The problem artists face when they decide to exhibit in many of Berlin's smaller galleries is which space to choose. The breathtaking abundance of cavernous, historic buildings on offer available means that your work had better be good enough to compete with the walls it is being hung on.
Too often I have noticed vernissage visitors ignoring the art and pouring excitedly over the building's original cornices and door handles, whispering excitedly:
"Did you know, this building used to be an old bunker/
19thcentury hospital/ Stasi hideout?"
The art often shrugs apologetically in a "don't mind me" way. Paintings and photographs are occasionally badly hung, on greying walls in a dim room – but doesn't this place feel authentic and wouldn't it be great for a party?
Charlottenburg, in West Berlin, provides an alternative to the ‘alternative’ scene: The small boutique galleries dotted around near the Parisian Savignyplatz and along Kantstrasse are functional and sometimes boxy but definitely encourage the art to do the talking.
West Berlin's feine Damen attended the recent gallery opening of the Albert Watson exhibition at the Camera Work gallery in floor length furs and sipped chilled sekt with media darlings. The gallery is hidden in an Atelierhaus off Kantstrasse, and is a fantastic space perfectly lit and spacious enough to properly experience the work of a great photographer.
Watson is Scottish-born and made it big when he threw himself into his "hobby" in America in the 1970s and triumphed as a fashion photographer and a director of commercials despite being blind in one eye.
If his name is not recognizable, his images certainly will be. This collection includes pictures from a shoot of a nude, ethereal Kate Moss in Morocco in the 1990s and a bold portrait of a Christy Turlington with a seductive trail of smoke curling out of her mouth. His enticing travel photographs are also included in the exhibition but if I had a few thousand to spare I would invest in the triptych of dancing neon jellyfish against a black backdrop. Wonderful.
Tempelhof airport's lengthy swan song has been drawn out in the German media for months and Berliners are still mourning Mayor Klaus Wowereit's controversial decision to close it. Parts of the building date back to 1923 and it is most famous for housing one the most classic examples of Nazi architecture and for providing the Allies a landing strip for their Raison Bombers during the airlift of supplies into West Berlin from 1948-49.
Photographs of the building and the famous passengers that have jetted in and out of it have become as iconic as the airport itself – the Rolling Stones landed their private jet here in 1965 and John F. Kennedy flew here in 1963 to tell the world, "Ich bin ein Berliner."
C/O Berlin is paying its respects to the treasured building by hosting a month-long exhibition in their foyer of the last photographs taken of Tempelhof as a functioning airport. Cathrin Schulz's handful of images of the airport in its final days – a bare waiting lounge, an empty runway and the final flight ("last call") form a shrine to the historic airport. The black and white photographs are faintly tinged with colour that lend the grey facades and lengths of lonely runway a delicate fragility.
Albert Watson photography
Camera Work gallery, Berlin
Until Jan. 17
Cathrin Schulz – Last Call
C/O Berlin foyer
Until Jan. 18
And try not to miss:
Munio Weinraub/ Amos Gital – Architecture and film in Israel
The exhibition on the Bauhaus-trained architect Munio Weinraub (1909-1970) and his son, the internationally acclaimed director Amos Gitai (born 1950), presents a protagonist of New Building in Israel and a critical filmmaker and chronicler of his country. In doing so, it mirrors the turbulent history and socio-political developments and problems of Palestine and Israel.
Munio Weinraub was one of the most important architects during the establishment of the state of Israel. He designed residential homes, kibbutz settlements and schools and submitted as far back as 1942 the first project for the Yad Vashem memorial.
The exhibition shows architectural drawings and models by Weinraub as well as films by his son.
Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
Until Feb. 8
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Our local art critic, Jessica Saltz, realizes that sometimes, art has to compete with the illustrious and infamous past of the walls showcasing it.
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