"Photography is not an art. Neither is painting nor sculpture, literature or music. They are only different media for the individual to express his aesthetic feelings… You do not have to be a painter or a sculptor to be an artist. You may be a shoemaker. You may be creative as such. And if so you are a greater artist than the majority of the painters whose work is shown in the art galleries of today."
-Alfred Stieglitz
08 February 2009
Delicious Berlin Ale
This is the 59th annual film festival in Berlin. I have an accreditations pass to see most of the films for free, without waiting for tickets, or at least I am able to see any others I want and get tickets for free. Friday night was a kicker opening and all the affiliated establishments and theaters everywhere around had free wine. The films I am seeing for class, and truly the more interesting contributions to the festival, are the Forum films, of which this is the 39th anniversary in the Berlinale. These are mostly independent foreign films (with english subs at least!) done low-budget and perhaps a bit overshadowed by the big commercial films (and the presence of their cast and crew) which get most of the press here in Berlin. Friday I saw a documentary (called Defamation) about anti-semitism which left me a bit unmotivated but it was well-done for the most part and the director of this film handled his interviews intelligently and wittily. He was really searching for answers about anti-semitism as he had never experienced much of it while living in Israel his whole life.
I had a great start to my Saturday waking up still drunk from the previous night of revelry in the streets in order to see a 9:30am film which lasted 237 minutes and blew me away with constant enthrallment. Love Exposure by Japanese director Sono Sion is about a perverted son of a corrupt Catholic priest who sins in order to have something to confess to his father's demand that humanity isn't good enough. The actors are convincing to a scary degree, as the film is at times scary and graphic and perverted and twisted, with a great soundtrack of J-pop and religious music, hm. A cool feature of a film festival as large as this is the attendance of directors and actors who are glad to talk about their films and respond to the audience. Sono Sion seems like a funky dude and seriously genius. After four hours of this movie I only wanted to see it again. Piecing the movie together are really creative interplays of light-heartedness and intense drama and in the end of things Sion uses the nature of man's erection to reach out to the righteousness of living and loving. "Love between two people cannot create war," he says, while love for one's country certainly does.
I saw two other movies this day, only one about which I care to expound. One was just shitty, American, and shitty. Shitty acting and shit, and shit. But there was one good song and the cinematography was decent. Otherwise shit. But then I saw this film Mann Tänker Sitt, a Swedish film but a Norwegian saying as the title which translates to something like "Man Thinks It's Own" but which was presented as "Burrowing" to the english-speaking audience; the story of a boy Sebastian finding himself in the world at the young age of pre-pubescency, observing his small community and venturing into nature while venturing into his own mind as the place where decisions are made and life is created as it should belong to one's own. I want to see this again before the end of the festival to pick up some of the lines which were so philosophical and prophetic. Referenced in the film are Thoreau and Whitman, to give an idea of the standpoint here. The young boy narrates his world and the film is beautiful throughout. So beautiful. The soundtrack is impressive in elucidating the emotions of characters who have little dialogue except to point out inadequacies and faults of their own understandings of life, which Sebastian is very keen on picking up himself.
I had a great start to my Saturday waking up still drunk from the previous night of revelry in the streets in order to see a 9:30am film which lasted 237 minutes and blew me away with constant enthrallment. Love Exposure by Japanese director Sono Sion is about a perverted son of a corrupt Catholic priest who sins in order to have something to confess to his father's demand that humanity isn't good enough. The actors are convincing to a scary degree, as the film is at times scary and graphic and perverted and twisted, with a great soundtrack of J-pop and religious music, hm. A cool feature of a film festival as large as this is the attendance of directors and actors who are glad to talk about their films and respond to the audience. Sono Sion seems like a funky dude and seriously genius. After four hours of this movie I only wanted to see it again. Piecing the movie together are really creative interplays of light-heartedness and intense drama and in the end of things Sion uses the nature of man's erection to reach out to the righteousness of living and loving. "Love between two people cannot create war," he says, while love for one's country certainly does.
I saw two other movies this day, only one about which I care to expound. One was just shitty, American, and shitty. Shitty acting and shit, and shit. But there was one good song and the cinematography was decent. Otherwise shit. But then I saw this film Mann Tänker Sitt, a Swedish film but a Norwegian saying as the title which translates to something like "Man Thinks It's Own" but which was presented as "Burrowing" to the english-speaking audience; the story of a boy Sebastian finding himself in the world at the young age of pre-pubescency, observing his small community and venturing into nature while venturing into his own mind as the place where decisions are made and life is created as it should belong to one's own. I want to see this again before the end of the festival to pick up some of the lines which were so philosophical and prophetic. Referenced in the film are Thoreau and Whitman, to give an idea of the standpoint here. The young boy narrates his world and the film is beautiful throughout. So beautiful. The soundtrack is impressive in elucidating the emotions of characters who have little dialogue except to point out inadequacies and faults of their own understandings of life, which Sebastian is very keen on picking up himself.
04 February 2009
I know you're still there
I don't have much time for an update right now because I have to leave the studio to meet an artist, but I have a few important things.
Language class is going really well. It's easy and enjoyable and the teacher is nice and helpful. The language school is really diverse and I like seeing all the people in the cafe nearby on break because people have come from everywhere (yet everyone needs coffee). Not everyone in the city speaks English but I hope to acquire some handling of a means of communication, and I can do most things I need to.
Tomorrow is the start of Berlin's annual film festival, the Berlinale! For ten days I'll be going around the city to watch lots of movies, mostly in German, and to write stories and take pictures. I'll try to update about movies I see because as of now I know nothing about the schedule.
I've been having classes in the Gemäldegalerie which has a huge collection of original prints. Today we looked at Goya's "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters" and Edvard Munch's "Madonna," as well as pieces by Gustav Klimt and Max Klinger. It's great to work with originals and really impressive, I might add.
I met an artist Loredana Nemes yesterday and I'm going to see her again to check out her studio and talk about being an artist in Berlin and what it takes to get where you're going, and if that makes any sense. It doesn't, but it's good to talk about things you don't know with people who know other things, and she had really nice photos and nice things to say about them. I'm hoping to make good connections with working artists and curators!
Das is alles for jetzt.
-Elili Jango
Language class is going really well. It's easy and enjoyable and the teacher is nice and helpful. The language school is really diverse and I like seeing all the people in the cafe nearby on break because people have come from everywhere (yet everyone needs coffee). Not everyone in the city speaks English but I hope to acquire some handling of a means of communication, and I can do most things I need to.
Tomorrow is the start of Berlin's annual film festival, the Berlinale! For ten days I'll be going around the city to watch lots of movies, mostly in German, and to write stories and take pictures. I'll try to update about movies I see because as of now I know nothing about the schedule.
I've been having classes in the Gemäldegalerie which has a huge collection of original prints. Today we looked at Goya's "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters" and Edvard Munch's "Madonna," as well as pieces by Gustav Klimt and Max Klinger. It's great to work with originals and really impressive, I might add.
I met an artist Loredana Nemes yesterday and I'm going to see her again to check out her studio and talk about being an artist in Berlin and what it takes to get where you're going, and if that makes any sense. It doesn't, but it's good to talk about things you don't know with people who know other things, and she had really nice photos and nice things to say about them. I'm hoping to make good connections with working artists and curators!
Das is alles for jetzt.
-Elili Jango
01 February 2009
Holy Shit February, and the past few days
Last night was the lange nacht der museen, an event that happens twice annually in Berlin in which most museums accept admission through a single ticket and stay open until 1 or 2am. Special busses take huge crowds of people all over the city to the numerous museums and exhibits that may be going on and berliners and tourists celebrate. My first stop was the Altes (old) museum for its show of egyptian art and the bust of Nefertiti. For some reason they had pieces by Alberto Giacometti attempting to represent ancient egyptian-style figures through his crude metal sculpture. I thought it was the most absurd thing and their presence almost would have detracted from the fine beauty of the egyptian sculptor's style if not for the utmost disparity and lack of inspiration. The most fascinating pieces in the exhibit were Roman style portraits from egypt which were undated but made me very curious.
After the Altes I went to an exhibit in the Deutschland Historisches museum covering art made between the WWI and WWII, impressions of the war and the nazi and socialist parties. Some of this stuff was truly incredible. Paul Weber made the most powerful prints, foreshadowing events 30 years in the future as critical artists and activists at the time knew to be inevitable given the state of affairs at the time. Scathing commentary and incredible depictions of terribly grim nature.
Sculptor Anish Kapoor had an installation at the Deutsch Guggenheim. The piece, "Memory," was a huge steel oblong object in one room with a window to the inside set into a white wall in the opposite room. With no lights on the interior the incredible whiteness of the wall pulled out the incredible blackness within. It was full of tourists poking their heads into this wall and ruining the effect by flashing it up, but I can imagine it's impressive power on a person in solitude and quiet which it reflects.
The last stop of the night was the Gemaldegalerie to look at classical paintings. Supposedly the gallery was featuring a comparison of Giotto to Rothko but there were no Rothko pieces and I'll have to see if that's elsewhere in the museum because I have no idea how the two could be related. I did spend a good deal of time with Gilles (an art history major in the same program as I) to cover the entire gallery which houses some terribly famous paintings by Carravaggio, Rembrandt, and other painters I appreciate like Watteau, Ruisdael, and Rubens.
I'm actually writing this blog in reverse from today which is Sunday back to Wednesday since I want to cover the places I've been if not just briefly to convey a sense of how much there is to do. Time goes very fast and very slow when you enjoy everything you do and are not settled into a scheduled routine (which will start tomorrow with 9am class everyday for five weeks), but even then time gets distorted in different ways for different reasons, not all of which we understand or care to put together so much, but at least I'm attempting to keep it together by writing about some solid things. Later in the semester is when I get to open my valves all the way and get into working my creative flow. I drip every now and then but it doesn't leave a trail I can trace back. I wonder if it evaporates, or rather becomes part of wherever it lands, like an oil stain which you may polish over but only further engrain.
Friday 30.1 was dinner my house with the cool kids I've befriended, James, Ariella, Ian, Gilles, and Ryan (my roommate), mostly the coolest of the bunch of Lexia Study Abroad students. We're a mix of the visual art kids and architecture kids and we've been bonding more than the others. People develop preferences, it's only natural when you want to have fun. Anyway we cooked a wicked dinner of Gnocchi and Tortellini with mushrooms and pesto and drank several bottles of wine and ate copious gummies all in preparation for a long night of clubbing. It was some of ours' first times clubbing, others seasoned veterans of the dance floor war (it can be scary out there). Truly too expensive to get into a club which was too small, is all I have to say. It was fun though going and coming and in-betweening. I thought I locked myself out of my apartment since Ryan broke his key earlier in the day and I was sure my key was in my room. Not until traversing town to James' place did I casually pull my key out of my pocket like it was nothing and just stand in awe for a half a second before laughing my ass off.
Wednesday and Thursday I visited cemeteries, Wednesday the Jewish cemetery and Thursday the memorial for Soviet soldiers in Treptower Park in East Berlin. The two were impressive in entirely different ways and encompass entirely different mindsets while approaching. The Soviet monument is a citation of power and honor in a time of most difficulty for the Germans, while the Jewish cemetery recalls a mass defilement of a race in a place meant to honor their presence on the earth. The resting places of the dead say a lot about the times. I think I'll want to return on my own some other time, as I've always had some kind of attraction to cemeteries and their whims.
After the Altes I went to an exhibit in the Deutschland Historisches museum covering art made between the WWI and WWII, impressions of the war and the nazi and socialist parties. Some of this stuff was truly incredible. Paul Weber made the most powerful prints, foreshadowing events 30 years in the future as critical artists and activists at the time knew to be inevitable given the state of affairs at the time. Scathing commentary and incredible depictions of terribly grim nature.
Sculptor Anish Kapoor had an installation at the Deutsch Guggenheim. The piece, "Memory," was a huge steel oblong object in one room with a window to the inside set into a white wall in the opposite room. With no lights on the interior the incredible whiteness of the wall pulled out the incredible blackness within. It was full of tourists poking their heads into this wall and ruining the effect by flashing it up, but I can imagine it's impressive power on a person in solitude and quiet which it reflects.
The last stop of the night was the Gemaldegalerie to look at classical paintings. Supposedly the gallery was featuring a comparison of Giotto to Rothko but there were no Rothko pieces and I'll have to see if that's elsewhere in the museum because I have no idea how the two could be related. I did spend a good deal of time with Gilles (an art history major in the same program as I) to cover the entire gallery which houses some terribly famous paintings by Carravaggio, Rembrandt, and other painters I appreciate like Watteau, Ruisdael, and Rubens.
I'm actually writing this blog in reverse from today which is Sunday back to Wednesday since I want to cover the places I've been if not just briefly to convey a sense of how much there is to do. Time goes very fast and very slow when you enjoy everything you do and are not settled into a scheduled routine (which will start tomorrow with 9am class everyday for five weeks), but even then time gets distorted in different ways for different reasons, not all of which we understand or care to put together so much, but at least I'm attempting to keep it together by writing about some solid things. Later in the semester is when I get to open my valves all the way and get into working my creative flow. I drip every now and then but it doesn't leave a trail I can trace back. I wonder if it evaporates, or rather becomes part of wherever it lands, like an oil stain which you may polish over but only further engrain.
Friday 30.1 was dinner my house with the cool kids I've befriended, James, Ariella, Ian, Gilles, and Ryan (my roommate), mostly the coolest of the bunch of Lexia Study Abroad students. We're a mix of the visual art kids and architecture kids and we've been bonding more than the others. People develop preferences, it's only natural when you want to have fun. Anyway we cooked a wicked dinner of Gnocchi and Tortellini with mushrooms and pesto and drank several bottles of wine and ate copious gummies all in preparation for a long night of clubbing. It was some of ours' first times clubbing, others seasoned veterans of the dance floor war (it can be scary out there). Truly too expensive to get into a club which was too small, is all I have to say. It was fun though going and coming and in-betweening. I thought I locked myself out of my apartment since Ryan broke his key earlier in the day and I was sure my key was in my room. Not until traversing town to James' place did I casually pull my key out of my pocket like it was nothing and just stand in awe for a half a second before laughing my ass off.
Wednesday and Thursday I visited cemeteries, Wednesday the Jewish cemetery and Thursday the memorial for Soviet soldiers in Treptower Park in East Berlin. The two were impressive in entirely different ways and encompass entirely different mindsets while approaching. The Soviet monument is a citation of power and honor in a time of most difficulty for the Germans, while the Jewish cemetery recalls a mass defilement of a race in a place meant to honor their presence on the earth. The resting places of the dead say a lot about the times. I think I'll want to return on my own some other time, as I've always had some kind of attraction to cemeteries and their whims.
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