photos: Anna Agliardi
Have you ever imagined taking hallucinogenic drugs before going to watch a theater play? In the new piece Jessica an Incarnation by Volksbühne Berlin you can have the experience of playing a video game of the world on LSD without taking any. Worth it? Depends on your stamina.
artwork: Jakob Kudsk Steensen.
Berghain as we know it has been closed for over a year now. But the corona-imposed lockdown restrictions have transformed it into an occasional art gallery, much to the chagrin of some local hipsters. This summer, Berghain will yet again open its doors to art lovers and anyone who’s always wanted to see the halls of the famous club but never made it inside.
Piotr Nathan, The Rituals of Disappearance, Berghain, Berlin (2004), photo: © Christine Frenzl
A visual memory can be triggered over and over again by art and architecture. Therefore it is like saying goodbye to one part of your own history when a building or an artwork has to leave its original place. This morning the news spread out that the artwork by Piotr Nathan which is presented in the entrance hall of Berghain will be sold piece by piece on this website.
First I was kind of sad, about the fact that I will not see the entire artwork in the original form again. I remember seeing it over 10 years ago for the first time and being impressed by the fine lines creating the landscape and storms. The artwork is like a mysterious representation of a natural phenomena. Nature that was regarded as divinity in indigenous times and that loved and feared by the little humans at the same time.
The Rituals of Disappearance (2004) have nowadays such a cult-status that it probably won’t last long until its completely sold out (in fact only an hour after its release only a few blank plates were left to buy). The artist prefers to sell it in fragments to the people who have experienced and loved the club, and wants those who danced near the mural to have a part of it. The lasting impression of the complete work should exist only in the minds of those who experienced it at the club. A memory to keep up in mind and cherish for its beauty and brutality at the same time.
And since life ist fortunately not just about old memories let’s be excited about the new dance floor and what artworks will be presented there…
© Christo, Photo: Wolfgang Volz
Christo’s Wrapped Reichstag was the first piece of contemporary art that I remember encountering as a child. The image of the building wrapped in silver textile has stayed in my head since then. But what’s impressive is that I didn’t see the installation happening live. Instead I remember seeing it on a picture on a wall of an Italian restaurant in Berlin. A place we casually went to with my parents as we visited the city. The photography was even signed by the artist himself. My parents took notice of it and told me the whole story.
Last summer Christo created Floating Piers in northern Italy. It was the first piece of his art I saw going viral in social media. Maybe the dynamic of communications has changed dramatically over the years, but I guess that Christo still is one of the few artists that can create such a large scale impact in our daily communication and visuality.
I am kind of sad because I probably won’t ever see a piece of his art happening in Berlin again, since his artworks are always unique and temporary. But what we can do to enjoy more of his art is taking a deeper look into the process of creation by checking out the books about his the art published by Taschen.
Below you will find some more impressions of the book called Wrapped about the Reichstag wrapping.
photo: Studio Various & Gould
Unfortunately, not a day goes by without coming across a number of new articles, comments and memes about Trump. Quite rightly the shock about the new president and the new congress is still great. Thus, not only celebrities and big firms speak openly against the attacks on human dignity. At the Women’s March on Washington on January 21st 2017, thousands of people protested on the streets for the protection of women’s and human rights. Not only in Washington, but also worldwide in various cities and countries millions of people expressed their outrage about current politics, but moreover their readiness to protect each other. Read on…
photos: Anna Agliardi
Last night I was honored to be part of an evening of celebration, surprises, glamor and a bit of nostalgia. My favorite off-theater in town, the Sophiensaele, celebrated their 20th anniversary. I can’t believe so many years have passed already since the theater located in a former ballroom near Hackerscher Markt was founded by contemporary dance choreographer Sasha Waltz and the theater makers Jochen Sandig, Jo Fabian and Dirk Cieslak.
The festivities were accompanied by the Berlin premiere of The Greatest Show on Earth by Anna Wagner and Eike Wittrock. This particular show is a celebration of dance and performance art in a circus-like setting. 14 artists show in different ways the challenges facing humans in the 21st century and combine the risks of body art with the spectacle of physical performance.
I was absolutely stunned and surprised by a freaky show between Zombie Apocalypse, Cat Content and Shit-Musical. Every performer had a unique style to communicate with the audience. Some were engaging and entertaining others were disturbing and obscene like the zombie artistics by Vincent Riebeek and Florentine Holzinger. What all had in common was authentic passion for their showpiece. The whole show was supported by the amazing music of the Neo-Dadaist 2-person “thing”-orchestra Les Trucs which certainly ranked as the evening’s favorite between the audience, right after the cat.
Photographer Anna Agliardi took some great impressions of the show, which you can discover with the dates right after the jump.
What the fuck is this thing called capitalism? And why it is actually messing up all our lives instead of making them better? As simple as these questions seem at first, as complex are their answers. To take a look at one aspect that is going completely wrong with capitalism let’s reflect one moment about the Berlin start-up bubble.
Our beloved Berlin is a fertile ground for start-ups of all kinds. Low rents and many smart international people as potential employees are great resources to start your company. With the right investors, you can literally create any kind of business in this town. But as genius some start-up concepts can be, as stupid and absolutely useless to humanity the others are.
With their new theater game Monypolo the collective Prinzip Gonzo is reflecting about all the absurd aspects of hyper-capitalism and über-entrepreneurialism. With 60 other players you create a fictional career and play for success inside an abandoned supermarket at Kudamm. Between luxury boutiques and high street brands you enter a desolate mall to find a giant playground for adults waiting for you to be explored. More about our experience, the dates and some photos of the exciting game after the jump.
It does not take a lot of imagination to think of Berlin as a giant playground. In times of Pokemon Go and other augmented reality games, the street-running movement and immersive theater experiences, everything – and everybody – seems ready to play.
But I don’t think that the origin of Berlin playfulness is based on technology, fitness or even cultural trends. I remember vividly how years ago I met on a subway ride a young dude that outed himself as a philosophy professor. (The combination of young dude and philosophy professor was a surprise at that time. Nowadays I am not as easily surprised ;-)) He told me that he is part of a creative project called invisible playground. In this project, he told me they tried to research and examine how a daily portion of playfulness can affect your overall happiness.
But invisible playground is not the only creative project celebrating the idea of a playful city. The Berlin-based artist duo 44Flavours have already left their footmark in the local creative scene. Experimenting with all kind of art forms, from murals to posters, and painting to sculpture, the two friends Sebastian Bagge and Julio Rölle, have worked together since they were students. Their success formula is a vibrant combination of teamwork and creative chaos. For the #LiveThere exhibition by Airbnb they created an interactive playground where you can tell your personal Berlin story. There you can listen to murmuring teapots, talk to enchanted mirrors and have fun with all kinds of everyday objects transformed into a creative installation. The idea behind this project is to share different stories about Berlin and to emphasize how with a spark of creative inventiveness and playfulness every trip to Berlin can become a one of a kind experience.
Inspired by that idea, I thought of how we could be more active in experiencing our city as a playful place. I started thinking about the rules and I realized that the games you decide to play on your personal urban playground don’t have to follow any rules or even the norms of standard morality. Between lust and pain is the instinct to play. Therefore I dove deeply into my own imagination and created a set of Berlin-specific mind games. Follow my colorful, funny but sometimes also sensual and dark inspirations to transform your everyday life in Berlin into a crazy game-like experience.
My Gallery Weekend started with an artistic installation that actually has nothing to do with the official Gallery Weekend (but has some good chances to become my favorite installation anyways). In celebration of its 20th anniversary, German record label raster-noton presents a ‘white circle’, an acoustic-architectural space designed as an audiovisual installation inside the hall of Berghain. On this occasion four of the label’s musician were invited to develop and contribute an exclusive composition: Alva Noto, Byetone, Frank Bretschneider, and Kangding Ray.
The four pieces are all very different but play with the full spectrum of light and darkness in visuals and sound. I was really impressed by the intense atmosphere this installation created. Suddenly I felt transported to a foreign galaxy where an Egyptian god of techno is ruling the world. Don’t miss to visit this place over the weekend. After the jump I created a couple of animated GIFs to give you an impression of the art piece, but of course without the sound it’s only half the experience.
photos: AnaHell
Can a city have imaginary secret friends? Maybe not every city, but Berlin is different in my opinion. Our dear Berlin gets run over by so many kooky inhabitants – why shouldn’t it have some nice imaginary friends to cope with all the mess going on? At least that was the idea of multimedia artist and photographer AnaHell when she came to our beloved city. In her childhood she invented weird but lovely friends to spend her time with and play. Imaginary creatures with little secret stories to live all kind of adventures with. Fortunately for us, AnaHell did not forget about her childhood fantasy and recreated it with the photo series Secret Friends, a playful narration of this story. Documenting a parallel reality of bent-over humans, which form a new creature that share our world but cannot be seen by us ordinary humans. With the Berlin series of Secret Friends she wants to show different aspects of life in a our city, from the clichés to real people in their homes doing what they normally do.
I am totally in love with the concept and the realization of this playful idea. I guess we should all search once in a while after our imaginary secret friends from our childhood. Maybe they are just sitting next to you in the U-Bahn or waiting in line with you at Berghain. What I want to say is that we should be open for the wonder and for the surprise that can come by reactivating our childhood fantasy. Berlin especially is a place that rewards this kind of openness with a charming magic, you won’t find anywhere else. More Secret Friends by AnaHell after the jump. Read on…