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.
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