Bongorama Berlin City Guide

The Single Room Hotel (**)

2008-10-26T07:13:00.003+01:00

The single room hotel is an independent space of 32 sq. m located on a large undefined area right in the city centre of Berlin. This habitable module is set up according to the standards of a 2-star hotel room. It offers a modestly lavish and cozy interior including electricity, heat, and hot water with electricity and running water.

Hidden in its urban setting, this hotel’s specific nature is in its creation and production process. The publicity signage - the activating element of involvement - allows the artist to create camouflage strategies applied to the habitat, while developing the economic potential necessary for supporting the project. The visitor, by renting and occupying this room for one or more nights, activates the work while fully enjoying the facilities of this hotel.

The single room hotel is centrally and uniquely located on the grounds of Skulpturenpark in Berlin-Mitte. For the sophisticated traveler and everyday adventurer, it is within walking distance of nearly all of Berlin's most significant tourist attractions. The hotel will be open from November until March.

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INSIDE OUT Group show @ Mikael Andersen Berlin

2008-10-25T17:43:00.002+02:00

TJORG DOUGLAS BEER, JESPER CHRISTIANSEN, KRISTIAN DEVANTIER, LEONARD FORSLUND, GÜNTHER FÖRG, ANDREAS GOLDER, DAN GRAHAM, SHARA HUGHES, ESKE KATH, ASTRID KRUSE JENSEN, MOSHEKWA LANGA, MUSTAFA MALUKA, CLAUDETTE SCHREUDERS, LUCY TEASDALE, ELISABETH TOUBRO, LARS TYGESEN, KATHRINE ÆRTEBJERG

INSIDE OUT, Group show, 01 NOVEMBER - 19 DECEMBER 2008

How do artists of different generations and nationalities process outside influences and inner experience? What significance do 'images' of culture and nature have on their work? INSIDE OUT presents new works by Tjorg Douglas Beer, Jesper Christiansen, Kristian Devantier, Leonard Forslund, Günther Förg, Andreas Golder, Dan Graham, Shara Hughes, Eske Kath, Astrid Kruse Jensen, Moshekwa Langa, Mustafa Maluka, Claudette Schreuders, Lucy Teasdale, Elisabeth Toubro, Lars Tygesen and Kathrine Ærtebjerg that explore these questions. The works in the exhibition examine the correlation between interior and exterior and the interrelation between the terms nature and culture. The artists take different conceptual or narrative approaches in various media, photography, installation, painting and sculpture.

In his work, Jesper Christiansen links personal reminiscence with cultural memory. The starting points for him are special places, maps, floor plans, that he transforms and restructures on the canvas through his own memory. Whereas Tjorg Douglas Beer questions cultural identities in his installation works, Mustafa Maluka’s work cites these with references to popular culture in a large-format portrait. In her photographs, Astrid Kruse Jensen creates scenes that cross between reality and fiction. Nature is presented as a reflection of subjective perception. Eske Kath’s works depict the frailness of our 'cultivated' nature by referring to natural catastrophes and consumption of natural resources. In an imaginary parallel universe, the works of Kathrine Ærtebjerg merge the fantastic with the spiritual.

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Preview Berlin

2008-10-25T17:22:00.003+02:00

This year, a former hangar at Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport will again be transformed into the buzzing exhibition site of Berlin’s youngest and most successful satellite art fair. Fifty seven national as well as international galleries and project spaces present works from a new generation of emerging artists. This is the place where collectors, specialists and art lovers will meet to experience the art of tomorrow. Preview Berlin works as a non-profit organisation and our fourth year is no exception. We are an art fair organised by galleries for galleries.

Preview Berlin additionally offers various curated presentation formats, including the successful Video Art Program and the new Performance Art Day and Blue Room Series.

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Jack Johnson + G. Love & Special Sauce

2008-07-15T15:11:00.000+02:00

Radiohead

2008-07-08T15:14:00.000+02:00

Sexy Back

2008-05-14T06:40:00.000+02:00

Left: Collector Axel Haubrock with dealer and Gallery Weekend manager Michael Neff. Right: Curator Daniela Palazzoli, Isabella Bortolozzi, and artist Danh Vo. (All photos: Saskia Draxler)

Berlin’s mayor, Klaus Wowereit, has described his city as “poor but sexy.” Cheap, safe, and social, Berlin offers haven to all kinds of creative freelancers. Although it may be laid-back, however, it is not particularly cosmopolitan. Thus the annual Berlin Gallery Weekend, initiated in 2005 by a number of established Berlin galleries as an attempt to glamorize and internationalize the local art world, has in the past seemed more hopeful than realistic.

This year’s edition opened last Thursday with a VIP tour of the private homes of select dealers. Collectors and journalists were driven through Berlin’s thin traffic in black Audi limousines. What we saw, basically, was a variety of interior-decorating styles. Guido Baudach’s place, for example, had a vintage, flea-market look, while Markus Lüttgen and Thomas Flessenkemper’s apartment high up in one of the Soviet-style towers at Straussberger Platz—where a new showroom for Axel and Barbara Haubrock’s collection and the new Texte Zur Kunst office have recently opened—had a slicker aesthetic. The latter’s interiors were designed by architect Etienne Descloux, who has been hired by many dealers (to design both their homes and galleries), including Giti Nourbakhsch, Isabella Bortolozzi, and Jörg Johnen. Lüttgen pointed out his living-room window to the opposite tower, where David Adjaye is renovating collectors Gaby and Wilhelm Schürmann’s apartment and where Adamski Gallery is located. Straussberger Platz, it seems, is shaping up as something of a hot spot. Many of the hosts seemed a bit reserved (some might say “German”), except for Baudach, whose house has a natural openness and has probably seen many jovial get-togethers.

In the evening, the caravan moved on to the new five-star Hotel de Rome for Gallery Weekend’s opening reception, sponsored by Axa Art. The atmosphere was professional yet stylish. Lively conversations went on between collectors—among them the Haubrocks, Kasia and Pawel Prokesz, and August von Joest—and dealers. “Independent collectors” were also present, an Internet-based organization formed by Wilhelm Schürmann and others who think that not only artists but also collectors have to group together to strengthen their position vis-à-vis the multiheaded monster called the art market.

Left: Artist Carroll Dunham. Right: Collectors Kasia and Pawel Prokesz with dealer Giti Nourbakhsch.

Many of us reconvened at 1 PM the next day for a Felliniesque event: the laying of the cornerstone for an avant-garde condo building at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, designed by architect Roger Bundschuh in cooperation with artist Cosima von Bonin, that will be inhabited mostly by art-world players like Munich collector Peter Wiese and Chinese artist Zhao Gang. Sunglasses were needed, perhaps because, in the bright sunlight, the guests’ morning-after faces looked just a bit too real.

Some of the openings that night were sparsely attended, leading us to wonder whether the whole event was a bit overambitious, given the actual size of the local audience. Bortolozzi had her hip, youngish crowd, while the “serious” people went to David Claerbout’s brilliant show at Galerie Johnen. Carlier Gebauer was exhibiting many Erik Schmidt paintings in their giant new gallery in Markgrafenstrasse. It seemed, however, to be just a regular night of openings—except, of course, for the black limos. Eigen + Art, which was opening a Carsten Nicolai exhibition, was full as usual, as was Contemporary Fine Arts, exhibiting work by Tal R. Both galleries held their dinners, which were somewhat rowdy affairs, at Clärchens Ballhaus, an old GDR dancehall that has been turned into a kind of touristy pizza place. Everybody was there: Gerd Harry Lybke’s male artists (Martin Eder, Jörg Herold, et al.) made a powerful impression, while August von Joest told anecdotes about his first Neo Rauch purchases and about the neighborhood complaints regarding the penthouse swimming pool he shares with Corinna Hoffman.

Left: Artist Erik Schmidt. Right: Artist Kirsten Ortwed with dealer Aurel Scheibler.

Saturday had two events titled “The Opening” by British artist Merlin Carpenter, who is represented by my partner, Christian Nagel. The first took place at the Mercedes headquarters—the largest auto showroom in the world—where Carpenter made guests wait about an hour until he finally drove by in his own polished 1980s Mercedes. Leaning out the open window, he painted four white hanging canvases with a comically oversize brush, leaving only a few hasty marks. A similar performance took place two hours later at the Cornershop, a clothing store in Mitte. Both were attended by what Diedrich Diederichsen once called “hipster intellectuals”—some Texte zur Kunst writers, Volksbühne music booker Christoph Gurk, curator and Frieze editor Jörg Heiser, Diederichsen himself, and artists Michael Beutler, Sarah Staton, and Josephine Pryde, all of whom mixed amicably with Gallery Weekend VIPs like Jeane Freifrau von Oppenheim and her friend Ingeborg Baronin von Maltzahn. Cay Sophie Rabinowitz, who had just left her position as Art Basel codirector, made a surprise appearance.

The weekend’s main event was meant to be Saturday’s grand gala dinner at the Berlin Convention Center. Following Thursday’s luxurious kickoff at the Hotel du Rome, however, the gathering seemed anticlimactic. The party just never took off. Gregorio Napoleone was dying for a hamburger and begged his gorgeous wife, Valeria, a ravenous art collector, to leave early. Freda and Izak Uziyel, opting for kindness, made no comment. Christian Boros seemed still to be riding high on the opening of his collection’s showroom during the Berlin Biennial. Still, everybody tried to be as cheerful and entertaining as possible, toasting to Berlin’s great future—a future that we have been anticipating for more than a decade. But if you really want “sexy,” better drinks and cozier spaces would do the trick.

—Saskia Draxler

From Bank to Five-Star Hotel - The History of Rocco Forte's Hotel de Rome

2008-05-14T06:03:00.002+02:00

Rocco Forte's Hotel de Rome is inextricably rooted in the history and culture of Berlin and from the walls to the name, a great effort has been made to secure the future of this luxurious property's past.

The name "Hotel de Rome" or "Hotel Stadt Rom" can be traced back to 1775, when Number 10, Unter den Linden was one of the city's finest guest houses. At the end of the 1850s, Adolf Mühling acquired the building, refurbishing and extending it to create a luxurious five-storey, 200 bedroom hotel including a ballroom and elegant restaurant. Hotel de Rome was one of Berlin's most famous hotels and played host to events such as the "Berlin Press Ball". Mühling was also a purveyor to the court and it is known that he delivered a bathtub from the hotel to the Emperor to complete his as yet unfinished palace bathroom!

Then, as today, Hotel de Rome was equipped with the latest technical innovations. In 1867 for example, the hotel installed the first hydraulic lift, technology that had only just been presented to a select group of people at the World Exhibition in Paris. Guests were also able to view their invoice with the help of a so called "Preiskurant" that worked with the help of telegraphs, speaking tubes and a letter shoot. Due to Mühling's insecure financial arrangements, the hotel was torn down in February 1910.

The building itself was constructed from 1884 to 1889 by architect Ludwig Heim to house the Dresdner Bank's headquarters, where they remained until 1945. Until the unification the building was home to the Central Bank of the German Democratic Republic, after which it became an exhibition and events space. Structural modifications were made up till 1910, for example the spacious, elegant two-storey cashier's hall that now forms the 276m² ballroom complete with its original stucco ceiling and mosaic floor. In the corners of the ballroom one can find the four city names of the main head offices of the Dresdner Bank: Frankfurt, Bremen, London and Berlin.

Thankfully, the two gorgeous 19th century staircases have been almost completely preserved. One is designed in granite with decorated tiles and wrought-iron handrails, whilst the second staircase is designed mainly in marble with a wide steel stairway.

The first and second floors were previously home to the Dresdner Bank Directors' offices and their impressive high, coffered ceilings, complete with original wood panelling, as well as generous stucco and figurative decoration, have been stunningly converted into spacious and elegant suites.

However, in their zeal to preserve the building's history, the designers have not kept only the beautiful. The grenade smithereens embedded in the walls date back to World War II have been left as historical witness in the wood panelling. A truly historical home away from home!

On the lower ground floor of the building, the old vault that safe-guarded the jewels and valuables of the Dresdner Bank clientele has been imaginatively converted into the hotel's swimming pool and Spa de Rome, with glistening, golden Bisazza mosaic recalling the room's previous contents!

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Floortex @ Lietzenburgerstrasse

2008-05-05T11:52:00.000+02:00

Report: Merkel backs keeping Berlin's historic Tempelhof airport open

2008-04-20T07:50:00.001+02:00

Chancellor Angela Merkel is backing efforts to keep open Berlin's Tempelhof airport, according to comments released Friday drawing criticism from the capital's mayor.

Berliners will vote in an April 27 referendum on a group's proposal to keep the money-losing airport running. Berlin's left-wing city government wants to shut Tempelhof in October, but the local branch of Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats has supported keeping it open.

"The further operation of Tempelhof is not only of significance for the economy and jobs," Merkel was quoted as saying in an interview with Berlin's B.Z. daily, released by the newspaper before its publication Saturday. "The airport is for many, and for me personally, a symbol with the airlift of the history of this city."

Opened in 1923, Tempelhof was expanded under the Nazis, who built a massive terminal that went on to serve as the hub of the nearly yearlong, U.S.-led Berlin airlift when the Soviets blockaded West Berlin in 1948.

These days, the centrally located Tempelhof is by far the quietest of Berlin's three airports. It is used only for short-hop flights with small aircraft.

Mayor Klaus Wowereit's city government wants to close it as part of a plan to concentrate flights at a new hub just outside the city to be created by expanding the former East Berlin's Schoenefeld airport.

Wowereit argued Friday that keeping Tempelhof open would pose legal complications to the new hub and dismissed Merkel's comments as a "transparent party political maneuver."

Merkel should concentrate on improving Berlin's relatively poor international air connections "instead of damaging the city by supporting a backward-looking campaign," the mayor said in a statement.

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Movenpick Hotel

2008-04-19T21:34:00.002+02:00

Is Berlin the last affordable city in Europe? American visitors to the German capital — their dollar being pounded by the euro, the pound and even the Danish krone — might well think so. This is a city that still offers reasonably priced transportation: a cab ride across town costs around 10 euros, or $16 at $1.60 to the dollar, and a 24-hour unlimited pass on the city’s excellent subway system will set you back only 6.20 euros. There are still affordable restaurants, a plethora of bars with invitingly priced happy hours and hundreds of galleries where you can experience Berlin’s vibrant and varied art scene for no cost at all. Even better, the city features a good number of upscale hotels that won’t bust your budget, with the Mövenpick, which opened in 2004 in what used to be West Berlin, among the more notable examples.

THE LOCATION

Though the immediate neighborhood isn’t exactly picturesque, perhaps befitting the Mövenpick’s former life as a Siemen’s office building, it certainly is convenient, with the tourist attractions of Potsdamer Platz and the leafy parkland of the Tiergarten both within a brisk 15-minute walk. In fact, getting anywhere in the city is easy: the Anhalter Bahnhof S-Bahn stop is just a block away in one direction; the Mendelssohn-Bartholdy-Park U-Bahn stop is two blocks in the other. And a taxi stand, with an ever-present line of cabs, is steps away from the hotel’s entrance.

THE SCENE

Hipsters on a budget seem drawn to the 243-room hotel, as well as cost-conscious families and the occasional group of American college kids on a school break. Guests are warmly greeted at the front desk, with an offer of bottled water and perhaps a bit of chocolate, but you seem largely on your own when it comes to getting your luggage up to the room.

THE ROOMS

Starkly chic in design — but still comfortable — with brightly colored Eero Saarinen-esque chairs, a good-size desk, TVs with on-demand video and wireless access. Opaque glass walls separate the main rooms from the bathrooms, which feature deep-soaking tubs as well as a showerhead. Some of the deluxe rooms have funky free-standing tubs in them.

AMENITIES

There’s a rather forlorn (and apparently lightly used) health center on the lower ground floor, with a few machines and free weights for those who can’t miss their daily workouts. (There is also a small sauna and solarium.) More appealing, though perhaps not as good for your health, is the space-agey Anhalter Bar, right off the front entrance, with a lively, young crowd holding court late into the night.

ROOM SERVICE

A hearty breakfast of assorted breads, cereal, fruit, yogurt, juice and coffee (17 euros), ordered the night before for delivery 7:45 to 8 a.m., arrived at 7:48. For those guests who don’t mind leaving their rooms in the morning, a massive buffet, including a wide selection of hot and cold foods, is served until 10:30 a.m. in the airy, piazza-like dining room, for 19.50 euros.

BOTTOM LINE

This hotel may not be in the heart of the Mitte, that hipster neighborhood of the former East Berlin that has captured much of the spotlight since reunification, but what you give up in location, you gain in affordability, with rooms starting at about 100 euros a night. The Mövenpick Hotel Berlin. Schöneberger Strasse 3; (49-30) 230-060; www.moevenpick-berlin.com.

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Rutz Weinbar

2008-04-08T00:47:00.001+02:00

Litzenburgerstrasse 62

2008-02-26T16:24:00.002+01:00

Do You Nomi?

2008-02-12T17:27:00.000+01:00

Opening at Strychnin Gallery Berlin on February 22nd, 2008, 7 pm, Res Pira Lab and Strychnin Gallery present an exhibition dedicated to German singer and performer Klaus Nomi. With his visionary performance art and black and
white make-up, countertenor Klaus Nomi was a highly influential New Wave figure.
Although he was famous in his lifetime – especially in Paris and New York, where he influenced David Bowie – Nomi died before achieving an international breakthrough. One of the first well-known figures to die of AIDS, he remains a highly influential figure even 25 years after his death. Curated by Giovanni Cervi for Res Pira Lab, this artistic event is the continuation of a Nomi celebration that started in 2007 with a tribute party held in Parma in April, and an exhibition at Galleria Aus18, Milan, in September of the same year. The project involves some 50 international visual artists and musicians so far; 13 of them will be showing their work in Berlin.

Background: Klaus Nomi, whose real name was Klaus Sperber, was born in Immenstadt, Germany, in 1944. After two apprenticeships, one as a pastry chef and one as a classically trained opera singer, he moved to New York’s vibrant East Village in the early 1970s to find his own style. He was a master of scene handling and a sharp performer, an artist able to fuse together the world of fashion, opera, disco music and futuristic rock imagery. His style was a fascinating mixture of New Wave, Dadaism and classical opera, completed by cubist costumes.
After his discovery through David Bowie, Nomi quickly gained popularity but died of AIDS in 1983, his breakthrough before his very eyes – by then, New Wave had become a mainstream phenomenon.
Klaus Nomi was an alien angel, lost somewhere between German expressionist cabaret and Kabuki theater, an artist shaped by Fritz Lang’s futuristic visions of the 1920s. He created a brand new way of performing, shaking the imagination of his disciples who continue in his style even today, not only in music.

The following artists will be showing their work in the “DO YOU NOMI?” show:
Alexander Sterzel, Ansgar Noeth, Andy, Arianna Carossa, Chris von Steiner, Jan
Czerwinski, Japi Honoo, Karin Andersen, Maile Colbert, Squp, Zaelia Bishop and,
courtesy of Galleria Aus18, Alessandro Giordani and Tamara Ferioli.

Opening: February 22nd, 7 pm – 11pm.
@Strychnin Gallery Berlin, Boxhagenerstr. 36, 10245 Berlin
Owner: Yasha Young yasha@strychnin.com
Contact: Iris Bitter// Public Relations
Phone: +49 160 915 15 965 // Mail: production@strychnin.com
Open: Thu - Sun from 1-6 pm and by appointment
www.strychnin.com
www.myspace.com/res_pira_lab

With galleries in three bustling hotspots – New York City, Berlin, and London – Strychnin Gallery is a playground for artists from all around the globe. It is a place where collaboration is encouraged, new projects are constantly developed and creativity is the one and only thing that truly counts.

Owned by charismatic curator Yasha Young, Strychnin is dedicated to presenting emerging American artists to the European art world and vice versa. It features a variety of artists with particular individual styles rather than artists belonging to a collective “hip” movement. If you insist on putting a label on them, try lowbrow turned highbrow, pop surrealism or fantastic realism among others.

Founded in Brooklyn in 1998, the gallery opened a European showroom in Berlin in 2002. The US gallery has since moved to a location in Manhattan’s Chelsea district, opening with a group show featuring over 70 artists in October of 2006. Strychnin opened a third location in East London’s vibrant art scene right off of Brick Lane in October 2007.

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Stereo MC's & Uffie @ Maria Am Ostbahnhof

2008-02-05T19:18:00.000+01:00

Underworld @ Columbiahalle

2008-02-05T19:17:00.000+01:00

Club Transmediale 2008 street poster

2008-02-05T17:22:00.000+01:00

Justice @ Huxley's Neue Welt

2008-02-05T17:20:00.000+01:00

Mona Lisa @ Strychnin Gallery

2008-01-25T15:55:00.000+01:00

Vladimir Malakhov

2008-01-03T20:10:00.000+01:00

DEAR FRIENDS OF DANCE AND THE BALLET!

What constitutes quality? What do we want to be judged against? In my opinion, quality finds expression in an interesting and wide-ranging repertoire: although our company is extensively based on the classics, we also want to explore new avenues involving a certain amount of risk. In addition, quality is based on a responsible ensemble policy which allows young talented dancers to grow. And, finally, quality makes itself felt at the most important time, namely during the performance, in which you are directly involved, hopefully as an enthusiastic audience reflecting the energy coming from the stage.

In order to achieve our objective and ensure that we have the best possible working conditions, we are increasingly linking up with other Berlin institutions. We have secured support and patronage from experienced partners from the worlds of commerce and science.

I am also particularly proud of the growing popularity of the Staatsballett Berlin’s education programme, which is also being supported by the “Tanz ist KLASSE” [“Dance is GREAT”] Association. It is, after all, important to not only attract tomorrow’s audience members, but also to appeal to them in their own world of experience.

Four premieres and one revival are scheduled for the 2007|2008 season. We are showing a production on the Berlin Comic Opera’s stage for the first time: “Alice’s Wonderland” is a dance piece for children aged 12 and over and adults. With our production of “La Sylphide” we are remembering one of our roots as a classic company, since this ballet marks the birth of dance on points and romantic ballet. The production “With/out Tutu” sees the works of three contemporary choreographers, who work against a classical background, coming up against one another and, finally we will dedicate ourselves to the romantic ballet: with “La Sylphide” and “Glories of the Romantic Ballet” we will be returning to one of the most glorious eras of our history. In addition, John Cranko’s “Onegin” is returning to our programme. This is an important piece for our repertoire, as the company grows with this dramatic challenge.

The Staatsballett Berlin is thus remaining true to its guiding principle: “Preserve tradition – show the present – promote the future”.

Kind regards,
Vladimir Malakhov

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"Wanted" @ Helmut Newton Foundation

2008-01-03T20:04:00.001+01:00

After the outstanding success of the three-part exhibition, “Men, War & Peace”, the Helmut Newton Foundation presents the work of its founder alongside that of two of his friends and contemporaries, Larry Clark & Ralph Gibson. ‘WANTED’ will be shown at the Helmut Newton Foundation, Jebensstrasse 2, D-10623 Berlin, from June 3rd until February 3rd, 2008. EXTENDED!

A selection of pictures that Helmut Newton published in his own magazine “Helmut Newton’s Illustrated” between 1987 and 1995 are presented for the first time as a complete exhibition in the front three rooms of the foundation.

The central exhibition room is dedicated to two (in)famous bodies of work, “Tulsa” and “Teenage Lust”, by the photographer and film-maker, Larry Clark. Created in the sixties and seventies, Clark revealed to us the world of teenage sex and drug use in a way that had been taboo up until that time. In this he was the most influential predecessor of photographers like Nan Goldin and Richard Billingham.

Clark’s provocative book “Tulsa”, was published in 1971 by Lustrum Press. This publishing company was founded by Ralph Gibson and through it he distributed his own photography books, “The Somnambulist”, “Déjà-vu” and “Days at Sea”, amongst others, as well as books by leading photographers of the day. A representative selection of B/W & Colour images from these and later projects by Gibson, are presented in the remaining exhibition rooms. His timeless, subjective imagery is known for its formal and abstract composition.

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Vom Funken Zum Pixel

2008-01-03T19:58:00.001+01:00

From Spark to Pixel. Art + New Media

Exhibition Venue: Martin-Gropius-Bau
28 October 2007 to 14 January 2008

Organizer
Berliner Festspiele

Supported by the Federal Cultural Foundation
Curator Richard Castelli

Media partners RBB Inforadio, RBB Kulturradio

The “From Spark to Pixel” exhibition will present developments in contemporary art involving the large-scale use of digital and interactive media. The technical possibilities in this field have given this area of art a more international dimension than that of almost any other. Thus the exhibition will feature works both by renowned and as yet unknown artists and groups of artists from all over the world. Works by pioneers and works that are being shown in Europe or Germany for the first time or have been specially developed for the Martin-Gropius-Bau, will enable visitors to discover spectacular forms of artistic expression and radical changes in perception in the relation between the observer and the moving image. Immersive and interactive approaches feature frequently in the artists’ strategies.

Installations by:
Romy Achituv (Israel): BeNowHere Interactive, 1997 (German premiere)
Gregory Barsamian (USA): The Scream, 1998. No, Never Alone, 1998
(German premieres)
Jean Michel Bruyère (France): Si Poteris Narrare, Licet, 2002
Jean Michel Bruyère (France): CaMg(CO3)2 (Dolomit), 2007 (world premiere)
Du Zhenjun (China): Presumption, 2000 (German premiere)
Dumb Type (Japan): Voyages, 2002 (European premiere)
Brad Hwang (Korea/Germany): Time May Change Me /
I Can’t Change Time, 2007 (world premiere)
KAI (Germany): Feuerkasten, 1991/2007
Ulf Langheinrich (Germany/Austria): Hemisphere, 2006–2007
(German premiere)
Dirk Lüsebrink / Joachim Sauter (Art+Com) (Germany): Invisible Shape of
Things Past, 1996/2007 (premiere at the Martin-Gropius-Bau)
Marie Maquaire (France), Tentative d’épuisement d’un lieu, Berlin, 2003 (German premiere)
Thomas McIntosh (Canada): Ondulation, 2002 (German premiere)
David Moises (Austria): Hanoscope, 2002 (German premiere)
Nam June Paik (Korea/USA): Candle TV, 1975
Christian Partos (Sweden): Visp, 2000. Striptease, 1998. (German premiere)
M.O.M, 2003.
Erwin Redl (Austria/USA): FLOW Berlin, 2007 (world premiere)
Jeffrey Shaw (Australia) / Sarah Kenderdine (New Zealand):
PLACE Hampi, 2006 (German premiere)
Pierrick Sorin (France): Quelques inventions remarquables, 2003
Shiro Takatani (Japan): Chrono, 2007
Shiro Takatani (Japan): Camera Lucida, 2005 (European premiere)
Saburo Teshigawara (Japan): Light Behind Light, 2004 (German premiere)

Nearly all the works will be on view in Berlin for the first time.

The exhibition has been designed by Richard Castelli (Paris) for the Martin-Gropius-Bau and shows the interactions and connections between art and electronic media. The four central concepts of the exhibition – fire and electricity, light and pixel – act as paradigms for this development and for “immaterial states”. Starting with fire, the first form of energy to be mastered by man, the exhibition passes, in parallel to human evolution, through the stages of electricity, light and the pixel, which, as the spark is in the case of fire, is the “nucleus” of the electronic image. The electronic image is the source of another form of energy that is free of all fossil properties: information of which we cannot be quite sure if it really has been mastered by man.

The magnificent Lichthof of the Martin-Gropius-Bau will be dominated by particularly impressive installations, including one by Erwin Redl, who redesigned the façade of the Whitney Museums in New York. He is creating a work expressly commissioned for the Lichthof of the Martin-Gropius-Bau and called FLOW Berlin 2007. It consists of a large light wave made of 30.000 light-emitting diodes, which seeks to “de-realize” the horizon of human perception.

Other examples of premieres or spectacular installations include:

A new electrostatic creation Time May Change Me / I Can’t Change Time by Brad Hwang. On the subject of light the choreographer and performance artist Saburo Teshigawara will be showing a fascinating work involving mirrors and entitled Light Behind Light.
Thomas McIntosh’s Ondulation, an environment of flowing waves of light, is a game with reflected light, which shows how one can play with music and tones.

Jean Michel Bruyère is represented with two interactive artworks: the “ifilm” (for Jeffrey Shaw’s EVE Interactive Cinema) Si Poteris Narrare, Licet, an interactive film journey in which the time of the finished film, registered and fixed in advance, harmonizes with the real-time sequence of its geography. In the world premiere of CaMg(CO3)2 visitors will find themselves in the lounge of a shaman, as in an extreme mixture of the most primitive technology and the highest of high-tech.
The entry of Jeffrey Shaw, a pioneer of digital cinematography, and Sarah Kenderdine in the exhibition will be PLACE-Hampi, interactive stereoscopic panoramas of the ruins of Hampi, the “Angkor of India”.
Making its European premiere is the artists’ collective Dumb Types with Voyages, a monolith of horizontally arranged images as impressive as those in Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”. Joachim Sauter and Dirk Lüsebrink (Art + Com) present works of architecture such as the art museum Shanghai’ or Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz in the form of digital film sculptures which they call The Invisible Shapes of Things Past.

In Ulf Langheinrich’s aesthetic plasma Hemisphere, the viewer finds himself dominated, protected and at the same time attracted by a constantly changing granular virtual world, which seems just about to implode.

Although “From Spark to Pixel” will show aspects of the evolution of our notions of energy in its various phases, the exhibition will surprisingly enough be one of contemporary art and hence offer a poetic platform for contemplation and meditation.

Catalogue
The exhibition catalogue will be published by Nicolai Verlag. (in German)

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Adina Apartment Berlin

2007-11-27T07:58:00.000+01:00

The A dina Apartment Hotel Berlin, opening December 2007 is located in the historic Mitte district is the perfect location to discover all that Berlin has to offer. Shop til you drop along Friedrichstrasse, the Mitte’s main strip is flanked by shops and restaurants and only minutes from the hotel. Adina is perfectly located for you to discover the city’s nightlife, architecture and museum’s. One of the city’s premier tourist attractions, Checkpoint Charlie and the nearby underground station are only five minutes away on foot.

At the end of the day, return to your Berlin hotel apartment and relax in the sauna, take a dip in our indoor heated swimming pool or work out in our fully equipped fitness centre…we’re here to make you as comfortable as can be - you're our guest!

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Popkomm

2007-09-19T07:25:00.000+02:00

Popkomm has been based in Berlin since 2004 and is now well established as the world’s music and entertainment business meeting place. Popkomm is synonymous for innovation and trends. The Popkomm-IMEA (Innovation in Music and Entertainment Award) distinguishes young companies that have creative business ideas. With a top-class international conference and a festival covering 30 Berlin clubs, Popkomm offers an optimal platform for the live sector and is essential for experts that wish to shape the future of the music business.

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Tom Sandberg, "Fotografien, 2007" Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, GmbH (17.08. - 02.09)

2007-08-14T10:08:00.001+02:00

IHT Berlin´Travel Blog

2007-07-03T06:52:00.000+02:00

Welcome to our world — and an invaluable travel resource! Globespotters is an online resource where IHT reporters and editors (and readers too) share up-to-the-minute tips and recommendations about the cities where we live and visit. We're jumping in with 6 of the world's great cities — London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Hong Kong and Bangkok, but plan to expand quickly.
Here's how it works: Just find the picture of the city that interests you on our main page and the information flows. For each city there are two resources: First, if you click on "Travel Basics", you'll find current information about things like transport from the airport, hot restaurant suggestions, advice on taxis, cell phones, internet connectivity and tipping. Second, you can click on the city "blog" page, which provides entries about events occuring right now: what foods are in season, a new museum opening, a strike this week, a quirky walk if you have an hour free, where to buy the ultimate memento (here in Rome that would be a golf ball that is also a Vatican souvenier). So join us, we all have lots to share!

Elisabeth Rosenthal, reporter IHT, Rome

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