Molecule Man at Treptower Park - foto Alexandr Vasilevsky - OTA-Berlin

Molecule Man at at Treptower Park – foto OTA-Berlin Aleksandr Vasilevsky

This Molecule Man statue was completed in 1997 for the new ‘Allianz’ Insurance Company headquarters in Berlin and stands in the Spree River beside the office building – the only high-rise within a kilometer.

The architect for the ‘Allianz’ building was Peter Schwegler, and while it is rather stolid, bland but classical in design, the corresponding sculpture serves as a visual lightening-rod and takes the viewers eyes off the building almost immediately. [See accompanying fotos]

It stands in the middle of the Spree River with many commercial riverboats plus river and canal tourist boats passing it every day – it sits about 300m from the ‘Bad-Schiff’.

This is how the artist Jonathan Borofsky describes this own work on his website;

My first Molecule Man sculptures were made in 1977 and 1978 in Los Angeles. Early molecule structures included a molecule chair, a ceramic molecule vase, a molecule figure and a model for a molecule building made from styrofoam balls. Originally, I was fascinated by this molecule idea because of the simple fact that even though we appear to be quite solid, we are in fact composed of a molecule structure which, in itself is mostly composed of water and air.

For me, this hundred-foot tall aluminum sculpture composed of three figures meeting in the center, not only refers to the lightness inside our own solid bodies, but also the figures joining in the center, refer to the molecules of all human beings coming together to create our existence.

[http://www.borofsky.com/index.php?album=moleculemanberlin]

Situated in the East Harbor section of the River Spree, the Badeschiff is a self-enclosed pool which floats in the river thus allowing people to swim in a in a heated, safe and sanitary environment beside the river – the Spree river is today still too polluted to allow for safe bathing.

The Badeschiff opened in the summer of 2004 as an art project organized by the Berliner ‘Stadtkunstprojekte’   of Berlin – a the pool itself was converted from the hull of a 32m long vessel and the idea behind the project was  to enliven city life along a long-neglected stretch of the Spree River.

It is open to the public daily from 8am to midnight – with an occasional disc- jockey to outside the pool entrance where there is also a bar.

For further info see:

http://www.arena-berlin.de/

Nearly everywhere you go in the café-lined streets of Berlin Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg and Kreuzberg to the tree-lined boulevards and parks, Grafitti seems to stream up from the sidewalk  to crawl up  buildings, in an elaborate and sometimes not so elaborate, almost cartoonish graphics – thick letters, photo-like commercial copy‘s and bold stencils all make up the varied forms of Grafitti artists in Berlin. 

‚OTA-Berlin Constituency Blog‘ continues to reprint ones we like and come across.

 Todays are from Kreuzberg and taken today.

 The very large ones on the side of a building are from  a vacant lot on the Schlesisches Strasse and the smaller ones are from various walls on Kopeniker Strasse.

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For other news on Berlin Grafitti -

http://www.ota-berlin.de/blog/berlin/2010/05/06/black-maze-building-berlin-at-rosa-luxemburg-suffers-it-first-flung-graffiti-attack/

Berlin  30-06-2010

The photographer Marianne Breslauer was born in Berlin in 1909 and took lessons in photography in Berlin from 1927 to 1929, where she became an admirer of the then well-known portrait photographer Frieda Riess and of the Hungarian André Kertész.

While she always saw herself more as a photographic reporter than anything else in 1929  she travelled to Paris, where she became a pupil of the contemporary artist ‘Man Ray’.

In 1930 she started work for the Ullstein publishing house, where and up until 1934 her photos were published in many leading German magazines of the times like; the Frankfurter Illustrierten, Der Querschnitt, Die Dame, Zürcher Illustrierten and Das Magazin.

The rise of Nazism in Germany, and the concomitant anti-Semitic practices then coming into play all over Germany meant that her employers needed her to publish her photos under a pseudonym, to hide the fact that she was Jewish – this she rightfully refused to do so.

In 1936 she immigrated to the Netherlands and in Amsterdam married the modern-art dealer Walter Feilchenfeld, who had also previously left Germany after seeing Nazis break up an auction of modern art.

 In 1939 the family fled to Switzerland and in Zurich where the couple eventually set up an art business specializing in French paintings and 19th-century art.

Her husband died in 1953 and then she herself took over the business, along with her son Walter -she died in Zollikon, near Zurich in February 2001.

Present exhibit  at the BERLIN’S MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, PHOTOGRAPHY AND ARCHITECTURE   combines the monographic display of the work of Marianne Breslauer with a 2nd section drawn from its own collection.

This consists of  about 60 works by ten female colleagues, among them Yva, Steffi Brandl, Lotte Jacobi and Marta Astfalck-Vietz.

Along with these women, some famous and others familiar only to proffessional photographers, who are better placed to understand the particular quality of Marianne Breslauer’s photography, but also parallels in the work of these other artists that are rooted in their specific historical period.

In addition, this provides another opportunity to illustrate the significant role these women played in the photography of the modern age.

For more information in both English and German -

http://www.berlinischegalerie.de/

Berlin   29-06-2010

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio - bild Wikipedia

A 400-year-old canvas which has been attributed to the Italian master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio  - an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610 – which was stolen nearly 2 years ago from a museum in Odessa, Ukraine and presumed lost has been discovered by German police.

A group of international of art thieves – and not very smart ones it seems – tried to sell the painting on in Berlin and were caught in an apparent sting operation.

The group of 3 Ukrainian nationals and a German, were arrested as they attempted to sell the painting in Berlin.

There has been some doubt about the provenance of this particular masterpiece which is known as ‘Judas’s Kiss’ – - the origins and ownership  have been cast in some doubt as certain art experts think it is just a copy of a similar painting at the National Gallery in Dublin.

Berlin 03-06-2010

 ‘ Tamtam 8  Gallery’  is the  only art gallery in Berlin dedicated exclusively to contemporary Taiwanese art,.

It has recently opened an exhibition of the works of  8 Taiwanese female artists that it hopes will give them greater exposure and advance their careers.

With this exhibition, the biggest since the gallery’s opening mid last year,  the works of Taiwanese artists based in London, Paris, Beijing and other cities around the world have been brought together under one roof.

Some of the artistic themes covered include lesbian love, the female body, identity and the nomadic state of mind.

Taiwan’s National Culture and Arts Foundation has offered financial support for the ongoing exhibition at the gallery, which was founded by a group of Taiwanese students studying in Germany to give Taiwanese artists more exposure.

Fu Ya-wen, one of the founders who is now studying at a visual arts college in Leipzig, said Taiwanese artists have few chances to showcase their works abroad.

“We hope the establishment of Tamtam 8 will offer them a platform to display their creations,” Fu explained.

Tamtam 8  Gallery’ 

Weichselstr.8
10247 Friedrichshain Berlin

Germany

For further information pls got directly to -

http://tamtam8taiwan.blogspot.com/

Tam Tam 8 Gallery Berlin

Berlin    14-04-2010

Bronze Statue in front of new OTA-Berlin Metzer Strasse

This is an example of some of the great public art, or stret art one can find everywhere in Berlin – some of it from the DDR time and some from the West German times – all of it intresting and most of it memorable.

This particular statuette of bronze is situated on the Metzer Boulevard infront of the new OTA-Berlin serviced apartments Spanish composers building which will open in the beginning of May.

More about this piece and the artist on further OTA-Berlin Constituency Blog articles.

Berlin artist Peter Lenk created the “mural” some months ago at the behest of the TAZ newspaper, as a “shot at the bow” so to speak and to mock the Bild, whose building is right across the street.

It is more specifically aimed at the Bild editor a Mr Kai Diekmann  – an unfortunate “parody rich” phallic last name in English were one wishing to go that route…. which we are not about to do here.

This all concerns a massive phallus attached to an image of Mr Diekmann which extends upward about 4 stories. His longer than life “member” features in the centre of a huge satirical mural on the outside wall of the TAZ newspaper building.

Bild has  probably more than 3 million daily readers [or look at the pictures at least] and offers its buyers the usual middle of the road-pabulum of sex, sport, crime and milk-toast right wing political reporting.

The nearest English-language equivalent could be the British “Sun”.

Its motto of being “independent” and “non-partisan” are prominently displayed below its logo . However, as with most newspapers who feel the urge to prominently advertise this particular fact - they are just the opposite.

TAZ [Tagezeitung] sells circa 65,000 papers a day and appeals mainly to leftwing and non-mainstream alternative life styles readers.  It has a history of posturing and doing anything to raise the ire of the conservative German establishment – most of whom live far outside of Berlin.

Four months ago, Taz hired Ms Ines Pohl, as its new editor. She has been hired to steer the paper back to its left-wing origins, and feels [rightfully] that the joke is now over and let’s move on to being a serious paper again.

She has now openly rejected the mural and wants it removed. However it seems it may be a hard sell to some of those in the paper who want “the penis to stay!”

Werner Herzog is perhaps the most mediocre, vacuous and tedious of modern German directors – not as cerebral and intellectual as his German contemporaries directors Rainer Werner Fassbaender and Volker Schlöndorff and not as popular and dynamic as Wim Wenders or Margaretha von Trotta.

In spite of his limited talents Werner Herzog has made more than 50 films in almost 50-years of movie making. His feature films inculde; Aguirre – The Wrath of God, Nosferatu the Vampyre, and Fitzcarraldo. Two of his films were entered in the Venice film festival of this year; Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans – with Nicolas Cage, and My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, with Willem Dafoe and Michael Shannon.

The Berlin film festival -in German known as the Berlinale – is considered in international film-makers importance just below Cannes and alongside Venice.  Scotish actress Tilda Swinton hosted last year’s Berlinale.

The Berlinale will run in 2010 from February 11^th til 21st.

Artists have provided works that show clear analogies between the Berlin Wall and the wall the Israelis have erected along the border with the occupied Palestinians and the wall the US has erected along the Mexican border.

This Berlin Wall anniversary remembrance is being organized by the Wende Museum, a private entity, in collaboration with the City of Los Angeles.

Included will be “The Wall Across Wilshire,” scheduled for the 8th November in which a 20m replica of the Berlin Wall will be re-constructed on a part of Wilshire Blvd. in front of the County Museum of Art at midnight.

This commemoration has put the former US president/actor and Hollywood resident Ronald Reagan’s famous slogan “Tear down this wall!” into historical perspective as a somewhat opportunistic rant – while the US government is complacent in the building of the Israeli wall and actually building the wall on the Mexican border.

On 6 November   BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN – Art of Socialist Realism will open at the Jeschke-Van Vliet in Berlin. This exhibition will display a collection of 300 classics of this genre.   It may very well be the beginning of a revival of interest in a form that up to now has often been dismissed by arrogant Western art critics as at best “well made kitsch”, and at its worst “political propaganda”. The truth lies elsewhere because much of these works are very moving and all are well painted.

These paintings represent an extraordinary cross-section of the everyday life of that time in the Soviet Union and conjure up the anxieties and emotionality of artists in an atmosphere of apparent calm and determination

From the web site of the the Gallery:

These works are primarily representations of labor in all areas of life [in agriculture, in industry, in schools, etc.] and additionally, landscapes, portraits and history paintings of epic scenes reaching from the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 up to works dealing with World War II. The paintings were created between the end of the 1930s and the 1980s in the U.S.S.R. and are part of a sizeable and unconventional private Italian collection, which consists of 600 works that have been collected over the years.

The purpose of the exhibition is to present this period in the absence of any political motive: Artists in the Soviet Union were civil servants and were therefore not permitted to sell or give away their works, because these were legally the property of the state, as the patron that had commissioned them. Every artist managed to create a space, in which to express his or her humanity and world-view, despite working for the state on official commissions. Because of this, those viewers who are willing to search carefully, will find interesting elements that can be drawn from various details in the works. Extraordinary discoveries were made in the course of restoration and conservation work. These discoveries offer sufficient evidence to prove the importance of this historical period and its art:

The canvases are made of crude materials: mostly burlap or pieces of canvas taken from military tents and sewn together. These materials were adapted for their new function by hand on the basis of traditional techniques.

Industrial products were not used to prime the majority of the canvases either instead, this was done by hand with crude materials such as cement powder from construction sites or boiled vegetable oil.

Even though they were executed according to precise instructions from the political leadership of the U.S.S.R., the artworks testify to humanity and individual experience to an extraordinary and exciting mixture of struggle, joy and sorrow. They were often carried out with an amazing mastery of technique: Special analyses have revealed that there are no preliminary drawings under the paint surface. This offers a clear proof of the talent of these artists, who maintained proper proportions and produced stylistically consistent works, even while working with a palette knife in a virtuoso painterly manner on gigantic paintings of up to 10 m². A large number of notes on the reverse sides of the canvases relate anecdotes about various talented artists, who had to work at other jobs in order to feed themselves and their families: an interesting and poetic trace and indication of lived history. (Excerpt from a written statement by the curators of the exhibition)

To view the paintings on the Internet:

http://www.kunstauktion-berlin.de/aktuelle_auktion.html