Sammlung Boros Collection

On Saturday I took a tour of the Sammalung Boros art collection, which is situated in a bunker in Berlin- Mitte. I signed myself up for a one and half hour tour in German. This was slightly painful… but it was my only way to view the contemporary art collection. The three English tours during the day were all booked up. I thought art being such a visual thing than that the context would not matter that much.

The Sammalung Boros collection is a private Contemporary art collection that was set up by communication designer Christian Boros. His collection of art has been situated in the bunker since 2008. The function of the Bunker has often changed in the past. It served as a shelter, prison, fruit storage, techno club and is currently a private art museum.

This coloured history of the building creates a very spectacular area to display art. The compartmentalised rooms give each piece a dedicated and private viewing space. The bombing marks on the exterior of the building and the rustic paint surface on the interior walls gives the gallery space eliminates any austere feeling that the gallery may have.

At the Gallery I was probably most impressed by the work by Olfar Eliasson. The opening work in the gallery ‘Berlin Colour Sphere’ is a spectacular lighting piece made from a number of iridescent glass pieces. The light reflects a sphere of geometric colour into the room. As you move around the gallery seeing the piece from aerial angles the colour of the glass becomes more opaque.

Eliasson also has another installation in an upper room in the gallery. The room gradually transforms through a spectrum of different colours. The beauty in the piece is revealed behind the scrim spanning a good way across the room. Behind the scrim is whole series of halogen lights beaming different colours through their attached filters. These lights must be attached to dimmers, which control the amount of light and alter the mixture of colour in the room.

The Boros Collection has commissioned a number of contemporary artists to create site-specific works. Some of these works have been built to fit into difficult working spaces. Tight prison like cells, have geometric forms crawling between the different rooms.

Arthouse Tacheles

When I moved into the Midland Junction Studios about a year and half ago, I thought I was moving into the ghetto. It took about 2 days to clean up and make a 20 sqm space look decent enough to call it an art studio.

But I have taken a rain check on Titling the Midland Junction studios a Ghetto after visiting the Tacheles art centre in the centre of Berlin. Everywhere I walked in these studios I got a wiff of old urine. Along the hallway and entrance to the studio was covered in graffitti. Artist who worked in the spaces had taken a bit more effort in cleaning up there spaces, but the whole place had a bit of a grungy, dirty vibe.

The building used to be a part of a Jewish quarter in the city. In WWII the space was overtaken by Nazi administration. The derelict building was overtaken by artist in 1999, there are 20 + artists working from the space.

The studios had a bit of a strange vibe, each artists set there own rules, some charged to enter to have a look at there work, others charged if you took a photograph, and some artists were just happy to have wonder in an check out your work. It seemed like they all needed to make a consensus decision on payment and sit one person at the front of the art centre if they wanted to charge an entry fee. Anyway, I felt like a bit of a tight arse squirming over a couple of Euro when i had been forking out 10 odd Euro for every gallery i entered in Berlin.

As for the artwork, I wasn't totally impressed, maybe the commercialisation of the studios made me a bit weary. But if you are kicking around Berlin it is worth a look.

http://super.tacheles.de

Hamburger Bahnhof

I never thought that I would fall asleep in an Art Gallery, but I did the other day! I am truly following in my mothers sleeping foot steps, which is slightly depressing. My mother once fell asleep in the middle of a telephone conversation.

Anyway, I was so mesmerized by some video art, and the comfy cinema like setup that I dozed off for a while. I woke up to a much larger audience of viewers and wondered how long I had been there?

Anyway, this all happened on my visit to Hamburger Banhof in Berlin, Germany. Hamburger Banhof is a railway station that has been converted into a massive art gallery. The space is a beautiful setting for a gallery. Big high ceilings has allowed for a spacious display of large artworks. It is worth a visit to this gallery just to see how well the artworks fit in the context of the gallery.

The most impressive artwork for me was an installation by Richard Long, an English artist. The work was made up of a series of natural objects, like stones, mud, decaying wood and pebbles. These various natural objects have been meticulously laid out into geometric shapes. The scale of the works is very stricking.

As for the rest of the gallery, I found it very conceptual. Conceptual art doesn’t exactly float my boat that much. There were so many video installations I went to sleep!

http://www.hamburgerbahnhof.de

Abstract Interpretation of History

Today I visited the Jewish museum in Berlin, Germany. I expected to leave, having a very depressing experience. However, thankfully the curators of the museum had taken an abstract approach to presenting the tragic history of the Jews in Germany.

Daniel Libeskind has designed a very impressive piece of architecture to house this important history. The building is very unconventional; the space has many harsh linear lines running through the building. The space is filled with angled windows, cold harsh concrete and is cladded in a dull zinc alum surface. The ground floor museum space has uneven surfaced floors, there is no such thing as way finding through this museum space.

Tucked in various corners of the museum space are different voids, which gives a visitor a censory experience of the Jewish German History.

One of the voids is a triangulated space that is cold and dark inside. The roof towers 20 meters above you. Halfway up the wall is a ladder, which is unreachable. In the corner of the room at the very top of the space is a small channel of light seeping into the room.

Another one of the spaces is filled with heavy metal dics, with simplified faces cut into the discs. Visitors to the museum walk over the cobbled metal discs, which creates this discordant sound resonating in the void space.

I was really glad I overcome my fears of becoming too depressed at the idea of visiting the Jewish museum. The contemporary approach taken to present this history was very eye opening. So often in Australia, history is exhibited so

literally. The Jewish German history is very well known, it is nice to see a sensitive approach has been taken to present it.

Losing my fan base!

Yesterday I lost my biggest fan base. Nan has been the biggest fan of her 11 Grandchildren’s artistic achievements. She enthusiastically attended art exhibitions, performances and concerts. Not only was she a supporter she was our best marketing promotions woman around. She would litter her coffee table with newspaper cut outs and proudly tell every visitor to the house about the current projects in the making.

Nan also graciously gave up her house for many an art project. Back in the Summer of 2010 my sculptural piece Spinifex outgrew my studio space. So I took up Artist in Residence at Nanna Shirls place in Darlington for about three weeks.

What a Nan, putting up with her garage being turned into the welding shed. The Back room was the pod threading station. The verandah became the temporary photography studio. As the temperatures soared Nan gradually let the art project creep into the house, getting closer to the air conditioner.

It must have taken a fair bit of tolerance to have a granddaughter come and be your artist in residence. Nevertheless the support kept flowing. At 9 pm at night just before nan popped off to bed, she would come out with a plate of sweets to keep my sugar levels up so I could power on through the night and finish this piece in time for the exhibition.

So after many a cup of tea, conversation and plates of sweets Spinifex was finally complete. We took the piece to Cottesloe and exhibited it for 3 weeks. Unfortunately it has taken until now to sell the work, and Nan has kindly allowed me to turn her back yard into Sculpture park, looking after the work until the right buyer came about.

Anyway, Nanna Shirl is going to be fondly remembered for her support of the Pepper art projects.

Tensioned Concrete mould

This is the outcome from Friday's concrete pour. The plastic flexible mould was created without any sewing. It was all held together by clamps. This makes the mould reusable.

The piece still needs refinements, but an interesting piece to be experimenting with.

Queens Day

A sea of orange flooded the Netherlands this weekend. The streets were filled with coloured flags lining the streets. Lots of People made a big effort to dress ridiculously in some sort of Orange outfit. This was all in the name of Queens Day, the biggest annual celebration in the Netherlands.

The streets also turn into one big jumble sale. Queens day is a good excuse to clean out the house and sell all the junk laying around your house. As the selling starts so do the small house parties, which then converges into one big street party. It was an amazing atmosphere I have not really experience before.

Me and my hoarding habits, meant that I couldn’t resist the bargains lining the streets. The first night I picked up a toaster and air mattress to make for a homely environment when my Australia visitors hit town.

Then day two in Delft, I bought some very bright looking sneakers to get my exercise on. I also spotted a very nice pair of cycling shoes for my dad, fingers crossed they fit.