves. We checked into the Hotel Tiergarten on Alt-Moabit, collected our keys and settled in for an hour. The hotel is standard enough, the rooms just a bit small, but all the amenities present. Crappy art on the walls. Haribo on the pillow.


We gathered in the lobby and set off to see some galleries. We took the U-Bahn from Turmstraße to Zoologischer Garten, and thence to Französische Straße, from where we walked south towards a cluster of galleries. But our first stop was lunch! We found sushi quite readily on Leipziger Straße at a place called Otito. I enjoyed my first unagi since the summer, plus miso soup and some spicy tuna. It was incredibly cheap.

Otito.


After lunch we walked through Checkpoint Charlie. Saw fragments of the wall, some of which were bare on one side and heavily graffitied on the other. Most have been reappropriated as canvas for public art. 

Wall fragments.

Entering the America Sector. Obviously.

We went first to a gallery with a show called "Movers and Shakers," which highlighted performance artists. Much Joseph Beuys and Yoko Ono. Next was a bunch of galleries housed in similar spaces in similar buildings a short distance away. Apologies for inexactitude, we were all very tired and being shown all this art and it was taxing to note the street names.
Saw some things of interest in the indie galleries, and just as much without merit or relevance, for me at least. After 4 p.m. our time was our own, and it was straight back to the hotel and bed for me. I don't know how anyone was able to get dinner, I was instantly asleep.

Bailey photographs this red monstrosity.

Wednesday morning. We went down for the Frühstück buffet and were shocked. The spread consisted of five kinds of yogurt, jars of raisins, apricots, cranberries, nuts, four kinds of seeds; three varieties of seed and multigrain bread, a huge basket of croissants, plates of pastries; platters of fresh pineapple, ripe mango, tangerines, blackberries; pots of Nutella, five kinds of jam, individual dishes of butter and butter-style spreads; hot vats of scrambled egg, sausages, mushrooms, onions; a cheese platter adorned with brie and hard cheeses and grapes and more; Grapefruitsaft and Orangensaft, coffee and tea, a big plate of wrapped chocolates. We fueled.
We set off at 9:30 for Hamburger Bahnhof, a museum of contemporary art. We passed lots of construction, the Hauptbahnhof, inhaled some sewage-infused air. Much of the HB was roped off, but we did get to see the collection of Dr. Erich Marx, which includes some works by Anselm Kiefer, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. Interesting stuff simply for the aforementioned parties' contributions to art history, if not for their relevance to my own art practice. Also present were Martin Honert's "Kinderkreuzzug" and George Widener's "Secret Universe." I will not lie and say I got much out of either of these exhibitions. Honert's appropriation of kitsch did nothing for me, but kitsch as art is hit and miss for me. Secret Universe involved a multitude of massive calendars and lists and dates all collaged and jumbled, and smacked strongly of numerology or astrology, which was enough of a turn-off. It was too much information to process without four hours to spend on it, and the video interview with Widener convinced me I would not like the man in person, so I didn't give him any more of my time.

Lunch after Hamburger Bahnhof. A large group of us found an Indischer Restaurant. The lunch special ranged from 5-6 euros, and we all availed ourselves of that. The lunch special began with hot, buttery Linsensuppe and puffy bread segments. After the soup we received large platters of salad with oranges. After salad they brought out big bowls of basmati rice, and finally, our entrées. I got the Punjabi Bengan, which involved a crapload of veggies wrapped in some sort of dumpling-like structure with cheese, swimming in sauce that lacked tear-inducing spiciness. But no matter. I enjoyed a massive, three-course meal for five euros. Plus mango lassi, which was thicker than I am used to and fantastic. The restaurant itself (I forget the name, but recall the location) was huge, full of drapery and colorful decor, and hot as the subcontinent itself (I would like to think).

After lunch our final itinerary item for Wednesday was the KW Institute for Contemporary Art on Auguststraße. The exhibition there was called "One on One." It was great. The concept was that each artist's work was installed in a room within the gallery spaces spanning four floors. You would enter the room, leave your do-not-disturb tag on the knob, and experience the art on a one-on-one basis. I saw all but one of the rooms, but the one I missed sounded missable. My favorites included a performance ("For Two to Play on One," two men at a piano who would alternately talk with, stare at or play for each entrant), a video/performance (Joe Coleman's "A Holy Ghost Compares its Hooves": A man [not sure if it was the artist himself] seated at a desk, painting tiny human figures; after thirty seconds or so he switched off the light and a video full of horrific imagery began, projected onto the opposite wall), and a modest installation ("One on One": a box of candy bars perched atop a plinth, adorned with a placard bearing the instruction: "NEIN"). Conceptually, it was one of the best gallery shows I have attended. The most exciting time was about halfway through our time there, when you weren't sure which rooms the rest of the group had seen, and you had to keep shtum about what awaited behind this door or that.

After KW we were free. We headed en masse back to the hotel, splitting into groups and either walking or taking the U-Bahn. My group backtracked to the Tiergarten hotel (I acted as navigator), detouring just once to check out the Hauptbahnhof. Berlin's central train station is huge. The sort of place you could use as the location for a novel about people trapped forever in a shrinking universe represented by a single building. It is full of shops and escalators, and we managed to find an ATM.



Inside the Hauptbahnhof.


Audrey in the Hauptbahnhof.

Freiheit für ALLE

On the way back to the hotel, Audrey showed us a restaurant she had eaten at on the previous evening. We resolved to check it out after a pitstop and before seeking out some nightlife. We rendezvoused with the rest of the group and assessed the situation. Some people headed for Tresor, one of Berlin's most famous nightclubs. Not wanting to pay a cover charge for a time I probably wouldn't enjoy that much, I made for the restaurant mentioned above. Our small group enjoyed fine München Bier and veal sausages with pretzels and sweet mustard. It was staggeringly delicious, and like everything else we had eaten, very cheap. 
We wandered into the Tiergarten, I had my sights set on seeing the Brandenburger Tor by night. We found a plastic tiara in the snow, and decided the best thing to do was to construct a miniature snowman to prop it up. This we did beside the Bismarck monument; we gave the little man stick arms and took some pictures. He was fabulous.
We walked to the Siegessäule and then all the way down the Straße des 17. Juni towards the Brandenburger Tor. It was a long walk, and halfway there we realized this is why the only other people we saw were on bicycles.

Der Siegessäule.

Mini snowman by the Bismarck monument.

 Obligatory Brandenburger Tor photograph I.

 Obligatory Brandenburger Tor photograph II.

Once we arrived, we had just about decided it was too late to do much else. I had enjoyed the walk thoroughly, and we sat outside a Dunkin Donuts on Pariser Platz for a few minutes before heading for the shorter way back. I navigated our way through the U-Bahn, of which I felt quite proud. Once I had familiarized myself with the system it was easy. There is less signage than most metro systems I have seen, but we did not have too much trouble.

I will update shortly with the events of Thursday and Friday.