20th March 2015.
Day one.
Location: Hamburger Bahnhof.
On this visit there were two main points of interest for me, the Dieter Roth and Joseph Beuys exhibit. I am familiar with both of their works, however I have never physically seen the work. It is an experience that I am unlikely to forget. Joseph Beuys has a method of displaying his process sketches, a point that James Green made me aware of in a tutorial. This maybe an interesting avenue for me to experiment with in a way that would be relevant to my practice. Also I found it interesting that he leaves the work looking unfinished or unresolved in some way: a prominent point I am also interested in doing in my own work. For me if the work looks unresolved or unfinished in some way it still has the presence of body, human touch or a life to the piece, rather than just an abandoned object. Dieter Roth what can be said.......... well the journey starts in fact before you enter the exhibition. The Hamburger Bahnof is located in an old train station, so in order to access the exhibit firstly you must enter a tunnel with many steps, its as though you were there for what seems like a long time. Eventually you reach a long corridor with big 1960's style orb lights with exit on the apposing side. To your left are many openings with huge sliding doors. On entering each exhibit you realise how deceiving the hall way is. Even though it is a long hall way you do not expect to find that there are many hidden rooms inside. The quantity of work is vast and extremely over whelming, its as if all of the fullness of you and your senses are being bombarded and oozing with stuff everywhere, stuff everywhere!!! Then I happened upon one room that was quite small in mass compared to the others. A single piano and painted on the walls what looked like musical notes. I walked around the room, on leaving the room something intriguing happened and the piano played a single note. I turned around and it was as inconspicuous as it always was; how delightful. There were also many video art pieces, all just as hilarious as the last, full of quite ridiculous displays of sound making. I think out of it all, though it's hard to put my finger on, bar room 2 was of the most interest to me. It was a installation of what appears to be a collection of random obtained objects hoarded in the center of the room precariously built and screwed together and towards the end of the room an abandoned work shop as if still being worked on and enjoyed.
Whilst walking along the banks of the river Spree, we happened upon the new government building of fantastically precarious design. The Berlin wall memorial is situated within this building.
Designpanoptikum Surreales Museum fur Industrielle.
Designpanoptikum is a fantastical display of curious industrial objects mixed with other intriguing objects that miss lead you into believing they had another purpose. You have to separate your logical mind from the realms of science fiction to find the truth, which is of course most of the time far harder to believe.
An exhibition about colour (not sure of the name).
In the evening of the first day we happened upon an exhibition which the artist described as the new philosophy of colour. The exhibition was about new pigments of colour only existing digitally and being given numbers as names (from what I could gather). The work consisted of a projection of colours' into the center of the room with a screen below indicating the number of said colours'. When having a conversation with the artist he made a bold statement saying that humans are the only animals who could see the most colour. I questioned this with him and commented that his statement was incorrect as a butterfly and many other animals can see colour spectrum's that we are not even aware of. To which he repeated his prior statement, so I ended the conversation there.
21st March 2015.
Day two.
Museen Dahlem Ethologisches Museum.
This is an extraordinarily museum full to the brim with astounding artifacts. However there was one exhibit in the Africa exhibit 10 that was a film documentary of tribal dance with masks; I feel that this was of particular value to me with regard to my work entitled ‘INTERFACE’. In fact for the ‘Clear Cut’ performance night in ‘MADE’ I think it might be interesting to use some of the originally used pigments of colour, possibly pastels.
The Museum of Things.
This museum has a collection of 30,00 objects related around design and every day life, from both east and west Berlin. Material clutter of the 20th and 21st centuries. As the museum describes in its flier ‘Werbund was one of the Utopian cultural movements of the early 20th century, and was aimed at promoting modern, functional design in industrial products, architecture and environment. Quality, sensitivity to materials, objectivity, functionalism and durability were the guiding principles’. ‘the Werkbund's main purpose, in addition to promoting the modern design and production of objects and ensembles, was aesthetic education, a way to individual self expression’.
21st March 2015.
Day three.(the final full day in Berlin).
On the last day we visited the Bauhous and as directed by James Green I played particular interest in Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and his ‘Light Space Modulator’ one of the first times an artist worked with engineers, it’s a movable kinetic sculpture that inter plays with coloured lights, creating a spectacular display of shadows. I felt this work had a synergy with my own work, in particular ‘screen’. I will be expanding on this work in the art boutique car park event hosted by ‘Chapter’.