I leave Berlin tonight and there are so
many things I haven’t seen yet - I haven’t had my currywurst either! The picture above is a photograph that is in the bedroom of the apartment. I have
grown quite fond of it – beauty is everywhere.
I really wanted to see the Hamburger
Bahnof before I left. It is a museum for contemporary art in an old train station: worth the journey across town. The building itself has a divine symmetry and
the work inside is varied and engaging.
I think Andy Warhol’s enourmous sparkly
portrait of Joseph Beuys could be a pivotal work to illustrate the spirit of
the place. I am much impressed by Warhol after seeing the works here. I had
assumed that he owed his success to his audacity. But looking at these works I
see an artist who is challenged and connected and searching. There are not just
portraits here but the electric chair works, which seems to be a conversation
between himself and Rauchenberg (who also uses the blue chair in works of the same
year). There are also some painterly foundations for his screen prints.
I only had time then for a quick peek at
the small but hard-hitting Victor Man show at the Deutscher Bank KunstHall. It
gave me an insight into how contemporary painting can retain an exquisite
quality in terms of colour and handling and still sit comfortably in a
contemporary ‘conceptual’ setting by adopting sophisticated themes and innovative
lighting. The room was dark and the spotlights on the works were angled in such
a way (from directly above the works) that the light grazed the surface of the
paint. The paint glowed so intensely that it almost seemed to be a black light
and fluorescent paint… but I think it was simply the artist’s confident use of
colour and tone.
And now time to go back to the apartment and pack up. It is funny how your mind does this to you at the end of a trip... but I am ready to go home now. Auf Weidersehen Europe. I will be back soon.
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