The fake, the future and the finite

I didn't go to German class last Wed. and then class on Thursday was canceled because our teacher was sick...so I opted to go today as my last day of German class. It has been really awesome to take this class and I learned a lot. It has helped me to become more comfortable doing basic things like shopping and traveling around the city. Today I even had a short conversation with a Turkish guy in a local Imbiss mostly in German. I could follow him for awhile for then had to resort to "I am sorry, I only speak a little German"....which lead to where are you from?...which led to a conversation about Bush (as always it does) and me reassuring him there was no way that Bush could continue to be president after this year. We both agreed 'Bush ist schlecht.'

If you have never been overseas it is hard to overstate the role that your country's leader has in how people react to you (once they hear where you are from). For example, 10 years ago I was traveling in Spain during the Monica Lewisky trials . Traveling from (or to?) Bilboa, a bus driver discovered where we were from and proceeded to make crude jokes and gestures referring to Clinton for the rest of the trip. sigh
Well, I digress....

On Friday, R felt better enough to go to a few openings. We stopped by the Glas Pavilion and walked the Brunnenstraße openings. One show stuck out for me at Klemm's, 'Endless Lowlands breaking up - part 2'.


The fake, the future and the finite
(A commemoration of the absolute in the 21st Century)
Part 1: Sun, Rainbow, Arch

I was first drawn in by these rainbow spectrum sculptures. I discovered they were by Alon Levin and looked up the work as soon as I got home. This person (girl or guy?) has great work and it is worth looking through the .pdfs that accompanying many of the projects. For anyone who knows my work, it is pretty obvious why I like Levin's.


Colour Study of Group Behaviour and the Need to Control
Flowers 1 - 100, left to right, front to back

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Yummy brunch pic once again. They changed the menu at Blaues Band and so I tried to try this new option, the 'Interkontinentalische Frühstuck'. It has everything you could ever want for brunch in one meal; an assortment of cheese and meats, bread, a soft-boiled egg, at least 5 kinds of fruit, a pancake with nutella and powdered sugar, and quark (which is kinda like yogurt without the cultures). R's 'Farmer's Omlette' is pictured in the background.

Barack Obama is Your New Bicycle

http://barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com/

Dinkelbrot und Butter

Yes, the past week as definitely been crazy, good and bad. Everything really seemed to culminate last Thursday, Valentine's Day, as R said. Drama at R's studio and receiving our one-year 'freelance artists' Visas. And, most importantly, R's formal proposal...to which I of course said 'Yes!'.

The ring, unfortunately, ended up being a little small and since it is made of concrete and steel it can't exactly be resized. So, I don't get to wear it until we can exchange it. We hope to send it back tomorrow and I will also be ordering a matching ring for R that is a little wider and thicker.

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On Saturday, we went to an opening at Mangus Muller Gallery near our house. It was a group show that was curated by WN and had a piece by my friend from Skowhegan EB.

Then we went to a party at the 'Housing Project' that a classmate of mine lives at. This term here is very different than the HUDD housing projects it brings to mind in the States. In Berlin, a House Project is basically a Commune, some of them are squatted but most, especially now, are just large apartment buildings where everyone has chosen to live communally (sharing kitchens, etc.). This specific one is in Friedrichshain, in one of the first areas squatted after the wall came down. I guess 10-15 years ago most of the buildings in that neighborhood were Housing Projects but since have become a trendy and desirable place to live (because of all that activity no doubt)...ergo all the squatters have been kicked out and the Housing Projects are slowing being evicted to make room for new tenants...who are willing to pay higher rents. The party we went to was a fundraiser, to help pay lawyer's fees to help them not get evicted.

I think the house was six stories, but I am not sure because I never went to the top floor. It has a central stair well with doors on each side of the landing on each floor. These could all be separate apartments, but instead the hallway is full of collective stuff and doors are always open. Everything was covered with graffiti and Anarchist Collective banners. There are three kitchens; one for meat eaters, one for veggies, and one is on the women only floor.



The first event for the party was the "Noisy Cooking Show", which basically was my friend's boyfriend cutting up veggies and tofu on mic-ed chopping boards and making a big pot of 'Love Curry' for everyone to eat for dinner.



The first floor was a squatted apartment (the landlord tried to fix up that was quickly broken into) which became a dance floor and lounge area. The second floor was another dance floor and beer bar, and the third floor had another lounge area a cocktail bar. The guy in the pic above is playing a theramin to electronic dance music with video being projected behind him.

We met a lot of interesting people and had a great time at this party. It was extremely insightful to experience first-hand this disappearing history in Berlin. One story we heard was about the previous weekend at this House Project. At some point all the electricity went out on the whole block. Since there was nothing to be done indoors everyone gathered in the street, brought out their instruments and proceeded to have a little unplugged dance party. The cops came and tried to get everyone to go inside but everyone didn't want to because there was no electricity to see or do anything inside. At some point the police turned to violence and ended up punching a bunch of people. One guy we met still had a black eye. I was really surprised to hear that the police here result to violence so easily but people told us many stories that demonstrated this was not a freak occurrence.

R had already started reading about leftist political history in Berlin, specifically with the book "Wie Alles Anfing/How is All Began: The Personal Account of a West German Urban Guerilla" by Bommi Baumann, who was involved in various groups active in the 70's, but ultimately found the whole movement to be problematic (I am still reading it). We also have watched a few documentaries, including one on the Red Army Faction (RAF), the most infamous of 'urban guerillas'. In the US we also have activists histories (we all know the hippies-turned -yippies- turned-yuppies), but even the Weather Underground actions pale in comparison to the actions pulled off by these German groups, from arson and countless bank robberies to kidnapping and murder. However, while the US groups were also spurred by cases of unprovoked police brutality, with the German groups it became a full on street war between the police and the state (who were still dealing with their Nazi backgrounds, sometimes literally) and activists (who became labeled terrorists) which lasted over a decade. Apparently some form of the RAF existed up until 1998, which sheds some light on the fact that both police brutality and leftist political actions are still prominent in Germany today. Their tension still exists.

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This is my last week of German classes but I decided to take today off, sleep in, and work on some of my own work at home. R woke up a little sick so I decided to make a big pot of chicken soup today. I have been getting into, and better at, making all kinds of soup.


Here is the stock starting to cook up.


Here is the final result, after about 4 or 5 hours of yummy stewing. We ate this up with some fresh German Dinkelbrot and butter. mmm...I going to go eat some leftovers right now.

If last week saw a psychologist...

...it would be diagnosed bi-polar.



As some of you may recall I made a comment on Jan 13th about making decisions you may regret. At the time I was referring to renting a room in an apartment with some younger Germans as a studio. Well, I do not believe in regrets. All of the good decisions and bad decisions have gotten me here, and I hope to continue making both but they aren't always fun.

This past week things started to really fall apart at the studio building. An American friend of mine and I decided to contact the landlord ourselves and sign on to a new (month-to-month) lease for the apartment solidifying both of our studio spaces. Through this process we learned that the German tenants on the old lease had been pocketing the rent that we were paying, the landlord had not received the rent for February to begin our new lease (nor any of the last 4 months rent). Surprise. We were left with no option but to confront the squatting tenants. We asked them for proof of their bank statements and they strung together excuses for a few days but by Wednesday it was clear they had not paid and we had to threaten them to pay up or GET OUT. After agreeing to pay up they snuck out in the middle of the night and we were left to clean up their aftermath. Now we are cleaning up the apartment to court a new roommate and trying to negotiate with the landlord about the missing rent and the 3 months rent standard deposit!!! If it all works out I'll have a separate studio all my own in Berlin, if not, well, more to come...

S and I are also trying to apply for a Creative Capital grant for an upcoming collaborative project, requiring us to come up with a project time-line for the next two years. In the mean time we still were waiting to attend our 4th visa appointment to find out if we could even stay in the country after next week when our 3 month visitation period ends.



A brief history of the our visa application in Berlin, first, we wait in line for 3 hours only to be turned away inside (too many applicants that day), second, we apply as students after waiting for 5 hours (sit in waiting room, go down hall to assigned door when # called), third, we bring papers to prove our student status which were unsatisfactory and realize that we should have applied as artists requiring a new meeting, fourth, we bring copies of our BA and MFA diplomas to prove our status as professionally trained artists. Something clicked for us in the bureaucracy the fourth time. We received an officer that spoke English, they reviewed our file, asked for our documents and said 'OK'. We were granted our visas to do freelance work as artists in Berlin. I am not exactly sure what the scope of that definition is but if I tried hard enough I could do almost anything freelance as an artist. Politician, CEO, Revolutionary, Artist, you name it. It took us a while to come to this approach with the visa office because you would never walk into a visa office in the USA and ask for a visa as an artist and be taken with any credibility. You would inevitably be asked for other professional support, like a teaching position or photo journalist. As S said "an MFA degree is worth something after all, in Europe."



After we left the office I gave this ring to S, on a bridge over a canal, in Wedding. It is made out of concrete and steel, the materials buildings are made of.

Ritcher blows my mind...again.

The Sunday before last I was cleaning the house and while leaned over the bathtub turned some wrong way and pulled a muscle in my back. I laid down for a bit but went ahead and finished some things up that day. On Monday morning though my back hurt worse so I stayed home from class. I found this a bit frustrating since I have been fairly good about keeping up with my working out schedule...and that is suppose to help, not hinder your physical well being, right? Perhaps there is no connection with that but I can't imagine it not being a factor.

So, I took the rest of the week off from working out and spend most of the time I was home laying down in bed. This ultimately helped and I was mostly fine by the next weekend and pretty much totally recovered this week. I started back with exercising (carefully) on Sunday. All that laying around made lots of time for reading though, which was great because I had brought a small pile of books that needed cracked.

When planning our move to Germany, R and I allowed ourselves to bring 5 books each. We have many many books (they filled a large percentage of our moving trailer) and so deciding which books to bring was a hard and very significant decision. We knew that it would be the perfect time to tackle lengthy and difficult books but, also, we knew there were key books that are nice to have around for reference.

The five books (each) we picked were:
R: 'Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, and Autobiographical Writings' by Walter Benjamin, 'Utopia Deferred: Writings for Utopie (1967-1978)' by Jean Baudrillard, 'Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939' by Georges Bataille, 'Untitled [Experience of Place]' essays by various authors, and 'Donald Judd: Complete Writings 1959-1975'
mmm...I never realized before these are all collected writings.

S: 'The Portable Nietzsche' [can't move to Germany without it], 'The Order of Things: An Anthology of the Human Sciences' by Michel Foucault, 'Painting as Model' by Yve-Alain Bois, 'Phenomenology of Perception' by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and "The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque' by Gilles Deleuze.

So, last week I was able to break into a couple of these, mainly 'Painting as Model' and 'The Order of Things' which are both fantastic. I have also watched a lot of movies and documentaries over the last two weeks including 'Control', the movie about Ian Curtis of Joy Division, which was somewhat of a letdown, and 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" which was surprisingly good. 'Jesse James' was about James' late life and his murder by close companion and distant cousin, Robert Ford. Jesse James is played by Brad Pitt and most of the movies takes place near Kansas City and around Missouri so that was a nice combo and of personal interest. What was surprising perhaps was the really unconventional cinematography that reassembled both Daguerreotype style vignetting and art house abstraction along side an excellent performance by Casey Affleck. It wasn't the most amazing movie ever or anything but I think worth watching if you get the chance.



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Last Thursday we went to the Fashion Aginst AIDS concert with Chicks on Speed that R mentioned before. It was pretty fun but not as 'shocking' as they would have hoped I think. R observed that videos of them running around naked slapping each other on the ass was more endearing than anything else. Also, we spent part of the concert trying to stay out of the way of the two couples making out in front of us. At what one point it got kinda heavy and when I stepped back and I accidentally stepped on the persons foot behind me. When I turned around to apologize I discovered the people behind us were making out too...so somehow we ended up in the make-out corner of the dance floor.

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The weekend before last we had our normal brunch and tried to make it to the Neue National Gallery before it closed, but didn't make it. That made us decide to pick a separate day to go see art in the city, so we didn't have to rush our Saturday and we could start earlier. So, for now, that new art day is Friday.






We decide to go back to the Neue National Gallery on (last) Friday. It is by Potsdomer Platz which is pictured above. Potsdamer Platz is the epicenter of new German architecture in Berlin. It was the area first developed after the wall came down. If you look at the first pic you see a row of buildings...but on closer inspection (see second pic) you realize two of the buildings are not even real, but billboard facades. R read about this phenomenon on Slab-Mag, who coined the term Fakeytecture for it. His article shows pics from the back sides too.

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This time at Neue National we had plenty of time to look around and it was fantastic. Modern Art was such a politically charged and driven phenomenon that it is extremely insightful to compare the way collections are organized. For example, the real corner stone room at Neue National is the Bauhaus room. It seemed to say, this is where early Modern art became high Modern art. They also have a whole room dedicated to COBRA painting, which I never even had heard of before.



However, the painting that completely blew me away...in a way that I haven't experienced for many years, was the above painting by Gerard Richter. Maybe it is the narrow way he is talked about in US art academia, or the way he is curated in America, or my own real ignorance of his work...but before this painting I always thought of Richter as more of strict conceptualist who played off the tension of handmade-yet-photographic/mechanical in appearance against mechanically created-yet-handmade/expressionistic in appearance paintings. Here are two specific and exemplary examples:



Even his own website divides paintings into two sections: photographic and abstractions. This painting, the one I saw on Friday in the Neue National Gallery, was a (literally) giant clue that this was far from the entire story. There were a myriad of paintings that he made, especially during the early 80's, that defy this strict division...and have *gasp* almost expressive gestures.

On one level, this does completely change how I view all of Richter's work. I can now see him exploring the entire spectrum of painting in a much broader sense. This does make that specific conceptual tension a little less intense...but ultimately I don't think my opinion of his work has suffered...it has actually provided me with a lot of questions to figure out how to answer for myself.

Global Primaries

The American presidential primaries are big this year. How big? Global.

I am sure that most everyone is tired of hearing about the primaries but you cannot deny that you are thinking about them. This election is a moment that I have been waiting for for the last 8 years, most of my adult life.

S registered to vote in our home state of MO, but I missed the deadline the to vote in the primary election. Not to worry, just vote in Germany. Yes that is right, after the uncounted absentee ballots from overseas voters last election (except for votes from those in military service) the Democratic party has organized a Global Primary in conjunction with Democrats Abroad. You do not have to have party affiliation and Republican as well as Democratic candidates were on the same ballot. Eleven delegates will be awarded representationally to the candidates.

If you cannot make it home to vote this year you can vote from Tel Aviv, Jakarta, Rome, Copenhagen, Mexico City, Kiev, Bangkok, Stockholm, London, Sydney, Phnom Pehn, Athens, Hong Kong, New Delhi, Paris, Stuttgart, and many other locations. Including Max and Moritz Wirsthaus here in Berlin where I voted last Friday evening.

Alums in Exile

Granted that it is self-imposed exile, but as Super-Tuesday's presidential primaries begin to report the shifting mood in our 'Homeland' may begin to call us back. However, I do not know how much it will change the cost of living in the cities considered art centers across America.

We have met a large number of artists living in Berlin who also graduated from California College of the Arts. I can think of 6-10 other alumni currently living in Berlin, including R & S. During the summer several CCA faculty will be staying in Berlin, and we are expecting the month of May to be peak season for CCA visitors. With the concentration of alumni abroad we have considered asking the Almni Association for the funds to throw an overseas development dinner, or possibly a party for the month of May.


Glaspavillion

This is a photo of my studiomate ES, he has a degree in painting from CCA and has been living in Berlin for the past 7 months employed as an artist assistant and working on his studio work. For this occasion he was hired to prepare the wall at Glaspavillion in preparation for the Friday night presentation of Chicks on Speed. The night prior to this event Chicks on Speed will be playing at Club Maria as part of the H&M Fashion Against AIDS campaign. Tickets are only €5 and we hope to make it before it sells out.



ES and I have been navigating the Berlin landscape in the search for new studio spaces. We hope to keep the current space and may be taking over the lease to the entire apartment (thus exiling the current residents). Its location in the Neuköln panhandle has all of the features we need, cheap food, a park, a canal, with alot of street culture and multi-purpose store fronts. Last Friday another alumni was working the bar at one of these newly opened store fronts that has been turned into a weekend club with music stages in the front room and in the basement. It is run by a Norwegian couple who also run a print-making studio and have plastered the walls throughout the space with wallpaper of shapes repeated in positive and negative to form patterns (the pattern in the photo below is a christmas trees but is more reminiscent of Hazard warnings).


Pfluger Str 78