http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Berlin Residency Journal Wed, 03 Dec 2008 08:10:14 +0000 a-n rss generator a-n The Artists Information Company and contributors edit@a-n.co.uk technical@a-n.co.uk http://sites.a-n.co.uk/img/logo.gif http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 My project is to write something everyday about the experience of the residency: minimum one word and maximum three pages. And to do one art mark, sketch,  or work each day building up to doing a Berlin painting or series. The next day consisted of unpacking the lumps of dead weight that were my suitcases and setting things up.  Why had I brought six staplers, none of which worked on these concrete walls, seven pairs of scissors for each kind of tapes I use and no tapes, seventeen paintbrushes, books by the proverbial ton, and eight sets of thermal leggings and vests?  Surely this was panic packing.  What happened to my light-hearted approach of a small satchel for one year in the East containing only one set of knickers, shirt and skirt for ‘good'?  My mitigation is that I am to be here for three months working in freezing winter whilst the other was an exploring journey in hot climates.  Oh yes.Well the above and more had to find places to be put, the equivalent of a dog peeing everywhere to stake out his territory.  The pissing for me, was all done out of my double doors, down the unheated hall to the communal loos.  All very clean and proper, though not quite convenient at night.  Showering is also across the hall in the storeroom for the cleaner's equipment but has hot water unlike the kitchen.  This resulted in my being walked in on, twice, while hot showering away, because of incomprehension of language.  A comedy of errors. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Manfred, the wonderfully charming Arts Director, arrived bringing light to the situation, literally.  "I bring you light," he said, wheeling in a strong halogen light.  Slender, freckled, fair-haired under his brown felt hat, unflappable and amusing he quickly dispatched my list of requests. A translated modus operandi between the cleaner and myself, (if I shower before 10 am I won't be interrupted.  "Get up early!" in response to my " but I work late, sleep-in late" screech), a large mirror put into the shower room and another in the living space, a coat rack fixed to the wall at the front door, and another up on the sleeping platform an electric kettle, (water-cooker) appeared, extra sockets extension, two more long painting tables, a long bench, chairs for the studio plus a wicker chair with a back, for wondering what to do/staring into space. The place was ready to go. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474  People were out walking in the park at the end of this street, Schwedter Strasse.  The park is a hill or mound that was formed between 1945 and 1948 of the buildings and bones left from the destruction of the war.  People cleared the rubble by pushing wheelbarrows by hand, now it is a peaceful walking place.  It runs along the un-built space still left by the Dead Zone where the Wall used to be. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 A weird sort of misty day that took us to the zoo on both the U-Bahn, (underground) and S-Bahn, (overground).  The Berlin Zoo is one of the world's largest and most important zoos, full of endangered species.  Landscaped like a park, it is unexpectedly surreal to see vivid orange flamingos, armoured rhinoceros, zebras and even giant pandas out in the frosty air.  The animals and birds look quite at home outside.  Inside in heated cages, many seem in hibernation, except the unceasingly active monkeys.   Rationally I respect and admire the valuable research, education and instilling of awe especially, that zoos do, and know that the animals here would never survive if released in the wild, yet it strikes me that the wondrous giraffes and leopards have too little to do in the inside cages except pace, aware of the peering crowd.  Do you think they are even a particle as interested in seeing us as we are of sensuous, sinewy them?  It seemed more upbeat for the frogs, lizards, snakes and sharks.  Maybe it's because I don't empathise with the cold-blooded creatures. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 A return to the DHM, Deutsches Historische Museum for the less anguishing upper floors.  Bizarrely, the war shots can make great post cards.  It must be that the real documentation is too raw, especially film.  Life packs an unbearable punch while art sublimates, taking the intensity and like alchemy, makes life strongly interesting rather than a complete devastation.  It is not hiding one's head in sand; it is enabling us to go on.  ‘Art makes Life more interesting than Art', a compensation for our mortality.  The museum is full of historic fascination, Dührer, Ingres, Rubens, are only a part of it.  Wandering immersed in German invention and history, four hours passed so quickly that it amazed me, (not known for my patience). ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Sitting in the long large cement floored white walled studio, I contemplate its emptiness. One of the double glazed windows has flaws so that if I nod my head, the straight red line of the flat roof opposite goes into a wave and then disappears.  This occupies me for quite awhile.  A mirror has been brought for me to hang in the kitchen living part.  I am amazed at the difference it makes to reaffirm my sense of self.  Now I see that it wasn't only the inability to pay for a model that prompted all those self-portraits.  I am beginning to settle in. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Many of the buildings show the damage from the Battle of Berlin, and there are a lot of empty spaces and unreconstructed buildings just left.  Broken Berlin is still shattered, especially on this eastern side that didn't have the pouring in of American money.  Imbedded into the footpaths are brass tablets as memorials for the Jewish people who had lived in those buildings before Auschwitz.   A very large ruined complex of buildings with a big archway used to be a famous artist's squat but now will become commercial.  At last I got to the New National Gallery.  Built in 1968 it is Mies van der Rohe's last built building - a masterpiece.  O. M. Ungers Cosmos of Architecture is the featured exhibition and includes his own collection of artworks.  A knockout Ellsworth Kelly painting, Black Green 1980, Donald Judd's cadmium red, Half Solid Tube Piece 1990, in that show plus other works in the museum's collection, make me feel very happy.  When I lived in New Zealand, I had a neighbour with three daughters.  One day, this recent widow intrepidly climbed up onto the roof to try to fix a leaking tile.  She fell off onto her head, and from then on lived in an institution, with the eldest daughter Fiona, bringing up the other two girls.  They used to bemoan that they would never be married now, saying that in New Zealand men only marry girls that are rich.  Not entirely true I'm sure, but true enough everywhere, viz Jane Austen for the reverse.  When the mother came for weekend visits, she looked the same, however it was as if her head was an egg, which unlike Humpty Dumpty's, the shell remained unbroken but the insides were scrambled.  She used to try to find things that weren't there and ask about "her area". Still not quite habituated to this routine of living out of a studio and a suitcase with hygienic facilities at a distance, I keep forgetting where I've put things.  Today it happened, coming out of my hot shower I realized that the towel was back in the studio across the public, unheated corridor.   That's when I thought of that brave New Zealand widow: In my case, same on the outside, but very stupid inside.  But hey, for a few years when I was a child, we lived on a farm in Canada with the outhouse some distance away and a pump for the well outside the kitchen door.  And that was high snow to get through. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Hours drift away while I read about Berlin and shuffle all the brochures and listings.  Planning to go out means studying the map and then the transportation system map.  This takes a lot of time, but once I actually do get out at least I know where I'm going.  Social guilt means I get up earlier in the mornings, even though I stay up late reading, writing, putting up some paper on the walls.  The episodic nature of time and experience has been influenced by the email phenomena. I get vast amounts of junk emails. Every day there are between twenty-five and thirty-five emails in the Bulk folder.  I delete them all without looking, but the ones that irritate me are the ones that slip through and I think well maybe that might be from someone I know.  Then immediately delete it because no, it's not.  Today I finally have got going and worked steadily in the studio.    Overcome by email ephemera, I try to draw something that at least is a real mark and not just restlessness.  It is the steely seriousness of the German mind that I'm hitting up against.24/01/2007A great day at the Hamburger Hof Museum of 21st Century Art with its' monumental Anselm Keifer installations, huge Richard Long Slate Circle and such a large exhibition of ‘Beyond Cinema: The Art of Projection', that I have to go back to see the Felix Gonzales-Torres and Beuys that I missed.  Warhol's ‘Knives', 1981-82 looks terrific as does his ‘Sickle and Hammer'.  Upstairs, coupled with a Marcel Broodthaler exhibition of ‘Le Corbeau et Le Renard', a series by Arnold Dreyblatt, ‘Ephemeral Epygrahica', digital papyrus translations printed in transparent layers over each other, so that they appear and disappear, from concept to execution are remarkable. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Descending again into the dark of ‘The Art of Projection' made me aware of how there is this split or war between projected works using light, and art using matter.  With the light works we are paradoxically forced and funnelled into blackness, separated from the world by insulating curtains and corridors.  Like wraiths in an underworld one then stumbles, until the eyes become accustomed, against other spectators until one then goes on to the next projection.  Actually this work in its way, is looked at like paintings or sculpture, in the way that we are accustomed to look at art, unlike cinema which we also watch in the dark, we look for as long or as briefly as we want, and then walk on.  The difference is that without a beginning or an end that one would wait for as in cinema, and especially because there are no seats or not more than a token cushion or a wall to lean against, one moves on having witnessed a fragment only.  Of course a fragment does carry the integrity of the whole but it is a little like cutting out one of Cezanne's apples, there is not the satisfaction of an entity.  That is part of the medium's withholding, (sadism I want to say), and its unique expression.  Some works are too long like Douglas Gordon's Twenty-four Hour Pyscho', or Matthew Barney's ‘Crewmaster' series, but mostly there is unstructured ambiguity or repetition, without narrative.  Marcel Broodthaler's ‘One Second of Eternity', a perfect if extreme example with, as I now discover, simply his signature initials O. M. flashing.   Certainly this art of projection does reflect a lot that our collective lives have morphed into, being bound to our laptops day and night.  In the museum shop I buy a Robert Crumb postcard of a trailer trashy lout at a computer: ‘How did I ever live without this thing'. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474   Being alone like this brings me to thoughts of solitary life.  Spare me please the apparition of Sister Wendy Beckett, nun artist looming.  I'm back to nodding my head up and down looking out the window at the distortions in the glass.  Actually it is absorbing, as a metaphor at how one looks at a culture from the outside.  Patterns appear but are they really there? Returning to the Hamburger Hof Museum, I enjoyed eating the sweets from the Felix Gonzalez-Torres installations, (until I got a stomach ache), but even more agreeable was being able to carry away the ‘Please take one' sheets of paper as they will be great for messing about drawings.  In the Joseph Beuys galleries, the huge blocks of fat, old machinery, felted violin and other autobiographical objects in glass cases sit dumbly without the strutting egoist himself saying how important they are.  Warhol undoubtedly was just as big an egoist, ( as probably every artist is, what moi? saying ‘Look at me, look at me'.  Outsider mental patients excluded.), but his "Oh I don't know.  Gee whiz." stance is much more agreeable and contemporarily relevant.  A Damian Hirst glass case of shelved pharmaceuticals is in the collection.  Titled ‘Void', I at first thought they must be sleeping capsules, but looking closer I saw there were a lot of haemmaroid suppositories, and the capsules must be laxatives.  So the work isn't shit but it produces...  Funny. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 A great bright dry day, I rolled up my sleeves and got stuck in drawing.  That's the way I like to work, before breakfast, before getting dressed, before getting up in a way, so that the night's thoughts are still with me.  Because of the deadline for the cleaner, I did stop and shower just before ten, but it breaks the rhythm.  Coming back, the mood is more stepped back.  Looking critically at what I've done makes me rip up a couple of sheets and wreck another by overcorrecting.  At least I finally have the feeling that I might be starting to work properly.  Outside influences are a funny thing because it is only afterwards that one sees what they are.  Working all day like that was great, but I popped a toffee in my mouth about five pm and you guessed it.  With the very first chew I lost a filling. Aaaargh.  What a nuisance.  What do I do now?  My first instinct is to do nothing and carry on until I get back to London even though that is ten weeks away.  I'll have to see how bad it gets.  It may be slightly throbbing already or is that my hypochondria?   After that I went out and bought some more pencils at the art shop.  Since I haven't spoken to anyone for so long that I found I'd lost my voice and just a tiny croak came out.  Well I'm going to the dogs I must say.  Getting on the M1 tram to go to the organic shop, blow me down but a car ran into the tram and we all had to get out and walk.  As far as could be discerned, no one was much hurt but the front of the car was smashed in and would have to be towed away.  That is so weird because the roads are very quiet with never much traffic on them and the trams run on fixed rails. Bicycles, cars, people; everything has to give way.  They are implacable and have to be obeyed.  Evidently being run over by a tram killed Gaudi the genius architect.  Not paying attention, I guess, like the driver tonight.  Boiled potatoes, cheese, a banana for supper for me, nothing chewy... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Days pass quickly with so many choices of things to accomplish and things to explore.  Some times there is so much to do in the studio that I don't get out at all, yet other times I'm out so much at museums and looking around, that I can't get done what I'd planned.  The advantage of a computer is that you give it a task and it does it full-stop, (or crashes), but humans, and I like to think, especially artists, go off on tangents because so many possibilities lie at each stage.  That way madness lies, one might say, but using some sort of discipline, interesting possibilities creep in.  Working steadily on a drawing, I found myself dancing around the studio.  It must be the weather, so bright and mild now that is making me less hermit-like and ready to make some contacts.  Having emailed an artist who lives in Berlin, friend of a friend in London, and arranged to meet for a coffee tomorrow afternoon, I'm looking forward to an insider's viewpoint.  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Jules Olitski American Colour Field Painter died last night, Sunday 04 February 2007. Those paintings were beautiful and influential. I first saw reproductions of them in Time magazine when it was news that Olitski was making stained paintings with the edges, (the edges!), being the focal point. That was his breakthrough and later on his all-over sprays of colour. Today artists are still remaking and recreating his breakthroughs, although not with his originality. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 An art shop, a flea market, both within five minutes walk, a Kaiser food supermarket next door, the tram at the corner, two different U-Bahn underground stations within ten minutes walk or one tram ride, and cafes and restaurants galore, this Milchhof is definitely a des res.  The front door lock is a problem though.  During the night there was a big crashing sound.  It might have been the wind that was so fierce that it picked up chairs and a wooden bar counter in the side yard smashing them down into a heap.  Then again it could have been someone trying to get in, or out, because the next day the front door could not be opened.  I was standing there facing up to this just as my friend of a friend in London; Tom was arriving on his bicycle.  At that moment, as it seems to happen here, a solution appeared in the large masterful German form of the sculptor Mark.  Just back from his month away, about to form a band in his ground floor studio he quickly took charge.  I was to use the basement entrance, where Marcus, another sculptor, had a studio, down with the central heating plant.  So that solved, we went to a café and talked about being in Berlin in English. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Talking of flea markets, I went back to see if the perfect white bowl was still there, and it was, but before putting down my thirty euros, I wandered around the market and there in the centre, a woman, bundled up in a big brown coat, scarf round her head against the biting wind, eating a sandwich, had all sorts of bowls, including a plain white bowl of the same sort of size.  Asking her how much it was, I asked her several times because she kept saying eine, I thought to the woman next to me rummaging through the stuff.  Finally she held up her thumb, "eine" to me.  One euro, I couldn't believe it but quickly gave her a euro for the bowl, which she even wrapped up.  Not perfect like the other one, not original thirties plain roundness, but perfectly good.  The way using perfect as a modifier shows its' imperfection.  In fact I like its' utility plainness.  Tableware instead of china, but fine.  On the stall I also spied a blue and yellow fluted glass bowl that had been hand-painted by someone, and pressing my luck I tentatively asked about the price.  That she breezily said I could have for half a euro.  Having gone there with the intention of buying one bowl for thirty euros, I came away with two bowls for one euro fifty.  Not the perfect one but great.   How satisfactory.  Going back, I passed the writer D.B.C. Pierre and we said Hi.  Well he looked bemused, (as he's familiar to me from television and his books), but friendly.  In my elated mood I then spent another euro on some daffodil stalks and went home whistling I'd like to say, as it would convey my mood, unfortunately I have never been able to whistle, but you know what I mean. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Keeping up my newly renewed socialising, I met up with two other friends of a friend, this time writers from New York.  They were rather surprised that they had to enter my studio crouching down through the dungeon-like basement so as not to hit their heads on the pipes and emerging covered in plaster dust, but were sportingly witty about it.  If I now tell you that one of these New Yorkers is certified blind, you will realise how urbane that is. They took me out for a great German lunch, food piled up and marvellously fast and amusing New York chat.  Having been an artist hermit for a month, more or less, in the studio, it made me elated to be with them and gave me so much energy to do my work.  Maybe it is because of the groundwork put in, but now I feel on solid ground with what I'm doing.  And it does somehow come out of all that I've been experiencing here. The one thing that was a bit of a shock was when I went to Boesner's today, the big art shop, they said it would be at least a month before I could have the stretched canvases of the large size I want.  That has to be got around somehow.   ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Berlin is a safe city at least this part of it: Mitte North, Prenzlauer Berg, which is what I'm judging it by.  Full of young people, everyone on bicycles, or using the trams and U-Bahns that run around the clock, it feels very comfortable to be going home late at night surrounded by these people out too.  Evidently there is very little mugging and one isn't hassled at all.  People are correct and keep to themselves naturally.  That makes life so much easier; I don't mind walking back at midnight from the internet cafe or taking a tram, there are always lots of other people waiting too.  Once again fey freckled friendly Manfred has come bringing light.  One of the bulbs in the studio was kaput and since the ceiling is fifteen feet high there was no way I could change it.  Not a problem, in he came with a tall stepladder and cheerfully fixed the light.  Nothing really is a problem here as I have found there is always a way round.  Checking out the local art shop, they say they can do the canvases for me in only a week, and besides that, I could carry them back to the Milchhof with some help and so save on transport charges.  Manfred and I have had a discussion that may well work out, in that when I leave I could take the canvases off, rolling them up to take to London and then Manfred can re-use the stretchers.  Of course I have to do them first, but that would be a practical solution.  Unless they turn out not to be able to be rolled up which is always a possibility, fortunately acrylic mediums are amenable. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Thanks to friends of friends who are connected to the Berlinale, (the Berlin Film Festival), I got to spend a couple of days being let into films that otherwise I might never have had a chance to see.  It's fun all that hustle and bustle, red carpets galore and the pushing and shoving to get into the most hotly tipped screenings.  There are a lot of films dealing with serious issues of childhood in harsh circumstances, Jewish Russians in Israel, in "Love and Dance", Hitler in "Mein Führer", the concentration camps in "The Counterfeiters".  In fact, aside from the run of Andy Warhol related films, and the semi-pornographic, of which more in a minute, there seemed a lot of films about Jewish ness and the Holocaust.  Is that because it was held here in Berlin or is the Zeitgeist settled on this at the moment?  Oh yes semi-pornographic.  There was a film called "Fucking Different New York" which I imagined to be an amusing film about New York.  No.  It wasn't adjectival but descriptive, what was on the label was the content, i.e. thirteen separate episodes of gay and lezzy fucking combos as documentary, rather sad, exploitative, quite sordid, as art, as wild porno, as comic strip humour and one of narrative.  This one was based on a quote from Marilyn Monroe's autobiography where she said that once she had had sex with Joan Crawford and that afterwards Joan Crawford had wanted repeats, but when Marilyn refused, Joan had got spiteful.  So it begins with a typewriter with the Arthur Miller writing the story of what transpired.  Marilyn being fragile posing for photographers while "The Misfits" is being filmed.  Joan Crawford turning up, Arthur Miller looking through the keyhole.  Fantasy lezzy sex.  Joan driving off.  Marilyn posing fanning herself to cool down.  The End.  So kinda cute, but on the whole not very enlightening.  The Marilyn Monroe look-alike was more successful than the Joan Crawford look-alike.Keeping up the glamour, apart from the actual film, (above), we dinnered afterwards around the corner from the Sony Centre at the Ritz Hotel in their Brasserie Desbrosses which is mightily stylish with wonderful atmosphere and cooking.  Since I had to go through the rigmarole of no wheat, no flour and so on they let me know what I could eat and what they could adapt from the menu as most places do now - so "Sex and the City" isn't it? - Fish soup in a tureen, no croutons, calves liver, no Berliner gravy sauce, mashed potatoes.  But then they, on their own, brought a basket of gluten-free bread to the table for me.  How excellent is that?  At the end of the meal they wrapped up the remaining bread so I could take it home, (and toast it for a breakfast).   Beyond a dream.  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 16/02/2007           Another day at the Berlinale film festival.  "Bad Faith," a French film, was concerned with a Jewish French woman becoming pregnant with her Moroccan Muslim lover and the strains on the relationship that come from that make her decide to have an abortion.   Charming and beautifully shot, with lovely bed-linen I noticed, is it just me but these issues that are so vital and contemporary relevant for us today, especially one notes the Muslim mother is portrayed as less prejudiced than the Jewish French bourgeois, but aren't they the very same issues that we heard all about as children?  I remember, don't you, the discussions, films, delicate warnings of unhappiness to follow, short stories, ( Puccini's' "Madame Butterfly"), dealing with examples of English/Japanese, German/French war brides, Jewish/Goy, Roman Catholic/Atheist, Baptist/Hindu, Black/White, Chinese/ Indian and so forth.  Do things never progress?  What about male/female marriages don't they cause a lot of woe?  Oh yes that's what all the other films are about.  I guess it must be so: there are as the man said, who?  Was it Shakespeare?  There are only five plots in literature and films, so dumbo don't be a superior know it all.  It is how the thing is done that matters not the subject matter.  Strange isn't it?  In films and Biennales as in art. This evening we went to a Turkish restaurant at the Hackescher Höfe that looked wonderful on entering but became more touristy exotic on second glance.  Never mind it was not bad and was remarkably inexpensive, so the very long wait between courses was just a grit your teeth thing but we were all longing to leave and go home to our snug beds by the end.  Coming out at last from the Hasir, the prostitutes were out in force standing at regular intervals along the Hackescher Markt, with pastel coloured umbrellas like parasols shielding them from the snow.  They all were trussed up immaculately wearing high white boots, tiny white skirts, white zippered jackets, thick tan foundation make-up, and pale whitish lipstick. They were too flawlessly turned out, stood too solidly in their place, stared just past one without eye contact, their hair too perfect to be ordinary people just there by chance.  It looked like performance.  What was striking was that they all wore similar spotless white outfits under their pink or turquoise umbrellas. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Now the second month starts and how better to begin than with a bicycle tour of Berlin.  Outdoors, a different perspective and glorious.  Berlin is very bicycling friendly, truly green in this.  The footpaths have cycle lanes on them so that bicycles do not have to compete with cars and it works so well because the footpaths are made wide enough to allow room.  When there are cycle lanes in the roads they are amply large enough for bicycles so it's not the constant dangerous war with cars that I encounter in London.  Everyone gives way to everyone and no one gives dirty looks or shouts insults being passed on the pavement by a bike; they know it is safe and works.  Like a dream come true, (for a cyclist).  Also Berlin is flat so there is plenty of time to look around without having to huff up a hill.  It was exhilarating to cycle around looking at things with my new friend artist tour guide. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Today I used up the Felix Gonzalez-Torres paper handouts doing quick scribbling sketches of ideas; this to the end of having three drawings on paper that I won't mind exhibiting at the blütenweisse gallery, in ten days time.  So far I have one I like, one that could be possible, and several maybes.  Manfred and I are in discussion over the stretchers, I've asked him to write a note in German specifying exactly what I need, especially that they should be made deep enough so that the linen canvas when being painted doesn't show stretcher bar marks.  Since the biking around Berlin was such a pleasure yesterday, I've asked if the Milchhof bicycle could be fixed up for me.  The other admirable thing I noticed about cycling in Berlin is that not only is it safer for the cyclist but also the ferocious concerted stealing of bikes that occurs in London, Amsterdam, Montreal, you name it, doesn't apparently happen here.  This in a city with twenty percent unemployment is almost unbelievable.  I have seen no D-locks, only those plastic coated wire cables that last about four seconds before they are hacked through elsewhere.  These cables also are not necessarily fastened around steel poles but often just immobilising the wheels and left propped up.  Mind boggling to a cyclist more or less resigned to having to replace stolen bikes from time to time. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 The noise in the night was the hurricane force wind blowing everything about.  A German artist said to me with relish, "It is raining cats and dogs," pleased to use his idiomatic English that sounded charming.  Upstairs I was perched precariously outside the door of the studio where I now have a much more satisfactory arrangement to log in to their Internet connection instead of trekking to the Internet shop.  They have a large three-room suite of studios with desk room for me, which is great, but they usually leave at six and this was ten pm.  Shortly after that, a solidly built fair girl in a grey overcoat, carrying a huge Bass Cello turned up at an adjoining studio.  Flinging open its' door, after barely saying "Hallo", she then proceeded to fling wide open the corridor windows as well.  With hurricane wind outside this made quite an impression and a huge draught so I didn't dawdle.  Thomas Mann's ‘The Magic Mountain' was a fine way to ride out the storm.  From the first pages one can realise that it is a masterpiece.  Written densely, I don't even think of skipping bits, but instead stop and unpick, then think about the phrases.  It is exquisitely written, reminding me of Proust.  Horrendous details of tubercular sputum, blood, drawn out deaths that are surprising but not actually as revolting as they might be in another novelist's hand.  Shocking as they are, these episodes are interwoven by the complexity in every detail.  Exact numbers of windows, doors, tables are given, the gait and stance of each person with a full description of their clothes, as well as their coughs, all in meticulous put in so carefully and thoroughly that a picture is physically built. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Well Miss Uppity, I was revelling in how I've assimilated my environment and thinking how nervous I had been on the U-Bahn at first, sitting on the edge of the seat, (and by the way one can mostly always get a seat), not taking my eyes away for a second searching for the signs that would be my stop, and now how different how relaxed; a seasoned Berlin traveller reading the weekly Guardian, when you guessed it, I went right past Alexanderplatz.  But at least I didn't feel lost forever, as I might have done then.  Worse though was my always making myself look left first when I cross the road, which I thought I had mastered well, but today I stepped out, after looking left, but preoccupied, I must have just glanced left without really taking it in, because I was looking at the empty road to the right when I stepped out.  At that instant a bicycle whizzed past about two centimetres from my face, and aghast I also saw a car that had stopped just behind.  That was shocking.  ‘But there never is any traffic on this road' came into my mind.  That's the problem, glancing but not seeing, my mind not paying attention. After a month as recluse I have built up a routine, a satisfying rhythm of drawing, writing, reading, going to see things on my own.  All along probably whingeing about never seeing a soul.  Well now with these new contacts, along with the new canvases that will be stretched with Manfred, I have social appointments every day for the next seven days.  My anxiety now, since I seem to need to worry, is having enough time on my own and fitting everything in.  Un embarrasses des riches.  Is it ‘too much of a good thing'?   Or rather ‘you don't know how lucky you are'?  Yes. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 28/02/2007              From before ten am today I started drawing various directions and tryouts for the new canvases.  From time to time a thought would impinge that I should stop for lunch soon, but when I finally did stop it turned out to be after ten pm, so that was time to stop and make dinner.  A satisfying feeling but I'll know better when I look at what I've done later.27/02/2007           At the Künstler Magazin, (Artists' Shop), I had the cash ready to pay and the girl with her heavy biker's boots, layers of black clothing with an underskirt of rust satin to compliment her flaming Venetian red long hair, silver bracelets and dangling earrings flashing, jumped up on the counter to pull down all the stretchers and linen canvas roll.  She made bundles of them for me to carry to the Milchhof.  They don't have delivery and the distance is too short for a taxi, but my word the weight was tremendous.  Yes it is only three blocks but the strong gusts of wind didn't help, especially since with the first load I somehow managed to twist my wrist.  Four journeys like that, staggering back and forth made me feel quite hot and shaky by the time I got it all safely up the stairs into the studio.  ‘Now is the time to relax', I thought after that and went off on the tram and U-Bahn to Postdamer Platz to the Sony Cinestar.  The Berlin Film Festival is held here.  All lit up at night, with gigantic anonymity, it is so Hollywood fake, that it is perfect for all the stars glamour.Yes it was all too good to be true and had a cheesy voice-off commentary, but along with a hot chocolate it hit the button for post heavy load-bearing wrist damage.  I understand it may even win an Oscar.  Duh. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Now I feel much more at home in Berlin.  It is actually brilliant fun to be immersed in another culture; a pleasure to learn the history, to read Thomas Mann, Nietzsche, Rilke, think about thinks differently.  All those small details that stuck out so much at the beginning have been assimilated: where things are, how a shopping bag is tucked into the coat pocket as doors are pulled open, looking left in the street, carrying money to pay for anything I might buy, has all become second nature.  Because it feels so much safer here than in London, as well as much less crowded, slower in pace, and of course nowhere around here takes credit cards anyway; I carry amounts of money on me that I never would otherwise. This feeling of being settled in releases a lot of energy that was used up before, and that shows in how I work now, no more dithering.   The main thing is that now most of the Milchhof artists are back working and what a difference that makes to the vitality of ambience.  Sculptors in the halls, painters and photographers in their studios, coming and going, saying ‘Hallo', being friendly, I feel happy here.  Of the people I've met so far, the names I remember are Regina, Isabetta, Georgina, Wolka, Marcus, Mark, Tom, and of course Manfred, but there are all the others who smile and make me feel welcome as I pass.  " You are our guest.  Welcome.   We hope you enjoy Berlin."  That makes for an exceptionally fine feeling.  Since I didn't want to stop working in the studio during the day, again this evening I went upstairs at ten pm to do some emails perched in the corridor, and again shortly afterwards the large bass cello carrying girl turned up and again flung open her door and all the corridor windows.  Is she a fresh air addict, does she play in a smoky night club and needs to clear her lungs, is it the smell of turpentine or some other medium that she is clearing out, or is it that she sublets from Isabetta so that she can practise her music letting it rip out into the sky?  This strong girl in her drab overcoat is intriguing. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 My writer friends and I met for a farewell celebration lunch at Gorky Park the Russian restaurant, the celebration being our meeting and being in Berlin, the farewell because they are returning to New York.  Borsht, blinis, caviar and German champagne, (Sekt), fabulous.  I love being with these smart guys who don't let anything get them down.  It is tender and touching to see them approach.  One walking slightly ahead of the other saying things like "watch out for the broken pavement here, keep to the left," "here is the curb to step down quite a way," "now there are four high steps up to the restaurant with a rail on your right."  The other, blind one, has his hand lightly on the other's shoulder and follows with trust.  They look as if they could be in a Beckett play, archetypal figures crossing the stage in eternity. Very moving.  Then they realise I'm there and shout and wave their arms.03/03/2007           Every step of the way in making a painting one has to be on one's toes wary of the pitfalls and obstacles on the way.  Mentioning toes, painting, if it succeeds, is like ballet just as everyone quotes: presented as an effortless finished object, never mind the bloodied toes, sprained ankle, months of work. It is not at all a factory assemblage produced impersonally.  As an example, when Manfred arrived and we put together the stretchers, doubling them with an electric stapler, and then laid the pieces of linen canvas down, one was too short, too narrow, it simply did not fit.  After a bit of discussion and my swearing, there was nothing for it but to return to the kunst magazine and get another piece the right size.  Since it is expensive they wouldn't be happy about that, and if needs must I would just have to pay for another, but I did give the correct measurements. That helpful girl was extremely upset but immediately set about getting the replacement canvas, and said how sorry she was.  I only hope she doesn't have to make it up from her wages.  Personally I was much relieved for the paintings.  They were stretched up by the end of the morning and then I began wetting them, but I had a sinking feeling that they hadn't been stretched tightly enough.  Manfred is used to cotton canvas that does shrink when wet.  Linen may tighten when wet but doesn't shrink in the same way, and this linen was looser than what I have worked with before.  Knocking out the corners worked but warped the stretchers, so then they had to be knocked back again, back and forth until they were finally optimised.  After another wetting the corners rose up and weights had to be applied to keep them down.  Those piles of books came into their own here.  Whew, cross fingers I think they are fine.  Once they dry out I'll put the primer on. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 In a windy pelting snowstorm I delivered the three works on paper to the Blütenweisse gallery.  ‘The art must get through', I thought.  It is such an attractive spacious gallery.  The rents are very low, comparatively, in Berlin so the galleries are huge.  A crowded private view reception at the Hamburger Hof Museum of 21st Century Art, seemed very much like an opening in London, interesting looking people, champagne, and an Athens-Berlin-New York video on show.  No glasses to be taken into the darkened viewing space so there were about the same number not watching as watching the video, and going back and forth.  Since the literature given was in German I perhaps had a little less grasp of the plot than usual, but it was based on the Jacques-Louis David painting ‘Rape of the Sabine Women' and takes place in the Pergamon Museum, the Tempelhof Airport and the Athens Meat Market, both in B&W 1940's Berlin, and contemporary Athens in colour, without words but local market sounds and a swirling specially composed score. Eve Sussman, The Rufus Corporation, The Rape Of The Sabine Women.Another private view this time in a commercial gallery near Check Point Charlie.  A vast space with harsh fluorescent tube lighting, the paintings hung sparsely with a lot of bare walls. This had a feeling of a New York opening rather than a London one.  The amount of space gives it a cutting edge feel.  Glasses of white wine, or water were passed around on trays.  There were Russians, and some Americans, as well as Germans but not such a huge dressy crowd as at the Hamburger Hof.  The amount of space was the impressive factor and I liked the alternative relaxed feel. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 07/03/2007           Through a London friend's introduction, I had dinner with two German filmmakers.  Although both do their own documentary art works, one is also an established film editor and is at present working on a film for Wim Wenders, shot in the Congo, and her partner works in production of blockbuster Hollywood films like ‘Gladiator'. Going back and forth pays the way for their own work.  They rent a marvellous glass and wood attic conversion on top of a solidly heavy De Stijl building. Eighty percent or more of Berliners rent, it is the norm unless they are part of a cooperative that buys a shared building.   Six flights up with no lift gave me time to admire the elaborately carved doors on each landing and must keep them very fit.  It was breathtaking once I reached the spacious flat both in the sense of the view and my lungs' intake.  But terrific.  They are in their thirties and intensely intelligent.  She is small featured, with dark shorthair, slender like a fine spring, winding and unwinding concepts as they come into the conversation.  He is fairer, calmer, speaks with a quiet assurance.  Both sophisticated food and a wide assortment of drinks flowed, as we discussed semantics, classic films, subject matter and form in art, backgrounds, children-parent neuroses, and other subjects.  I felt as if I were breathing pure oxygen on Thomas Mann's mountain. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Dark and empty the narrow streets of Berlin Mitte gallery area may be, but they are stuffed, even cluttered with art galleries, one next to the other.  To visit them all would take more time than any sane person could contemplate.  However I am with stout heart, boots on, going to give it a try.  Meanwhile Manfred came to see how I was getting on.  Looking at the canvases he declared that they must have sold me ‘Russian' linen because it is so loose and rough.  ‘Russian' being a disparaging adjective here now that East Berlin has rejoined the West.  I am inclined to agree but am working with it.  The roughness of the canvas as equivalent to the smashed then concrete patched together feel of the area, in spite of the buzz of youth hip-ness and cafes. Yesterday the final priming coat was applied to the canvases, and today a lot of preliminary measuring, taping and colour decisions took up the whole day. I am going to have to return to Boesner and buy other colours as I've changed my mind on some after doing samples, certainly I will have to get the (expensive) Cadmium yellow, as it is the best one.  At least I'll get out and get some fresh air and daylight.  I have been working through the days lately. 11/02/2007   Having ‘done' not much more than a block of galleries yesterday, today I did part of Auguststrasse and bits of Linienstrasse and Gartenstrasse.  Exhausting but absorbing.  Inevitably the galleries are completely empty except for their own staff, but friendly and lots of varied art to peruse.  The Neo Rauch, Liepzig school style of painting is the trend, although the gallerists seem to rather disparage that, maybe because they personally haven't got their hands on any of the original bunch.  They talk the same old story: that there is a lack of collectors; galleries only make money at international art fairs where the buyers are American or Japanese, not in their galleries. Probably the number worldwide of collectors spending vast sums is actually quite small, and all the dealers chase them with also a relatively small handful of ‘big name' artists.  The kudos and hullabaloo about Berlin as the new Art centre is apparently about enthusiasm, numbers and focus of participants, rather than as art market, so far at this moment.   But a beguiling place to be an artist in spite of or because of, that.  The buzz is that top New York Galleries will open offshoots here soon ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Finally accepting that I had to wage war on these recalcitrant linen canvases, the day was spent sandpapering them down then re-applying another coat of primer, which in twenty-four hours I'll sandpaper down again.  Even though it was pouring with rain, in the evening I did a circuit of gallery Openings.  In Berlin they want people to come to the openings, they aren't invitation only, celebrity A-list, and guards on the doors, affairs.  There are gallery guides printed for each month, the Berliner Kunstkalender that lists all the galleries with their exhibitions dates and times and as well the dates and times of the Opening Receptions.  Isn't that such a friendly, democratically great way to run an art scene?  People actually are nice here.  So around I went, looking like a drowned rat, hair plastered down, coat dripping and managed to meet friends and see four galleries before squelching back home to my cosy Milchhof studio. 12/02/2007           This evening I met and had dinner with a landscape architect and a jazz singer.  Not at all an uptight stiff German as I imagined he might be, when he drove up in his Audi, meanwhile saying how Mercedes Benz are terrible cars that should be banned, he is all gaily laughing, youthful fluidity, the opposite of my suppositions.  She is a blonde with darker roots, a languid smoothness, lovely in a slower sense, with a liquid layer of sadness underneath which must feed into her singing.  He has a new project, the grounds of a new school, she sings in jazz clubs, letting a room in her flat for short stays, and teaching English as a language to make ends meet.  We went to the Volkspark am Weinberg near the Milchhof, but the other side of it to where I usually walk.  Up a path a pink concrete shed with coloured lights seemed to be our destination. Going round the side, a large, modern Swiss restaurant on the peak of the hill appeared, all glass looking out over what now was revealed to be a picturesque wooded hill sloping down to a small lake.  Amusingly, there are rows of reclining deck chairs set out and a chalet holding piles of folded thick blankets.  People come when the winter sun is bright and lie out wrapped in blankets sunning themselves just as if they were in the sanatorium of The Magic Mountain.   Truly surprising.  What was East Berlin, which deceptively appears at first as bleak, decrepit, even brutally forbidding, especially during the dark winter, has in fact myriads of hidden delights.  Walking the streets one finds capacious courtyards leading to other interlocking courtyards with a formal magnificence, not at all visible from plain, rather dull streets.  Then there are these delightful little parks scattered everywhere.  Unlike the English squares, these are Volksparks, that is to say for the people, all folk.  No fences, no locking out, they are open.  Day and night people walk through and especially in the spring, enjoy Nature there.  Slowly my impressions expand of this delightful, liveable city.After dinner in a lively small Italian restaurant, with much spirited conversation, we go to a jamming session at a jazz club where the ambience and music is wonderfully enjoyable, but my how these people smoke.  Everything, my hair, clothes, eyes, lungs are permeated with cigarette smoke. Everything that can be has to be washed out before I can get into bed.  In the morning I wake with a sore throat and the feeling of a nicotine hangover.  And she bravely sings in that night after night ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Because of so much destruction, as much destruction in Berlin by the Soviet Occupation destroying churches and other buildings to put up the Wall, as happened during the war it is said, there is a massive amount of new building.  Since the Wall was a concrete construction, concrete tends to be avoided with glass, steel, enamelled or treated metal, predominating, and with wood, and alternative-building methods used experimentally to great effect.  There are architectural marvels aplenty as I found out today when the winsome landscape architect with his mercurial smile offered to take me on a city tour.  And what an insightful, comprehensive tour it was.  Not only was I shown the main places of interest but also places that he had connections to as a child of Western Germany visiting Berlin and being confronted by the regime of the East, as well as great architecture, and the landscaping in which he had been involved.  So I was shown all: the impressive new Government Buildings; the simplicity and expressive clarity of the Chapel of Reconciliation, built of louvered Douglas Fir around a core of loam-clay-rammed earth with pieces from the destroyed church embedded; the restaurant where Clinton ate in Prenzlauer Berg; a glorious red and green Fire Station by Sauerbruch & Hutton; as well as a creepy tunnel that had linked the Western Wedding district to the Eastern Mitte that he had once gone through just to peep at the other side.  If caught then it might have had frightening consequences, now it is used as a film location.  To see the documentation centre of the Wall with its' tall Richard Serra-like rusted steel architectural memorial, was a real experience, leading to the wire fence, then second wall with slits left to see where the guards, machine guns and dogs, had patrolled, then the main wall and observation tower; as was also the Topography of Terror where torture took place under the Nazis.  What terrible times from the Burning of the Books onwards, that is still an inescapable palpable presence in Berlin. Each magnificent embassy was more splendid than the other in the Diplomatic area.  Then on Karl Marx Allee, which I had imagined would look like the grey concrete block tenement buildings, very rough and oppressive as I had seen them in the Soviet Union, but instead of course, the Russians built miles of Palaces for the people showing off how wonderfully Communism was providing for the masses. During this wide-ranging perceptive exploration he maintained his knack of introducing me again to secret Berlin, revealing the most unusual and hidden place within a seemingly closed-up empty building next to I. M. Pei's elegant new addition: the Taghjikistan teahouse.  Unbeliveable.  What astounding pleasure and delicious.  How could anyone even know it was there in all its carpeted lounging magnificence? ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Starting to mix up the paint for the first coat of the colour layer on the painting, I realised to my dismay that I had bought the wrong colour.  There had been a German word underneath Kobaltblau that I ignored.  It turns out that the word meant Cerulean.  So another sixty euros misplaced.  Having to go to Boesner the art shop that is like an Aladdin's cave for artists, I bought a whole load of materials, this time getting the right things and colours.  All the same it is interesting to note that I have spent four weeks returning to the flea market to look at a white bowl that I am reluctant to purchase for thirty euros, however much I admire the bowl, and yet just now I've spent five hundred and eighty euros without hesitation on paint.  Because it's art innit? ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Another day of doing battle with recalcitrant pigments and paint that has seeped under the tapes, but with a confidently light heart, knowing that eventually I would make them come right and the process would be inbuilt into these paintings.  I left the struggle and went out into a storm to a gallery opening before going on to the wonders of the Gemädegalerie.  Leaving the opening reception, I hopped on a tram M6 to get to Rosa Luxembourg Platz where I could get the U-bahn to Potsdamer Platz.  After a while looking out the window, nothing looked familiar and oh no I realised it should have been an M8.  This M6 took me to the middle of nowhere, a little dark vacant back street where the tram driver has his break.  Can you believe that?  Knocking on his window and repeating U-Bahn several times to this kindly avuncular, non-English speaking man got me some directions that I could follow for several blocks before Lo and behold I saw another tram which did take me to the U-Bahn.  Of course my troubles, this blowing, frosty, stormy evening were not yet over.   Potsdamer Platz is vast with arterial wide streets, vehicle traffic but not much if any pedestrians.  Looking for signs, there were none that said Gemädegalerie as one might expect, but only to the Sony Centre. I for the life of me couldn't remember which of these six roads to take nor in which direction.  Would that be the way to a museum or maybe that way?  It seemed hopeless.  Then across the street I saw two young schoolgirls in conversation oblivious to the raging wind.  Excuse me do you speak English?  Drawing herself up to stiff full height, the skinny, bespectacled girl who looked like a touching, bookish Olive Oyl looked at me very severely "but of course," she sternly replied.  What a relief.  They consulted and told me to go past the ‘houses', (not deigning to name the crass commercial thousand or more metres high Sony Centre), to the Kultural Forum.  I would certainly have gone in any other direction but that one and be still wandering today.  They made a few tactical errors of prepositions and directions so that I went past rather before, down rather than up, but anyway I got a chance to visit the Mies Van der Rohe Neu Galerie again.  That is also free entrance from 6 to 10 pm on Thursdays.  Did I mention that was why I was so persistent in my determination to get to the Gemädegalerie this evening and not just throw up my hands saying Bother! I'll go tomorrow.  No, no, dogged determined, eking out my museum entrances' money to pay for yellows and blues of incorrect tints I plodded on like a mad art lover with dripping hair to reach the sanctity of Rembrandt, Rubens, Watteau, Cranach, Velasquez, Gainsborough, the most beautiful Vermeer I've ever seen, and you know how beautiful they all are.   For the Gemädegalerie that holds one of the most important collections of European art, usually closes at 6pm, but on Thursday evenings it is 10 pm closing and from 6 to 10 pm free entrance.  That is a good time to go.  Also that is not widely known.  It was very sparsely attended, and extraordinary, like drifting through a huge private house containing unbelievable marvels.  Except that it also has in a modern glass and brick extension all that the modern museum must have of café, shop, other exhibitions and so on, hence the Kultural Forum part.   The collection is remarkable, the ambience tranquil asking for nothing, though I might have spoken out for a sign somewhere. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 The opening reception for the Drawing Exhibition at the Blütenweiss Galerie begins at seven.  I get there a bit late so that it is completely packed.  My work is well hung and can be seen directly one enters the gallery. The ambience is terrifically friendly, chummy.  Manfred is also in the exhibition, and Tom has come as kindly support.  Afterwards Tom and I go to a Russian restaurant near Kathė Kollwitz Platz to celebrate.  It's called Pasternak and it is the works: cut glass chandeliers, long white table cloths, serving staff in wrap around white aprons over black, a small orchestra, wailing violins and a tenor singing his heart out.  Dark brown velvet swathes to keep out the draughts from doors and windows, black and white familial photographs on the walls and interspersed in the full Russian menu with its delicious vareniekas, pirogy, blinis, shashlick, cotelettes and compotes.  It had character and good food.  Just right for a very cold night. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Working with these unfamiliar paints is a problem because the colours mix differently.  Again I didn't get the yellow that I imagined I'd bought.  It means that I will have to do a lot of experimentation and buy whole ranges of paint to make the colour come right.  It is frustrating, but live and learn girl, I guess.  Letting what I'd laid down to dry (it's wrong), I went out and visited some of the dozens of commercial galleries near here on Linienstrasse and Auguststrasse to give myself a break.  Floating up above these narrow old twisty streets now given over to art and mammon is the exotic dome of the 1857 Neue Synagogue, which was attacked during Kristallnacht in1938 and then again damaged by Allied bombing in 1945. In the evening was a dinner with the promise of a ‘typical English meal' cooked by my English/Welsh artist friend in his rambling large flat heated by ceramic tiled coal stoves in every room, that he shares with two friends.  What a treat - a large roast leg of lamb, roasted potatoes, roasted parsnips, gravy, mashed carrots and boiled cabbage plus a lot of beer and red wine.  What could be better?  We all fell to eating as if we hadn't had proper food for ages, still continuing the lively conversations.  An anthropologist, a geographer, both German, a Czech studying architecture, a Bulgarian in PR, and we two painters, had lots to say about rock and roll, architecture, clubbing, the state of the world, and how we view Berlin, as well as much reminiscing of past dinners. Perplexingly the other guests all held up the parsnips and asked what they were.  He had bought them in the local market but they all said they had never eaten parsnips before.At midnight coming out, the world was heaped in fluffy white with large snowflakes swirling.  I love the quiet hush that snow makes as it insulates any sound. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Church bells ring several times a day in Berlin so it always makes me think it's Sunday when it is say, a Tuesday, or a Friday like now.  However the difference is that   on Sundays itself, the Chapel of Reconciliation commemorating the fall of the Wall, which is not far from here, rings its bells continuously for the whole morning.  Remember, remember.It's strange but beautiful that on the first day of Spring it began to snow again.  Not many signs of Spring this morning, with some red tuilips pushing up through the overall whiteness.  This return to wintriness called for a different brekfast to suit the mood.  I had a piece of gluten-free bread which I toasted in the frying pan, put lots of butter, walnuts and dates on top, and then ate it with such greedy pleasure along with a banana and coffee.  Now that is what I call a chic früchstück.  After that elegant beginning I set to work to try and sort out the colours problem.  Mixing all kinds of combinations, I made a chart, labelling quantity ratios and hues.  Taking to my laptop after that I made variations of the painting in case the exact colours I needed would not come right.  These variations I had printed out at the Copy shop so that I could be more distanced.  Of course the printed colours are as far away from my computer colours as the actual paint materials are from anything.  Sometimes these aides are nothing but more complications.  I am determined to work with the actual pigments now.  After the day darkened, I read and finished "The Magic Mountain" by Thomas Mann.  This great book has engrossed me for more than a month.  What a complete education, with such a broad encompassing of every aspect of philosophical, religious, political, physical and moral life.  Monumental is an apt description.Next I am about to begin, "The Diaries of Rainer Maria Rilke", the German poet. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Such a gloomy dark day, no light at all, overcast with a slight rain.  Waking up I already felt down in the dumps.  I can't understand people who say, "The weather is irrelevant to me."  For myself, the weather is capable of lifting my spirits to the highest level or flinging me to the ground, like today.  Not being able to get the colours right, using unknown materials is obviously getting to me.  On top of which I can't even see properly today the colour chart I made yesterday.  Apart from the one-halogen lamp that is good but not enough for the studio, there are only two economy light bulbs emitting a yellowish aura hanging high up on the twenty-foot ceiling.  It makes me think of Munch and his painting "The Scream".  Never the less, I had arbitrarily made a decision yesterday so I give the painting a coat of that combination mix of oranges not certain of the outcome.  I'll see tomorrow how it looks.The Milchhof have given me my own key to the mailbox as they say I have more mail than even the office.  It is a warm feeling to see letters nestling there for me from the world outside my Berlin bubble.  There is about it an echo of post-war Berlin and the airlift planes bringing contact from the West to the beleaguered part of Berlin encircled by the East.  Now it is culture and friendship flying in and out, both ways. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Finally the colour is right.  What had started out to be a sunshine yellow painting, which proved to be impossible to achieve the exact colour I wanted, it looked constantly too harsh, too artificial in this murkiness, has become after days of hard won changes a sort of burnt orange.  But it is exactly right now and I am elated.  Now move on and get another colour to perfection.  Reading Rilke's Diaries when he first visits Florence, he writes, "I felt at first so confused that I could scarcely separate my impressions, and thought I was drowning in the breaking wave of some foreign splendour."  As in 1898 so in 2007, arrival in a new town brings the same stages of adjustment.  Two months ago I observed with such intensity the smallest details of surroundings and customs, as if my life depended on it; the survival instinct.  Now two months have passed and I am easy in my wanderings around Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg. Although it is true there is much to Berlin that I haven't seen, there is so very much to see here that I am more than fully occupied. If one were arriving now for a one-month stay, one would luxuriate in the scope and length of time ahead.  A glorious full month to spend here in exploration, one might so exclaim.  Whereas I on the other hand say what! Only one month more but that is such a miserly space of time to complete so much.  Just as Woody Allen at the end of ‘Zelig' says, "I can't die yet I haven't finished  ‘Moby Dick'."  I say I can't leave Berlin in a month, my paintings are only just beginning to come into shape; there are dozens of museums and galleries still to visit in Berlin, and surely Dresden and the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister is a must, let alone this that and the endless else of possible delights.  So Time the great elusive expands and contracts.  It is all a question of perception, or if you like, attitude.  One more month in Berlin, what will that be like? ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Reading Rilke's Diaries resonates for me, as a temporary resident in Berlin:  "most people ... blindly race past a thousand unobtrusive beauties on their way to those official sights that usually only disappoint them anyway."  But here even more:" Know then that art is the means by which singular, solitary individuals fulfil themselves.  What Napoleon was outwardly, every artist is inwardly.  One climbs higher with each victory, as if with each new tread of a stair.  But did Napoleon ever win a battle to please the public?"How about that, and:"One is inevitably unjust to a work of art the moment one attempts to evaluate it in association with others.  In the end that leads to questions like: Raphael or Michelangelo, Goethe or Schiller, Suderman or -, and the good Germans have always loved such parlour games."Or then the very intriguing:"Occasionally viewed gallery pictures confuse.  Our eyes take in along with them - even when they hang isolated in one room - the impression of this strange space, an arbitrary gesture of the gallery attendant, perhaps even the recollection of a scent, which will all now unfairly insinuate themselves in our memory.  This conglomerate, which under certain circumstances might be able to enhance the mood, is in its randomness and cruel lack of style perverse.  It is like the visit one pays a great and important man in a hotel.  I remember several such visits; with one there is irremediably etched in my mind, alongside the appearance of the personality in question, a bedside chest whose door opened constantly with a little crowing sound, and also some errant slipper; and another I can only think of in the company of a badly ravaged breakfast tray over which a shirt collar had been stretched lengthwise like a bridge."Yes, it is true, the time of day, our emotional states, all influence how we see art, and so as Rilke says, pictures only occasionally viewed in a gallery may not be seen justly, or clearly as themselves.  But what can be done?  Only a few favoured people like the Queen can own a Vermeer and observe it every day, (if she does).   One person, one work of art truly seen, or thousands glimpsing hundreds of works of art for a few seconds, that is the difference a hundred and ten years brings, but well worth being aware of in the hasty judgements. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Not a moment too soon, brilliant sunshine and the arrival of the architect for a weekend visit dispelled a three-day jaded trough. About to succumb to, not SAD, seasonal Autumnal Disorder, but maybe LAL, Lack of Air and Light.  I think I'd just come to the end of whatever stocks I had of melatonin, seratonin, Vitamin D or whatever other chemicals the body gets from exposure to daylight.  It is no good just working round the clock and never getting outside.  A bit of letting up, company and fresh air fills the days as if they were troughs of jade from which we drank with pleasure.  Quite a different matter, just by repositioning the words, did you notice?  The weight of the winter's long darkness cocoons one into introspection.   Germans don't seem to like bright lights.  They sit in darkened rooms or cafes, with candlelight.   If I switch on an overhead light in the journalists office so that I can see the keyboard to send an email, there are shrieks of dismay.  "No, not sympathetic atmosphere.  Uncosy!"  I have a feeling that I need force to pull the paintings out of the rough, poetic darkness. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Rilke came to Berlin on 1 August 1898 and wrote in his diary: " The first thing I discovered was: Bismarck has died ... The mood is Bismarck is dead-long live-Berlin."  He writes sensitively about art, that the artist should trust in solitude, and that art at its highest cannot be national. Every artist being born with a homeland nowhere but within his own self, therefore those of his works that proclaim the language of this self are his most deeply genuine.He does as well, write the sort of sentimental tosh about women who are artists being no longer compelled to create once they have become mothers, and artists (implying ‘true artists'), are male that was written in those days and probably still is in backward pockets.  That the Artist must find Himself whilst Woman finds fulfilment in the Child.  Sound familiar?  However to overlook that, hear Rilke on Rodin: "One thing especially seems to me to be of utmost importance to Rodin: that his works do not look out, do not from some point turn toward one personally as if to make conversation, but remain always an artwork ...And this is one of the most superb qualities of Rodin's sculptures-that they always remain within this untransgressable magic circle toward which one may approach, and from whose border one gazes toward the work of art as toward something near that becomes feelable from far away." ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 At last a day at the magnificent Pergamon Museum with its priceless treasures brought back wholesale.  Enormous structures in their entirety have been transported and reassembled here.  The vastness gives an unmistakeable high.  Here is the Pergamon Altar, the Ischtar Gates from Babylon, rooms that literally take one's breath away, as well as the elegant simplicity of single eternal objects imbued with the mystery of their great age. From this weighty classical antiquity to blatant commercialism with a bump, only stopping for a Berlin sausage on the way, at Deponie.  The Daimler Chrysler Contemporary Museum was our goal but difficult to find it certainly was.  At Potsdamer Platz there are signs to the Daimler Chrysler Quartier, a gigantic Mall, arcade of shops and offices extending to the sky, but in this bustle no one had heard of its eponymous Contemporary Art Museum. After much searching and enquiring we were directed outside to a doorway.  The High-Rise Mall and office skyscraper had been built around the original building, leaving a doorway, on the frontage.  A takeaway eating place has put obscuring advertising in front of it.  Ringing a bell the door opens and a lift takes one up to the fourth floor to the Contemporary Museum.  Talk about discreet, this seemed like obfuscation to the point of sadism.  Well next time you'll know, and aren't you supposed to suffer for art?  But of course really, it is the materialist imperative, they want the kudos and tax breaks of Contemporary Art but know the value of expensive retail square footage at the forefront.  What's new?  On display was Contemporary Indian art from a Paper Manufacturer Corporate Collection in New Delhi.  Photographs of a eunuch's position in society were fascinating; ethnographically, interesting with the ramifications of being invited as good luck to be present at weddings and celebrations but not truly part of society.  A massive figurative polychromatic sculpture of a woman's head almost as a Deity stood out amongst versions of the sort of work being done elsewhere tweaked to reflect India. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 In the morning of a quiet day we visited the Kapelle der Versohnung (Reconciliation), and the Mauer Wall Documentation Centre where the tragic past is all still so vividly present.  Lunch at a Swabian restaurant, Schwarzwaldstuben, on Tucholskystrasse with a most pleasant ambience and hearty authentic food.  No we didn't have deer, the ironic painting of a little bambi over my head was the closest I came to hearty hunting ‘n shooting but the friendly staff brought large plates of cured and roasted pork, potatoes and salad, that from the neighbouring table, the dark brown greyhound/ Irish Setter Cross fixed with a most steadfast alertness from his "Stay" position below table top height.  Well such delights were all too brief and the Architect departed again.  Back to the Salt Mines.     ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Taking a break from the studio, I wandered along Danziger Strasse, at the U-Bahn station where it looks rough and run down with graffiti everywhere, glorious freedom after the wall came down, until I came across Dunckerstrasse with little shops of originality.  The shop that sold nothing but chocolate probably was my favourite.  Called ‘int't veld schokolade,' the owner who obviously loved chocolate, very thin he was too, took me around the shelves delicately pointing out the rarest of the rare, explaining and describing the various categories, eruditely like a botanist.  I browsed, enthused and bought blocks of trinka chocolate on sticks to stir into hot milk, also white chocolate flavoured with liquorice, and chocolate with salt.  Now that we avoid salt in everything else for healthy living, it has become a desired thrilling vice, like absinthe almost.  Not far away was a toyshop filled to overflowing with second-hand children's sleds, toys and books.  Having been his toy shop when it was Eastern Berlin, the slight, dark haired, intense, again thin, proprietor, another huge enthusiast took me around and showed me how it was in those days.  In the back was a narrow space, his living/ bed/ kitchen, now his tiny office, and next to this the little shop he had then with the old East Berlin toys set out, not for sale but as a museum of that time.  The rest was a bursting labyrinth of library shelves of ‘almost new' books, toys and dolls all in good, clean condition and an enchanted atmosphere.  Like a fairy tale, one could imagine the toys coming to life at night and telling their stories of where they have been.  Curiously, with the exception of the handsome wooden sleds, a few velvety dark red foxes, and eccentric little wood figures, mostly these Eastern Berlin toys were badly made cheap plastic.  But then things don't have to be beautiful to be imbued with sentimental emotion.  In fact too beautiful rather precludes that.  Like the scruffy, teddy bears, we all had, the things we were allowed to play with, not the special ones.  I still remember how upsetting it was the day my mother decided mine simply could not continue in that filthy state, so she laundered it vigorously and that finished poor teddy off.A bit further along Chlorinerstrasse, there was another extraordinary shop, this one of heimat goods.  Heimat is one of those untranslatable German words; it means something like ‘where the heart feels at home', ‘where one is safe'.  There were hand-stitched dresses with pockets, table runners with cut out and sewn decorations, aprons and head kerchiefs.  Actually two woman were sitting right there sewing up these delightful, homey items.  To me this was amazing as it was all within a very few streets of the main ex-squats and communes of Kastanienallee, the hippest part of Berlin. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Brian Eno recently had an exhibition of ‘One Million Paintings.'  He wisely leaves them as light images on a screen or printouts.  Painting is difficult and can't be done with the click of a wrist.  What painting does is bring into being the subject matter, which is the reality of the materials and the process.  "How did you do that?"  Is the first thing one painter wants to know about another's art.  Weight, density, texture, variations, viscosity, application, all generate the whole.  So it isn't child's play really then.  Another light bulb has blown.  I should say the other light bulb has now blown.  Which doesn't help the murkiness of lack of sunlight.  Fortunately for me the Landscape Architect and his friend the jazz singer are coming to the studio this evening and we will go out to dinner.  That is what I need, exactly: intelligent witty company.  At the Thai restaurant near here, my crispy duck with rice noodles was so delicious that I was afraid there might be wheat in it, but nope, not a single side effect, the noodles were rice not wheat, as they said.  But it was the conversation that was so enjoyable.  When I asked whether Jeff Koons ‘Puppy Dog,' that sculpture covered with greenery and pot plants, would have been done with a landscape architect or a horticulturist, the name Jeff Koons didn't ring a bell, but then the penny dropped, to use two idiomatic clichés one after the other, oh yes, he was the artist who proposed that for the Frankfurt City Square his sculpture of two giant dildos suspended from cranes should be used.  What I still would like to know is how Koons in that early soccer ball piece, got the ball to be suspended in the glass show-case with no visible support.  That is a great iconic work.  But how was it done?From there we sort of naturally slid into relationships and how little things can cause such irritation.  Like one partner liking the heat down as low as possible at zero, and the other only happy when the heat is turned up to five, which is the highest.  So is it war or one person being contented, the other miserable, or what about a compromise where neither has it where they would be naturally content?  Tough call and I'm sure we've all had fights like this.  It is captivating to hear of all the intricacies of break-ups, and triangular relationships that happen in families.  The drama of every life is incredible when one hears about it.  Affairs, lies, secrets, uncontrollable passions, it is not only the British Royal Family who has them.  We also talked about the differences between Germany and the UK, especially in manners.  This was centred on a book by an Ethiopian writer who has written A History Of Manners, comparing the European manners structure in the respective societies.  Did you know for example that the custom of greeting people by kissing originated from the Hapsburg Court which was such a small closed circle that one had to be born into; they were all related and so naturally kissed their family members All that cerebral stimulation and affability zoomed up my energy level so that I worked in the studio until after four am when I got back. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474    For the last month I've been reading these early 20th century, late 19th century, big hitting German masters: Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke and now Friedrick Nietzche's ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra.  There is a lot of music in them all-music mentioned or described, but also repetitions and symmetries.  The writing stylistically expressed as dance.  Striking too is the occurrence of supernatural incidents.  There are séances and discussions of visions.  The supernatural is accepted as present.  I think it was much more widespread then now with computerised virtual reality taking the attention.  Even my mother, said that she had been to a séance as a student in the late 30's in Paris.  She said she saw ectoplasm coming out of a woman's ear.  It was waxy and whitish, going out to a large formless shape before retreating back in.  This said matter-of-factly, with detached humour, by my mother who was an intelligent scoffing sort of person.  Colette the writer probably summed it up when she commented, "It doesn't matter whether you believe or not."  What is intriguing is whether these phenomena are self-generated, coming from within oneself, or actually present. Come to think of it, I used to live in Holman Hunt's last studio, on Melbury Road, where he finished the painting ‘The Scapegoat', amongst others, went blind and slowly mad, as did one of his models.   That had a black atmosphere about it, which was gradually dispelled by my years of occupancy.  In the nights there used to be quite a lot of scuffling and whispering noises that I more or less slept through, but sometimes would go and investigate the hallway when it was particularly loud.  Nothing was ever to be seen.   I did a painting, abstract of course, in violet, purple grey, about this, titling it ‘Whispers In The Night', and hung it on the wall alongside others of my works.  Every night then, consistently, persistently, this one painting crashed down off the wall.  After about a fortnight of this, I got spooked and painted over it with burnt sienna, yellow, cerulean blue, as well as painting out the whispering title on the back.  The new title became Illusion of Knowledge.  Well that painting never fell off the wall again. Curious and creepy, non?  So one's thoughts mull over things. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Putting my head down, I just solidly caught up on the painting waiting to be done and got the colour relationships in place.  Gulping down a late lunch of a plate of mozzarella salad, and a chunk of chocolate, I rushed off to revisit the Gemăldegalerie Museum and spent a long absorbing time looking at the Vermeers, the Titian Venus, Velasquez's Picture of a Woman, Cranach's Adam and Eve, and Dührer's Two Sisters that have been recently reunited.  An illuminating satisfying three hours, being filled by wonder. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Going down to the basement to try and find a light bulb, I again was in the fantastic atmosphere of dark, burrowing, creepy, sort of dungeon-like basement filled with vivid light cells where Marcus Wittmers and his assistants are working at all hours on his large ironic fibreglass polychromatic sculptures.  Superman is crouched in a corner looking ashen faced up at the sky, and outside an even larger Superman is crashing to the ground splitting his head open.  Marcus is great.  Because he works such late hours down there, he has always rescued me when my key or the front door lock jammed.No bulb was to be found but one of the sculptors said she had a halogen spotlight that I could have, so we went up to the ground floor to get it.  Wiebke Wachmann's large studio, every bit, was completely painted with multilayered, dazzling white, and one wall had banks of white fluorescent tubes like gym bars.  The effect was of a literal fog of white, palpable whiteness filling the room.  It is like a James Turrell but she has installations within this and makes photographic sculptures from it.  Behind all those heavy steel doors at the Milchhof there are many surprises.   Lisabetta, a painter on the first floor, has got a commission to do one hundred and thirty pictures all to strict specification of the same size, 120 x 140 cm. and technique, for an Anthroposophist Hospital that requires the Rudolph Steiner technique. This uses very thin water-based layers of the primary colours red, yellow, blue, on top of each other, making orange, green, and purple paintings.  The differences in colour come about by the sequence of the applications.  There are to be two paintings of the same all-over colour, in each of the sixty-five rooms, one on either side of the television, facing the bed.  To me this sounds like a surrealistic fable, but I can see that it might be quite soothing. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 After getting the edges right in the orange painting, I decided to try and look up the galleries that are listed in the surrounding area, but it isn't as easy as looking up the address and hey presto there it is.  Berlin has the most difficult street numbering system of anywhere I've been to with the exception of Seoul.  In Berlin the numbers start at one and continue consecutively like that all the way down one side until the other end and then they go back up sequential until that end so one and say six hundred and thirty face each other.  The rub is that you have to know how long the street is and which way to start off.  With wide streets it is a real pain because one can't easily check what the numbers are doing across the way.  So geared to insider knowledge, interesting as always.  One gallery listed on Oderberger Strasse, after walking up and down a bit, turned out to be a person's name on an apartment block.  No answer on the phone or the doorbell.  Well, maybe another day.  Then walking down, a long way trying to find 176 Schönhauser Allee, I passed all sorts of intriguing shops: a tatooist whose premises were lined with richly coloured silk hangings and gave the impression of an Eastern cult; a plumber's where a girl had on nothing but a towel and was being photographed in the bath in the window; a shop that was for used clothing and objects but with everything set out so exquisitely that it made me wonder if they were new things designed to look second-hand, but it was closed so I couldn't check; a building with classical column that was so massive it looked unbelievable, and turned out to be a school; a massage and sauna establishment down a courtyard; a vivid red brick Roman Catholic African church that was so angular and odd that it made me wonder if parts of it had been bombed away and they just joined the standing parts with the dome; a ‘Natur' shop that had bolts of cloth with most peculiar old fashioned lumpy clothes hanging that had been handmade there with no attention to to-days or yesterdays fashions so that wearing them I suppose one would look ‘natur; but no 176.  Except that this plastered over with graffiti and fly bills boarded up wall, what is that?  Look it has number 176.  Going up the stairs that were covered in graffiti, one came into a conclave of abandoned buildings around a little park.  There is a tiny workers cafe in the corner that is open for lunches mid week and the rest is closed but is a biergarten in the summer.  So where is the gallery.  Asking the man who was clearing up rubble he said ‘ya, ya,' and waved to the back where there was one of those red and white stripy keep out tapes strung over the derelict public toilets, and yes a small sign with a red arrow on it.  Past some construction work and a pile of rubble one then voilà, came out into one of those fabulous renovations of what had been a brewery, and now is the úber chic Akira Ikeda gallery with a massive red steel Mark Di Suvero sculpture outside.  Wow.  But they don't make it easy for anybody. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 For two days now I haven't been able to get an Internet signal outside the journalists' office to send any emails, which is frustrating.  Finally I copied all my stuff onto a CD and was preparing to do the trek to the Internet shop at Rosa-Luxemburg Platz.  It was a drag as it was well after nine in the evening.   I don't like the one nearer here as he charges double and I always lose my work because he charges before use and then inevitably the computer shuts down before I am ready to click Send.  I went upstairs just to check once more, and this time there was the elegant girl who works for Le Monde in Paris, beautiful with long ash brown hair and pale face, but she always looks tired as she has to work long and hard for them covering the political stories.  So we tapped away until midnight. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 For dinner I met up with Tom and another artist who also works as a bicycle tour guide.  Jonathan is German but has just come back from two years in Argentina.  His grandparents settled there and his parents had gone back to live in Argentina when the Second World War broke out.  He was quick to say that his family were against the war and didn't want to have any part in it, although we hadn't asked, but this war business still raises its head even if unspoken.  An extremely volatile, cheerful fellow, he certainly had the sun darkened skin and look of a gaucho, keeping us entertained by his anecdotes of his life in Argentina.  We were eating at the so popular Monsieur Vuong's where the queues are so long and the place is so packed for the two Vietnamese specialities that they offer each day, that getting part of a table seems like a victory.  The mango and coconut smoothie was divine.Afterwards we went to the Art Pub, which has been open by the English artist Paul Woods.  Everyone that works there is an artist, a Siberian one behind the bar, and the walls are changing exhibitions of his own and others works.  Musical groups play there on some nights, poetry readings, or artist discussions other nights.  He first came to Berlin in 2000 when everything was wide open and he squatted like they all did in the empty abandoned buildings.  He was part of a squat of artists that included some from the Milchhof.  Tall, thin and with one of those scraggy beards, he talked a mile a minute about all his projects and possibilities, even outtalking Jonathan.  He had first started opening galleries in empty shops, building up a group of artists around him, but then he got a backer and opened this Art Pub in November and did a bustling business.  However, unlike running a gallery where he freely operated it, as he liked, Paul said that being a pub brought all sorts of nasty elements circling round.  Criminals demanding protection money, drug dealers wanting to be included, Neo-Nazis turning up, all the underworld elements made him a target.  After many all-out fights and punchings he called the police.  Now all of a sudden no one comes.  It's true we were the only ones there that night.  His telephone and Internet has been cut off and the pub no longer pays its way.  Irrepressible though, in spite of these woes he went on to talk of the artist projects he wants to set up and the performances he is going to give along with artist workshops on how to make money.  Did you hear that last bit?  A real alternative systems breaker.  Hats off to his indomitable spirit even if smashing keyboards, as part of musical performance isn't as cutting edge as it once was. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Finally, I think I'm making some progress on the paintings, but it all takes so much time that it is hard to fit everything in.  Sarah Kent the art critic is in Berlin writing about UK artists who have moved here to work.  Mona Hatoum is one and Susan Hiller, Tacita Dean are others.  Sarah came to my studio here to look at what I'm doing and then we went to dinner.  What a pleasure to be able to talk freely and be understood.  Apart from a few like the quicksilver landscape architect and the jazz singer who has lived in London for a time, the isolation here is the language.  It is as if one lives behind a sheet of glass prevented from being a real part.  Not that they aren't nice - Berliners are so very friendly and well mannered that I am astonished how very obliging and caring everyone is.  Everyone smiles and says ‘Hallo' and ‘Chuss' as we pass in the halls.  Any time I need to find out or get something done they are so helpful, but it is the chats and free conversations, to really get to know them, that can't happen without my speaking German, that I miss.  Sarah and I went to a wonderful laid-back place on Oderberger Strasse, which we both said reminded us of London in the late seventies.  A lot of Berlin is like that as if brimming with nostalgia.  All bare wood and hand decorated loos, no hassle, sweet people and what is more, delicious food.  A girl at the next table was doing her studies, writing in a book. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Funnily enough I woke with a sore throat.  It may be all the people smoking in the restaurant.  Berliners sure do smoke a lot.  The last gasp before it becomes illegal.  Manfred came to change my light bulb with his tall ladder and a cool white bulb.  I had mentioned that the one he had put in before was a yellow tungsten one and as a colourist it was driving me mental.  I was still in my navy terrycloth dressing gown and slippers, wet hair wrapped in a red towel, so I felt a bit like either a slut or a housewife.  Never mind my unprofessional appearance, the light is a great improvement. Once actually up and about I felt I needed some fresh air so decided to walk about taking photographs.  Starting out in brilliant sunshine, soon it turned into driving rain, then sleet, snow and all of a sudden back to sunshine again.  Talk about changeable, but I got some good shots even if some were in the pouring rain, like the one of a girl walking by the gigantic Di Suvero sculpture carrying a plaster nude figure.  At one point I found another tiny Heimat shop and bought some cute postcards, one with silly little photos saying in German the admonition: ‘Avoid mentioning domestic difficulties-we all have them.  Suitable topics are children, dogs, and travel-Many thanks!' now whom am I going to send that to?Meeting up with Sarah Kent in the evening again, we went to Tom's studio so that she could see his work and then went out to dinner at the November restaurant near Kathe Köllwitz Platz, and afterwards walked up to Kakao the fabulous hot chocolate place and bar.  One dark bitter 100% hot chocolate like that has probably got the serotonin content of three orgasms.  We're going cycling tomorrow. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 As soon as we got our bikes from the Fat Tire Bike Company it began to rain.  After some dithering and then putting on both rain trousers and those clear plastic tops that all Americans seem to carry, off Sarah and I sped in a light drizzle, Tom leading the way.  Our first destination was to go further into the Eastern Zone to Friedrichshain where a mile of the Wall still remains, known as the East Gallery.  After that we cycled up Karl Marx Allee.  Sarah is a speeder while I hang back a little and look around, even sometimes taking photographs   So she set the pace with Tom asking him questions and I kept up but liked cycling at not quite such a ferocious pace.  We got back to Alexanderplatz just as the light was failing, much exhilarated. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 A friend from London arrives today.  She's coming by overnight train and will arrive at 8:30 am.  My plan is to take her on a bicycle tour of Berlin too, but this time with a regular city tour that Tom guides so that she gets orientated.  What is the weather going to do?  After I had sent her the directions how to get from the Hauptbahnhof station by the S-bahn to Alexanderplatz she texted me that her guide book said that she would be arriving at Ostbahnhof, which threw me, and I had to stop and laboriously text her, (I'm crap at texting), that she definitely was not etc. until finally the penny dropped-she had a very old guide book.  My goodness why didn't she look at her ticket?  Guide Book perils are something to add to the list of travelling warnings. Soon I'm either going to be fit or dead.  Especially since I felt I had to do some housekeeping today, (steps back in amazement), and cleaned the floor in the anteroom which will be the guest bedroom for her. Even Tom from the office was amazed when he passed by. Now it looks quite cosy but how comfortable that inflatable bed really is, I'm not sure. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 Straight away we were ready to go on the Fat Tire Berlin Bike tour.  Already it was raining but we were not deterred.  First we had breakfast at the top of the Galleria department store with its great view looking out at Alexanderplatz, then we joined the three other cyclists with Tom the guide, and off we went.  Just to trap us the skies cleared as we set off and so I didn't put on waterproof trousers or top.  Big mistake.  Once we were far enough away from the Fernsehturm the huge television tower where Fat Tire's office is, that it was too far to go back, it started pouring.  Undaunted we pressed on and occasionally the rain even stopped for a few minutes.  The rain did not put a damper on the joy of cycling around Berlin even if one might wince at the word, but a lunch break for Bratwurst and hot drinks came just in time to thaw out my hands and feet.  With us on the tour was an artist from South Carolina and her doctor husband.  As they turned up to go bicycling, they introduced themselves as "Joseph and Mary, we've left the Kid at home".  After the tour they invited us for afternoon tea at their hotel so that they could introduce me to a Berlin artist whose sister, lives in South Carolina.  They were such very warm and friendly people.  She is small, sweet, fair curly-haired, blue eyed, with a lilting Southern voice and an open nature.  Her paintings use her experiences such as when she worked in the Philippines with the street prostitutes.  Their friend turned out to be French but has lived as an artist in Berlin for more than twenty years.  It was such a pleasure, by unlikely chance, to meet up with these artists and lanky humorous Joseph.  We did have a short rest and a bite to eat before going out in the evening, my friend's first day in Berlin, a full one.  In fact we cut it so fine we took a taxi so that we wouldn't be late.  That is extravagant but the performance written and acted by Lindsay Annis was certainly worth it.  It was spectacular.  My Ulysses taken from and adapted James Joyce's Ulysses.  It was sharp and funny, the performance ribboned through with personal references about finding a flat in Berlin through an ad, and then another, and also references to the production.  The sound effects exactly, austerely, creatively imaginative.  As was the sparse choreography.  It was as I remembered off Broadway used to be before it got into being boring clichéd Fringe.  Now here in Berlin I felt the same intense excitement.  And you know what?  She's got a studio at the Milchhof.  That is so great.  The elation of the performance buoyed us up and we went to Gorky Park at one thirty in the morning for bowls of Borsht.  No problem.  Welcome to friendly-to-artists Berlin. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/377474 After bacon, eggs, a plum and coffee we went to the Gallery Goff+Rosenthal, on Brunnenstrasse to see an exhibition of American artists, ‘From Our Living Room to Yours', full of funky art objects.  Sitting round a table talking to the extremely pleasant and friendly gallery director with one of the art pieces in the centre was somewhat disconcerting as it looked exactly like a big layer cake with icing that one would like to scoop out and lick a finger full, but it is made all the way through of solid oil paint.  From there we did a bit of shopping.  My friend, a textile designer and screen printer is also a magnificent cook and wanted to buy a German cherry stoner.  This quest we pursued from one store to another without success.  The reason given being that ‘cherries are not in season now.'  But stainless steel does not have to be fresh we moaned fruitlessly.  (Sorry).  So a plum pitter was purchased instead.  Plums are in season, as we knew from eating them.  (But probably in Bolivia or somewhere, Peruvian plums anybody?).  There was just time to fit in a museum as we had booked a dinner reservation for the restaurant on the top of the Reichstag, to circumvent the invariable long waiting queue to get in. Unfortunately, getting on the (wrong) train, meant we spent the time going back to where we had started, but taking photographs of the seat cover patterns.  East Berlin is completely covered, smothered, in graffiti.  Public transport circumvents any more, or is just responding to prevailing tastes, by using graffiti inspired motifs on the seat covers. Even chunks of graffiti are framed to decorate an S-Bahn station.  The Reichstag.  What a tremendous experience.  The restaurant reservation certainly made it a privileged breeze to get in and through the security checks.  What a view at the top and the buzz of Norman Fosters