Feeling less than chipper today. I thought that the studio would be buzzing this week as they have an opening and summer party on Saturday, its like a morgue. It is difficult to get to know who the other artists in the studios are. I don’t like to disturb people because I know that they are here to work, not to entertain me. We all know what studio blocks are like, all closed doors buffering the sounds of industry within.
Having said that, the artists that I have met here are really friendly and they all speak good English, which helps. My German is not up to much, but I am trying to practice. This is not easy as everyone answers immediately in English.
On top of that it is raining!
It was raining on Saturday, but that did not stop Florian, a really old friend of mine here in Berlin, from giving me a tour of the beautiful parks and gardens of southern Berlin. I am sworn to secrecy about this, to prevent a tourist avalanche in this quarter, but I think that most people will be aware of Templehof, the former Airport. I will definitely go back there to do some filming, it is an incredible space.
I feel as if I am continually walking in gardens whilst here. Unusual you might think for such a big city, but Berlin is blessed with a great deal of open space. This varies from traditional formal gardens like those at Charlottenburg, to very informal, like Mauer Park, which is barely more than a strip of untamed ground. Then there are the new formal gardens being created from the carnage of the 20th century.
On Friday I spent the morning photographing the amazing landscaping that has taken place where the Mauer (wall) ran along Bernauer Str. Very close to the studio. It is like a Richard Sera sculpture park, making a three dimensional map of history. A subtle and beautiful sculptural statement containing a moving narrative.
I also visited the Hamburger Bahnhof, the National Gallery of Contemporary Art, they have extended the museum into a huge corridor like exhibition space to the rear of the main museum. The exhibition there, Archetektonika 2 was extremely inspiring for me. Containing work by many of my favourite artists, all pertaining to architecture in some way, mainly sculptural and spatial work and some photography. It made me want to start working 3 dimensionally. Not easy, I keep wanting to go skip hunting, but then it rains and I don’t want a studio full of damp garbage.
Link to information about exhibition
http://www.smb.museum/smb/kalender/details.php?objID=36493&datum=05.04.2012+00:00
I have been doing a lot of drawing and am continuing to make water colours from the photographs of Mauer Park. Yesterday I took more photographs, in Charlottenburg Gardens. It was wonderful to spend time in the imagined landscape of the 18th and 19th century, where every turn in the path brings a picturesque vista. Very peaceful and meditative, very egalitarian now, unlike it’s elitist past. I started to see a connection between the hedges of the formal gardens there and the hedges that mark the passage of the wall through Mauer Park.
The last 3 days have been beautiful and sunny, Monday was incredibly hot. This gave me plenty of opportunity to get used to the bicycle that a friend has lent me, definitely the best way to explore the city, Berlin is very bike friendly. However it is an old fashioned “sit up and beg” sort and far too big for me. Well I guess the rain should keep me in the studio continuing to try and make some sense of all my explorations.
See the latest photos here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/16808392@N02/
