One of the things I had to do before leaving Berlin was to get a haircut by the same stylist as the elegant blonde from Café Kakao, that specialist hot chocolate place. This was "Herr Hasel", Harald, on Kopenhagener Strasse, off Schonhauser Allee in Prenzlauer Berg, what a cool ambience. Chic, laid-back, friendly and run-down. Very Berlin. There were print-out city images blue-tacked to the walls, a white piano, commodious tobacco coloured settee, and a wonderfully understated relaxed feeling encompassing everyone from camp handsome guys to a young mother with her children. The haircut was exactly right. I felt very good afterwards.
An ex-Chelsea artist was having an exhibition at the Kollaboratif Galerie of a light-hearted measurement of the distance between London and Berlin. For example: how many yawns on the journey over, or pages of ‘War and Peace’ read if she had been reading it at say 9.6 pages an hour, the number of bridges a bird would cross as the crow flies. This was illustrated with a large Joseph Beuys type blackboard mathematical diagram, as well as photographs and maps. It was again typically Berlin, being supportive to artists, giving them a chance to exhibit. There are economic restraints but the opportunities foster bubbling creativity. Rents are comparatively so cheap that many artists set up their own galleries to show their work and those of their friends, like this one with such a friendly atmosphere.
