I’ve taken a small break from the blogging scene to finish off my dissertation but now I am back and have a few short posts that I’ve been saving up over the holidays.
Firstly I went to Berlin for a week at the end of March. It was a fantastic trip and very cultural, I didn’t go into any art galleries though! Instead I went on an underground art tour, a small group of us were taken around Berlin, away from the touristy parts and instead to the hidden gems of the art houses and street art pieces.
I’d never heard of an ‘art house’ before but as far as I understand it’s just a studio space shared amongst artists but sometimes they actually live there, I think it used to be that everyone lived in them back when times were much harder with the Berlin wall etc. Some of them were a little intimidating, very dark and oppressive with the walls, floor and celing graffitied with not an inch of blank space left. There was one that we went to that was a shop front with a make shift exhibition happening on one side of the room, a kitchen and seating area on the other and a ladder to blacony bedroom! The artist/gallery owner/curator just lived in the small space alongside the exhibitions of his and other’s work, it was not something I’ve ever come across before!
We saw a lot of street art and came to spot some regulars who had very distinct styles. It was also great to see some of the more famous pieces which were huge works on the sides of buildings. We were told about the history of the buildings and the art scene in Berlin which was fascinating, discovering the stories behind the places made the works so much more prominent, especially those in close proximity to the Berlin wall.
Maybe next time I go to Berlin I’ll get a chance to go to some of the galleries – there’s so much to see it’s impossible to fit all that art into just one week!
