Berlin Residency Journal

For the last month I've been reading these early 20^th century, late 19^th century, big hitting German masters: Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke and now Friedrick Nietzche's ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra. There is a lot of music in them all-music mentioned or described, but also repetitions and symmetries. The writing stylistically expressed as dance. Striking too is the occurrence of supernatural incidents. There are séances and discussions of visions. The supernatural is accepted as present. I think it was much more widespread then now with computerised virtual reality taking the attention. Even my mother, said that she had been to a séance as a student in the late 30's in Paris. She said she saw ectoplasm coming out of a woman's ear. It was waxy and whitish, going out to a large formless shape before retreating back in. This said matter-of-factly, with detached humour, by my mother who was an intelligent scoffing sort of person. Colette the writer probably summed it up when she commented, "It doesn't matter whether you believe or not." What is intriguing is whether these phenomena are self-generated, coming from within oneself, or actually present.

Come to think of it, I used to live in Holman Hunt's last studio, on Melbury Road, where he finished the painting ‘The Scapegoat', amongst others, went blind and slowly mad, as did one of his models. That had a black atmosphere about it, which was gradually dispelled by my years of occupancy. In the nights there used to be quite a lot of scuffling and whispering noises that I more or less slept through, but sometimes would go and investigate the hallway when it was particularly loud. Nothing was ever to be seen. I did a painting, abstract of course, in violet, purple grey, about this, titling it ‘Whispers In The Night', and hung it on the wall alongside others of my works. Every night then, consistently, persistently, this one painting crashed down off the wall. After about a fortnight of this, I got spooked and painted over it with burnt sienna, yellow, cerulean blue, as well as painting out the whispering title on the back. The new title became Illusion of Knowledge. Well that painting never fell off the wall again. Curious and creepy, non? So one's thoughts mull over things.

Brian Eno recently had an exhibition of ‘One Million Paintings.' He wisely leaves them as light images on a screen or printouts. Painting is difficult and can't be done with the click of a wrist. What painting does is bring into being the subject matter, which is the reality of the materials and the process. "How did you do that?" Is the first thing one painter wants to know about another's art. Weight, density, texture, variations, viscosity, application, all generate the whole. So it isn't child's play really then. Another light bulb has blown. I should say the other light bulb has now blown. Which doesn't help the murkiness of lack of sunlight.

Fortunately for me the Landscape Architect and his friend the jazz singer are coming to the studio this evening and we will go out to dinner. That is what I need, exactly: intelligent witty company. At the Thai restaurant near here, my crispy duck with rice noodles was so delicious that I was afraid there might be wheat in it, but nope, not a single side effect, the noodles were rice not wheat, as they said. But it was the conversation that was so enjoyable. When I asked whether Jeff Koons ‘Puppy Dog,' that sculpture covered with greenery and pot plants, would have been done with a landscape architect or a horticulturist, the name Jeff Koons didn't ring a bell, but then the penny dropped, to use two idiomatic clichés one after the other, oh yes, he was the artist who proposed that for the Frankfurt City Square his sculpture of two giant dildos suspended from cranes should be used. What I still would like to know is how Koons in that early soccer ball piece, got the ball to be suspended in the glass show-case with no visible support. That is a great iconic work. But how was it done?

From there we sort of naturally slid into relationships and how little things can cause such irritation. Like one partner liking the heat down as low as possible at zero, and the other only happy when the heat is turned up to five, which is the highest. So is it war or one person being contented, the other miserable, or what about a compromise where neither has it where they would be naturally content? Tough call and I'm sure we've all had fights like this.

It is captivating to hear of all the intricacies of break-ups, and triangular relationships that happen in families. The drama of every life is incredible when one hears about it. Affairs, lies, secrets, uncontrollable passions, it is not only the British Royal Family who has them. We also talked about the differences between Germany and the UK, especially in manners. This was centred on a book by an Ethiopian writer who has written A History Of Manners, comparing the European manners structure in the respective societies. Did you know for example that the custom of greeting people by kissing originated from the Hapsburg Court which was such a small closed circle that one had to be born into; they were all related and so naturally kissed their family members

All that cerebral stimulation and affability zoomed up my energy level so that I worked in the studio until after four am when I got back.

Taking a break from the studio, I wandered along Danziger Strasse, at the U-Bahn station where it looks rough and run down with graffiti everywhere, glorious freedom after the wall came down, until I came across Dunckerstrasse with little shops of originality. The shop that sold nothing but chocolate probably was my favourite. Called ‘int't veld schokolade,' the owner who obviously loved chocolate, very thin he was too, took me around the shelves delicately pointing out the rarest of the rare, explaining and describing the various categories, eruditely like a botanist. I browsed, enthused and bought blocks of trinka chocolate on sticks to stir into hot milk, also white chocolate flavoured with liquorice, and chocolate with salt. Now that we avoid salt in everything else for healthy living, it has become a desired thrilling vice, like absinthe almost.

Not far away was a toyshop filled to overflowing with second-hand children's sleds, toys and books. Having been his toy shop when it was Eastern Berlin, the slight, dark haired, intense, again thin, proprietor, another huge enthusiast took me around and showed me how it was in those days. In the back was a narrow space, his living/ bed/ kitchen, now his tiny office, and next to this the little shop he had then with the old East Berlin toys set out, not for sale but as a museum of that time. The rest was a bursting labyrinth of library shelves of ‘almost new' books, toys and dolls all in good, clean condition and an enchanted atmosphere. Like a fairy tale, one could imagine the toys coming to life at night and telling their stories of where they have been. Curiously, with the exception of the handsome wooden sleds, a few velvety dark red foxes, and eccentric little wood figures, mostly these Eastern Berlin toys were badly made cheap plastic. But then things don't have to be beautiful to be imbued with sentimental emotion. In fact too beautiful rather precludes that. Like the scruffy, teddy bears, we all had, the things we were allowed to play with, not the special ones. I still remember how upsetting it was the day my mother decided mine simply could not continue in that filthy state, so she laundered it vigorously and that finished poor teddy off.

A bit further along Chlorinerstrasse, there was another extraordinary shop, this one of heimat goods. Heimat is one of those untranslatable German words; it means something like ‘where the heart feels at home', ‘where one is safe'. There were hand-stitched dresses with pockets, table runners with cut out and sewn decorations, aprons and head kerchiefs. Actually two woman were sitting right there sewing up these delightful, homey items. To me this was amazing as it was all within a very few streets of the main ex-squats and communes of Kastanienallee, the hippest part of Berlin.

In the morning of a quiet day we visited the Kapelle der Versohnung (Reconciliation), and the Mauer Wall Documentation Centre where the tragic past is all still so vividly present. Lunch at a Swabian restaurant, Schwarzwaldstuben, on Tucholskystrasse with a most pleasant ambience and hearty authentic food. No we didn't have deer, the ironic painting of a little bambi over my head was the closest I came to hearty hunting ‘n shooting but the friendly staff brought large plates of cured and roasted pork, potatoes and salad, that from the neighbouring table, the dark brown greyhound/ Irish Setter Cross fixed with a most steadfast alertness from his "Stay" position below table top height. Well such delights were all too brief and the Architect departed again. Back to the Salt Mines.

At last a day at the magnificent Pergamon Museum with its priceless treasures brought back wholesale. Enormous structures in their entirety have been transported and reassembled here. The vastness gives an unmistakeable high. Here is the Pergamon Altar, the Ischtar Gates from Babylon, rooms that literally take one's breath away, as well as the elegant simplicity of single eternal objects imbued with the mystery of their great age.

From this weighty classical antiquity to blatant commercialism with a bump, only stopping for a Berlin sausage on the way, at Deponie. The Daimler Chrysler Contemporary Museum was our goal but difficult to find it certainly was. At Potsdamer Platz there are signs to the Daimler Chrysler Quartier, a gigantic Mall, arcade of shops and offices extending to the sky, but in this bustle no one had heard of its eponymous Contemporary Art Museum. After much searching and enquiring we were directed outside to a doorway. The High-Rise Mall and office skyscraper had been built around the original building, leaving a doorway, on the frontage. A takeaway eating place has put obscuring advertising in front of it. Ringing a bell the door opens and a lift takes one up to the fourth floor to the Contemporary Museum. Talk about discreet, this seemed like obfuscation to the point of sadism. Well next time you'll know, and aren't you supposed to suffer for art? But of course really, it is the materialist imperative, they want the kudos and tax breaks of Contemporary Art but know the value of expensive retail square footage at the forefront. What's new? On display was Contemporary Indian art from a Paper Manufacturer Corporate Collection in New Delhi. Photographs of a eunuch's position in society were fascinating; ethnographically, interesting with the ramifications of being invited as good luck to be present at weddings and celebrations but not truly part of society. A massive figurative polychromatic sculpture of a woman's head almost as a Deity stood out amongst versions of the sort of work being done elsewhere tweaked to reflect India.