Wolf Vostell… haphazard headlines.

A few weeks ago I was pottering along to Spitalfields Market after helping out my friend Bex at Comica Comiket and I bumped into a kindred spirit – another third year video artist stressing about THE FINAL SHOW – and we swapped webs and emails. Accidentally did that networking thing on my way to grab some lunch and look at over priced clothes, a standard Saturday morning. Anyway, he pointed me over to this artist whose work is a lot like mine, and who no tutor had ever informed me about.

So here’s one of my films – ‘Splits’ from my second year -followed by a couple from Wolf Vostell: painter, sculptor and the man who coined the phrase ‘de-collage’. His subject matter was the present so he began by making Happenings tearing down billboards and drawing attention to the aesthetics which characterised the ‘now’; as television took over the media he began to work with this, making incoherent montages of news programmes which leave the viewer to make sense of the chaos of the world.

Sun In Your Head – 1963 – Wolf Vostell

More from the Pompidou tomorrow, it’s nice to have my digital diary back!

Anselm Kiefer at White Cube… colossal canvases in a gargantuan gallery..

This post sort of ended up as an advertisement for one of my great loves, Mr Anselm Kiefer, I’ve been a little bit obsessed with him since I was seventeen and this is the first time he’s taken a UK gallery all for himself!

Il Mistero delle CattedraliTh or ‘the mystery of the cathedrals’  is Kiefer’s largest ever UK exhibition and for it he has taken over White Cube’s huge new Bermondsey site, there’s only seven days left to catch it so if you’re a bit of a Kiefer disciple like me then go go gooo!

As always these works reflect Kiefer’s obsession with past mythologies and histories, mystical and political systems, but focusing in particular on his fascination with the transforming nature of alchemy.

The man himself explains that…”The ideology of alchemy is the hastening of time, as in the lead-silver-gold cycle which needed only time in order to transform lead into gold. In the past the alchemist sped up this process with magical means. That was called magic. As an artist I don’t do anything differently. I only accelerate the transformation that is already present in things. That is magic, as I understand it.”

Magic!

I’ve always loved Kiefer’s works because of their vast scale and weight; Kiefer builds up layers and layers of shellac and plaster on which tin planes balance precariously and metal struts jut out supporting huge iron hooks, scythes and satellite dishes. Every piece begins as a landscape which is then worked on rigorously, left out to the elements, oxidised and dissolved, and worked over again and again until it has the cracking, crumbling but still completely overpowering and domineering appearance that characterise Kiefer’s works.

The combination of Kiefer’s looming canvases, gigantic sculptures and the huge white expanses of White Cube, Bermondsey will make you feel like a tiny tiny ant…go see. Sometimes it’s good to feel insignificant.

Their Wonderlands… Susanne Ludwig

I may live on the infamous ‘most burgled road in the country’ (the result of which I experienced TWICE over the Christmas break), however I also live a 5 minute toddle from the Midlands Art Centre, our Birmingham Mac -Apples smaller, uglier sister.

However there is nothing small or ugly about They Are Here‘s current exhibition which I popped along to see today. Brightened up my dissertation Sunday it did.

One of my favourites was this film piece by Susanne Ludwig, The Wind Can Always Turn, for which she waited by her tripod until a cathedral from a nearby balloon festival floated past the rolling hills of Egolfs, South Germany. Quite simple but magical – fairytale Disney meets surrealism – and a chance to spy a bit of German scenery which is some of my favourite in the world, and very underrated.

On a lesser note, the Mac’s arts scene is definitely underrated too as it’s out of the way for most people, which is unfortunate because sometimes it’s really rather good, most certainly worth a gander it’s Brum’s Barbican – but with Zumba too.

A beach in Berlin!? Oh yes…

Back to June and my month-long Eurotrip…

We were blessed with brilliant sunshine every single day in Berlin and after four days of intense history, art and sightseeing we thought we deserved a little beach break so we headed an hour west of central Berlin to little Wannsee. Wannsee boasts long white beaches and shallow fresh waters – which had been nicely warmed by the afternoon sun by the time we arrived.

And how cute are the handy fold-up seats!? Definitely getting my hands on one of those for the post-uni house.

We also found ‘city beaches’ dotted across each of the cities we visited, but the best of them were in Berlin as they faced the Spree. We stopped for a lunchtime cocktail at one next to the East Side Gallery – sitting on deckchairs with sand between our toes with our backs to the Berlin wall and looking down at the river, nice but strange! Wish we’d remembered our bikinis as there was a pool too!

Berlin: Tacheles brings contemporary art to the derelict Kunst Haus! must-see!

Walking through one of the more ‘colourful’ districts of Berlin one evening, Scarlet and I discovered the old Kunsthaus and it doesn’t look as tame and oldy worldy as you’d expect. The artist group Tacheles have taken up and stamped (or rather, spray painted) their mark all over every inch of this six storey building and are now spilling onto the streets and any piece of waste land they can find.

There’s all sorts to be seen: amazing jewellery, illustration, painting, metal work, woodwork – you name it, you’ll find it! The artists are from all over Europe, I got chatting with the Dutch artist Tim Roeloffs and the Belarusian painter Alex Rodin; their work was completely different but both appealed to me in different ways – take a look!

Tacheles is a beautiful place, unconventional in every way but the warmth of the artists and the community they’ve built outshines the decrepit nature of the building. Yes it’s dingy and dark, yes the stench of urine is almost unbearable, yes it’s falling to pieces but as we worked our way up the treacherous spiral staircase to the top we grew to love it.

Alex Rodin’s work is in the top of the building and with my fear of heights it was looking like we weren’t going to get there but I’m so glad we did. He was the oldest of the artists we met and his space was a church-like gallery of huge canvases, lit from above through great sky lights. I wish I could have taken photos but on my teeny tiny budget I couldn’t even afford the one euro donation, the paintings are really out of this world though. Alex Rodin’s pieces actually impressed me far more than most of the work I’ve seen recently in London galleries, now that’s saying something!

On a very sad note…Tacheles is being forced out of its home. The council are demolishing the building as it is essentially a squat, a brilliant bohemian dream but a squat all the same.

We signed a petition to try to SAVE TACHELES and you can do the same here… 
http://super.tacheles.de/cms/

It’s one of the most amazing places I’ve ever seen, no exaggeration, just because it’s a collective of 80 people from across the world who want and have managed to fight for the same thing and that’s simply a space to do the things they love to do.

So help them keep fighting!

p.s. I must apologise for the standard of most of these photos, I was overexcited and experiencing the after effects of vertigo for most.

 

 

 

 

Berlin BABY!

Berlin is a city you cannot get bored in. There’s art and history round every corner and it’s just full of life. Everywhere you look there’s something happening and although we extended our stay there to five nights we only just scratched the surface.

Berlin’s famous for its street art and some of the most amazing works appear at East Side Gallery: a section of the Berlin wall that has remained in tact and has been painted with layers and layers of murals by artists from all over the world as a memorial to those who suffered because of it and a celebration of life after its fall.