16/02/2007 Another day at the Berlinale film festival. "Bad Faith," a French film, was concerned with a Jewish French woman becoming pregnant with her Moroccan Muslim lover and the strains on the relationship that come from that make her decide to have an abortion. Charming and beautifully shot, with lovely bed-linen I noticed, is it just me but these issues that are so vital and contemporary relevant for us today, especially one notes the Muslim mother is portrayed as less prejudiced than the Jewish French bourgeois, but aren't they the very same issues that we heard all about as children? I remember, don't you, the discussions, films, delicate warnings of unhappiness to follow, short stories, ( Puccini's' "Madame Butterfly"), dealing with examples of English/Japanese, German/French war brides, Jewish/Goy, Roman Catholic/Atheist, Baptist/Hindu, Black/White, Chinese/ Indian and so forth. Do things never progress? What about male/female marriages don't they cause a lot of woe? Oh yes that's what all the other films are about. I guess it must be so: there are as the man said, who? Was it Shakespeare? There are only five plots in literature and films, so dumbo don't be a superior know it all. It is how the thing is done that matters not the subject matter. Strange isn't it? In films and Biennales as in art.
This evening we went to a Turkish restaurant at the Hackescher Höfe that looked wonderful on entering but became more touristy exotic on second glance. Never mind it was not bad and was remarkably inexpensive, so the very long wait between courses was just a grit your teeth thing but we were all longing to leave and go home to our snug beds by the end. Coming out at last from the Hasir, the prostitutes were out in force standing at regular intervals along the Hackescher Markt, with pastel coloured umbrellas like parasols shielding them from the snow. They all were trussed up immaculately wearing high white boots, tiny white skirts, white zippered jackets, thick tan foundation make-up, and pale whitish lipstick. They were too flawlessly turned out, stood too solidly in their place, stared just past one without eye contact, their hair too perfect to be ordinary people just there by chance. It looked like performance. What was striking was that they all wore similar spotless white outfits under their pink or turquoise umbrellas.
Thanks to friends of friends who are connected to the Berlinale, (the Berlin Film Festival), I got to spend a couple of days being let into films that otherwise I might never have had a chance to see. It's fun all that hustle and bustle, red carpets galore and the pushing and shoving to get into the most hotly tipped screenings. There are a lot of films dealing with serious issues of childhood in harsh circumstances, Jewish Russians in Israel, in "Love and Dance", Hitler in "Mein Führer", the concentration camps in "The Counterfeiters". In fact, aside from the run of Andy Warhol related films, and the semi-pornographic, of which more in a minute, there seemed a lot of films about Jewish ness and the Holocaust. Is that because it was held here in Berlin or is the Zeitgeist settled on this at the moment? Oh yes semi-pornographic. There was a film called "Fucking Different New York" which I imagined to be an amusing film about New York. No. It wasn't adjectival but descriptive, what was on the label was the content, i.e. thirteen separate episodes of gay and lezzy fucking combos as documentary, rather sad, exploitative, quite sordid, as art, as wild porno, as comic strip humour and one of narrative. This one was based on a quote from Marilyn Monroe's autobiography where she said that once she had had sex with Joan Crawford and that afterwards Joan Crawford had wanted repeats, but when Marilyn refused, Joan had got spiteful. So it begins with a typewriter with the Arthur Miller writing the story of what transpired. Marilyn being fragile posing for photographers while "The Misfits" is being filmed. Joan Crawford turning up, Arthur Miller looking through the keyhole. Fantasy lezzy sex. Joan driving off. Marilyn posing fanning herself to cool down. The End. So kinda cute, but on the whole not very enlightening. The Marilyn Monroe look-alike was more successful than the Joan Crawford look-alike.
Keeping up the glamour, apart from the actual film, (above), we dinnered afterwards around the corner from the Sony Centre at the Ritz Hotel in their Brasserie Desbrosses which is mightily stylish with wonderful atmosphere and cooking. Since I had to go through the rigmarole of no wheat, no flour and so on they let me know what I could eat and what they could adapt from the menu as most places do now – so "Sex and the City" isn't it? – Fish soup in a tureen, no croutons, calves liver, no Berliner gravy sauce, mashed potatoes. But then they, on their own, brought a basket of gluten-free bread to the table for me. How excellent is that? At the end of the meal they wrapped up the remaining bread so I could take it home, (and toast it for a breakfast). Beyond a dream.
Berlin is a safe city at least this part of it: Mitte North, Prenzlauer Berg, which is what I'm judging it by. Full of young people, everyone on bicycles, or using the trams and U-Bahns that run around the clock, it feels very comfortable to be going home late at night surrounded by these people out too. Evidently there is very little mugging and one isn't hassled at all. People are correct and keep to themselves naturally. That makes life so much easier; I don't mind walking back at midnight from the internet cafe or taking a tram, there are always lots of other people waiting too.
Once again fey freckled friendly Manfred has come bringing light. One of the bulbs in the studio was kaput and since the ceiling is fifteen feet high there was no way I could change it. Not a problem, in he came with a tall stepladder and cheerfully fixed the light. Nothing really is a problem here as I have found there is always a way round. Checking out the local art shop, they say they can do the canvases for me in only a week, and besides that, I could carry them back to the Milchhof with some help and so save on transport charges. Manfred and I have had a discussion that may well work out, in that when I leave I could take the canvases off, rolling them up to take to London and then Manfred can re-use the stretchers. Of course I have to do them first, but that would be a practical solution. Unless they turn out not to be able to be rolled up which is always a possibility, fortunately acrylic mediums are amenable.
Keeping up my newly renewed socialising, I met up with two other friends of a friend, this time writers from New York. They were rather surprised that they had to enter my studio crouching down through the dungeon-like basement so as not to hit their heads on the pipes and emerging covered in plaster dust, but were sportingly witty about it. If I now tell you that one of these New Yorkers is certified blind, you will realise how urbane that is. They took me out for a great German lunch, food piled up and marvellously fast and amusing New York chat. Having been an artist hermit for a month, more or less, in the studio, it made me elated to be with them and gave me so much energy to do my work. Maybe it is because of the groundwork put in, but now I feel on solid ground with what I'm doing. And it does somehow come out of all that I've been experiencing here. The one thing that was a bit of a shock was when I went to Boesner's today, the big art shop, they said it would be at least a month before I could have the stretched canvases of the large size I want. That has to be got around somehow.
Talking of flea markets, I went back to see if the perfect white bowl was still there, and it was, but before putting down my thirty euros, I wandered around the market and there in the centre, a woman, bundled up in a big brown coat, scarf round her head against the biting wind, eating a sandwich, had all sorts of bowls, including a plain white bowl of the same sort of size. Asking her how much it was, I asked her several times because she kept saying eine, I thought to the woman next to me rummaging through the stuff. Finally she held up her thumb, "eine" to me. One euro, I couldn't believe it but quickly gave her a euro for the bowl, which she even wrapped up. Not perfect like the other one, not original thirties plain roundness, but perfectly good. The way using perfect as a modifier shows its' imperfection. In fact I like its' utility plainness. Tableware instead of china, but fine. On the stall I also spied a blue and yellow fluted glass bowl that had been hand-painted by someone, and pressing my luck I tentatively asked about the price. That she breezily said I could have for half a euro. Having gone there with the intention of buying one bowl for thirty euros, I came away with two bowls for one euro fifty. Not the perfect one but great. How satisfactory. Going back, I passed the writer D.B.C. Pierre and we said Hi. Well he looked bemused, (as he's familiar to me from television and his books), but friendly. In my elated mood I then spent another euro on some daffodil stalks and went home whistling I'd like to say, as it would convey my mood, unfortunately I have never been able to whistle, but you know what I mean.
