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Trip Start May 30, 2009 Previous
Entry Trip End Jun 19, 2009 Next
Entry

  Berlin, Germany
Thursday, June 11, 2009

This morning, we had an opportunity to spend more time on our own. I decided to head over towards Museum Island because I had read about the Kunsthalle and I wanted to go check it out.  According to an article that I read, every city in Germany has a Kunsthalle – a building in the middle of the city without a permanent collection that is dedicated to showing contemporary art. After the Wall came down the art scene began to change quite dramatically and in 1994, the city decided to close the Kunsthalle that existed.  A Berlin artist, Coco Kuhn decided to work towards establishing a new Kunsthalle that could showcase the great art of Berlin.  Long story short, a few years back Kuhn received a phone call from Dieter Rosenkranz, who was willing to provide the money needed to bring the Kunsthalle back.  Kuhn had a Temporare Kunsthalle built – one that can be easily transported and dismantled.  As a result of Kuhn's work, the city has decided to build a permanent Kunsthalle soon.  They just need to settle on a location.

So, I worked my way over to the Kunsthalle and I’m glad that I did.  Inside the blue and white cubed building was an exhibit by Katharina Grosse, entitled "Shadowbox."  The work included four large installations that involved colorful paint and interior and exterior architectural elements.  It was really interesting.

Afterwards, I crossed the street to Museum Island and headed for the Altes Nationalgalerie.  I had visited it earlier in the trip with a tour but I later discovered that there is a collection of Casper David Friedrich paintings housed there.  Two of Friedrich’s paintings that I really love, “Monk by the Sea” and “Abbey in the Mist” are there and I really wanted to see them. It took me a while to work my way past the Rodin’s, Renoir’s, Monet’s, Cezanne’s, and Gauguin’s but I eventually found my way to the two treasures that I was looking for.  They were beautiful.

At 1:30pm, I was due back at the hotel to meet up with everyone else to meet some more artists.  The weather this morning had been very rainy and cold so I was not really looking forward to walking with the group to a place that we were unfamiliar with.  (It has been pretty rainy and cold this entire trip!). We all headed to the U-bahn and took the train to a really old and quaint community.  There we met with Mike and MFA Kiera; they were the two jazz musicians from the “White Trash Club” that some of the other students went to on the first night.   Mike is from Washington DC and MFA is from Madagascar.  They talked about the music scene in Berlin and how things are changing as more and more artists discover all that Berlin has to offer.

After meeting with them in their home, they lead us on a walk to meet up with another artist named Ben Wargin.  MFA described Ben as an ecological artist.  There is a part of the Berlin Wall near the new parliament building that he “maintains.”  Ben must have been in his seventies.  He could not speak English but it was obvious that he has seen a lot in his lifetime.  He maintains the land and the trees around this part of the wall with great care.  After walking through the park and seeing Ben’s work, we walked a block down to a restaurant for a “closing” dinner. 

Once dinner concluded, we headed towards the House of World Cultures for the Sankai Juku performance “Hibiki.”  It was amazing.  It appeared to be a troupe of six male Japanese dancers.  The dance and music was very modern and slow.  The control that the dancers had with every movement was pretty amazing.

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