hole lot of rubbish and monkey music

Nice play on 'hole' there Kent.

we've had a really good run of art shows lately, most recently, this great exhibition on chausseestrasse.

i love saying the place names, it sounds so exotic.

anyway, this artist made the sort of work that elicits this kinda response, 

'that's not art, that's just bloody rubbish!'

well, it was rubbish and it was amazing.

The best rubbish I ever saw really. 

so, the gist of it is this:

there's an art foundation in a building, they have offices upstairs, where there is a stockroom of art, a small exhibition area, there's videos playing and projections, a few people busying themselves with administrative tasks at their desks, photocopying contracts, making phone calls. there's even some books you can buy.

and downstairs, they have a massive exhibition space for their shows.

the artist drilled holes through the floor of the offices upstairs, exactly where they have their paper-waste baskets. 

she then set up new bins over the holes, and asked the workers up there to just continue using them, as if they were normal bins.

  Is anybody else thinking of the Occupational Health and Safety implications if this was even suggested in Melbourne? "Of course you can't put a hole there. Someone might fall in and die. Some rubbish might fall on a spectator below, and they might die. Someone may throw an empty peanut bag into the pile, a spectator may be allergic to peanuts, and they might die." 

(To be fair, at the beer pyramid work, we did have to sign a special form saying that it wasn't the beer pyramid's fault if it collapsed while we were on it, and we died.)

just a simple architectural intervention, but genius.

Hilarious!

the invigilator (what a ludicrous title for someone) was very friendly and suggested we go up to the offices upstairs to look. it was all very lovely really. As we gazed chin-scratchinly at some rubbish, the 'invigilator' (seriously Kent, what the fuck) was all like, very conspiratorially 'ooh, if you look at zis pile 'ere, you will zee it might have important zings (slight giggle). it is zee director's rubbish (tee hee). he iz zitting shtraight up zair' and he points up through the hole. The three of us glance up nervously.

brilliant.

thursday night was our first foray out into the berlin gig scene.
Really? Wow, I guess you're right  - how sad. Though this has been the first gig we have actually wanted to go to ... which doesn't make us sound any cooler at all. Sigh.

we've been here for a month and this is the first night out by ourselves  
(by ourselves! hahaha - yes we are children) to a club - we really are hermit crabs.

anyway, bonobo was playing (some dude from the uk who makes lovely chilled out grooves) and he brought along a live band so we figured, what a nice show to see.

tickets were cheap so we snapped 'em up.

it took us a little while to find the joint - buried as it was behind some trees and down a hill next to a bridge.

way way way more tucked away than any street address or google map would have you initially believe.

after shuffling through the least ordered 'queue' i've come across in a while (meaning a giant smoosh of people), we eventually made our way into the venue. although, some douche bag tried to push in, asking to buy a ticket to the sold out gig from the bouncer - please assume thick European accent:

'but i flew in from moscow just for this gig' he pleaded. 

the bouncer was all like, 'that's really not any concern of mine, please stand aside'. Haha no way, he ACTUALLY said "It ees not my fault, zee tickets ah aaall soold owt! Vat can I do?"

ha - flew in from moscow indeed. as if. anyway, there was scalpers all over the shop, he only had to ask one of them.

the venue was really good. big but not too big, pretty good sound system, couches, big bar. once we got through the doors it became apparent what the slow entrance of patrons was caused by - a massive cloak room. i always wondered about that in europe. i couldn't figure out how they'd be able to cater to 500 or more winter coats, scarves, jumpers and beanies all being dumped by the punters somewhere in the venue. well, now i know. they just have massive cloak rooms with about 20 people employed to operate the ticketing system and hang everything up with perfect neatness and order.  
Well der. Where else would everyone's stuff go? Not like at home, where every chick is in her underwear, rain or shine (maybe thinking her spray on tan will keep her warm - oooh!)

the whole operation was apparently non-smoking but you'd be hard pressed to believe it given every third person was smoking, and half of those were joints. ah europe.

bonobo was great.

the live musicians all worked well together (i think normally the music is all composed samples and shit), extending some songs, swinging away and keeping the audience well entertained.

Oooh! So THAT is what it looked like! Being a midget and all, my view for the evening was ...  that blue laser beam in the right hand corner. It was a pretty nice laser, went well with the tunes. I eventually realised standing in the throng was useless unless I was searching for yet another cigarette burn, and snuck away for some daggy dancing by myself at the back.

oh, another fun thing about the bar sitch.

you buy your drinks and they charge you an extra euro per bottle/glass, and give you a casino chip, that you then cash in with your empty bottle when you get your next drink. that way, everyone brings their empties back to the bar and everything is neat and ordered and efficient. (Apparently. I tested this system by returning said bottles and casino chips, had a very confused bar chick stare at me like I was retarded (granted) and then at my bottles, then huff and take them away, and gave me half my refund, probably for clearly being SO retarded. Eh!)

Anyway, we got our gig on, got a good wallop of much needed bass (oh Jesus, this could actually be Kent talking) into our chests and managed to mosey home before the last train. Not quite the tunes to dance all night to, but still extra pleasing to have a non-committal sway to. 

A nice big sleep in sealed off the evening just nicely. 
(That and a 2 and half hour giant milch-kaffee session at Gaudy this morning ... and by morning I clearly mean 1pm.)  

Mmm, being on holidays is nice. 

an island of culture in a sea of ... kultur

Kent doesn't seem too convinced on that post heading ... I'm not really surprised. What does that even mean?

nah, it makes sense! you'll get it when you read the post ...

after weeks of seeing this tower constantly on our periphery, we finally actually got to stand right under it. 

everywhere you go in berlin is exactly 1km from this thing.

"Ok, so the tower is over there, which means we are ... somewhere." 

This time, instead of being somewhere, we were there! Huzzah!

it's bizarre.

it seemed like we never got closer to it, nor further from it, wherever we went.

and every corner you turn, there it is, sitting just a little way off. ever present.

but on our way into town to check out the museum island, bang! we were suddenly right under it.

and it really is pretty huge.

(just like your face!)

 

 

we got our 'tourist' on today and thought we better go check out the museum island.

it's literally an island, as the name no doubt hints at, right in the river spree.

there's five big museums, each carrying a veritable shitload of important old crap (that we did not see).

apparently most of it had the bejesus bombed out of it in 1945 and it took decades to put them all back together again. there's some sort of irony in the fact that hitler was remorselessly parochial of classicism, and yet, under his leadership and as a consequence of his lunacy, the great bastions of classicism in his nation's capital were nearly obliterated by avenging armies from countries within which avant gardism would be most celebrated.

 anyway, it's all back to now in its 'rightful' glorification of the past and lovely old shit,  

though with a fair few rustic bullet nicks here and there.

 

this was a shock to me. what a grandiose and imposing cathedral.

i dunno, i just figured after the war and years of communist 'mis'-rule, there'd be no religious monuments left in berlin. isn't religion the opium of the masses in the eyes of the socialist?

I didn't think Berlin believed in Jesus either (not that cathedrals have much to do with that dude, but still).

well, whatever, i'm very glad this old tart is still sitting gracefully on the banks of the spree, coz while i'm no fan of organised religion, they sure do know how to commission some killer art.

something about the monumentality of the materials, the composition of the forms and the proportions of the shapes, lend this building a serious sense of imposing presence. well, not so much 'imposing', in a negative sense, just sheer ... material presence. like, kaflumf. it's a real, seriously existing, clump of reality, right there, unmissable.

 

Can anybody else see Kent actually standing on the lush green lawn, in a tweed suit, with a camera crew, talking all BBC like about angles and proportions and shit? He has a poncy british accent and some rather unsightly wire-rimmed glasses, and is doing some really special arm movements to go with those angles. Well, until he says 'kaflumf'.

 

look, that sort of critical analysis will not get me my phd, i'm quite sure, but you get my drift. 

Oh Kent! Are you doing a phd?! Oh my! A PHD? I had NO IDEA!!! 

fuck off bitch-face.

hahahaha!!!

also, scattered about the place ... actually, not scattered, that would be reprehensible to the ordered geometry of  classicism ... are these gigantic bronzes. they're huge. and they're all themed around the human domination of nature. poor lions, getting trounced by ridiculously gorgeous, stick wielding, butt-naked, cerebrally-advanced walking apes. humans, eh? we are truly bizarre.

i can ponder relentlessly about the implications of our lust for land and the sadistic malevolence toward our fellow creatures, but in the end, what's not to love about a naked amazon riding a stallion.

epic. 

(Even though when we were there, Kent said "Man, why did they have to put tits on that dude? That's just wrong.")

and look, if you had the manual dexterity to conjure up authentic realism in sculptural forms, 

hewn from the very hardest of minerals thrown up by the earth's inner crust, 

why the hell wouldn't you birth semi-naked chicks on horses. 

bless.

pygmalion springs to mind - wait ... google check ... yes! pygmalion.

Don't worry - I don't understand either. 

Basically though, I think Kent is saying that these bronzes were all fucking amazing and it was awesome 

to see them just sprinkled among finely hedged gardens.

i'm almost tempted to say, 'and now here's one for the ladies'.

but that is just so ridiculous, i won't even mention it.

 

(When I read the above text, I was SURE Kent had included the unfortunate image of the back view of the previous lion and man on the horse sculpture, in all it's multi-scrotal glory. I am glad he did not. They were very overwhelming.) 

check out this dude though. is he killing this beast or consummating their inter-species union?

either way, pretty amazing piece of work.

 

 

we really enjoyed walking around and basking in the monumentality of it all. we didn't actually go into the museums, which, may be tantamount to some sort of treason in some people's books, particularly as a postgrad in the fine arts, but we really weren't in the mood. maybe another day. probably. As if. You know we won't. but, you know, it was all old stuff (and muuuuuuum, old things are boooooriiiingaaaaah!). it's 2011 and we're in berlin. trudging through rooms full of broken toilet pots from a million years ago and stodgy old portraits of inbred aristocratic hicks from bavaria just wasn't high on our agenda today. 

Besides, Kent has clearly already seen it all, given those avid descriptions above. We have both clearly fallen into the land of indulgent travels, which mostly involves deciding where to have coffee next.

(dear professors, if you stumble across these ramblings, i have a grain a salt i can provide, just ask)

so, off of the island, with its order and power and giant naked people, and back into the streets of contemporary berlin, with its actually visible gentrification (seriously, you walk into a cafe to get a coffee and when you get back out there's a new apartment block on the street as well as some fresh 'fuck off yuppies' graffiti and a smashed window to go with!), casual dress everyday, and random pooh smells (mostly they come from Kent - all those bratwursts are trouble). 

and omg, we opened this door into a bookshop ...

... and it was evident once we got inside, that this was not a door at all.

it was actually the pearly gates themselves and we had inadvertently stumbled into sheer heaven.

every conceivable art book you could imagine was inside.

thousands upon thousands of gloriously printed, seductive, mouth-wateringly delicious pages of pure and unadulterated heavenly beauty.

we stayed about 20 minutes before we overcome with stabbing pains in our chest, mild nausea and escalated heart rate levels. i could quite comfortably live inside this shop, only needing the occasional delivery of food and coffee to keep me alive.

 

Oh my god. What is it about astoundingly fabulous bookshops consistently coinciding with a rather sudden and urgent need to use the toilet RIGHT NOW? Regular bookshops never cause this. Is it because those pristine dust jackets with the embossed titles dipped in a shrink wrap packet from the gods cause such heart palpitations that it causes your entire digestive process to vastly accelerate? It is the same with second hand books. Something about the combination of must and (I want to say foxing? Mum, what are those stains called?) stains on the paper, and that rather cold cottony feel of the paper ... hang on, I need to go to the toilet. 

Seriously though - there was one particular second hand bookshop in Camberwell Junction in Melbourne, that I would specifically go to the toilet before hand, it was that good. Unfortunately nothing helped. I could hold on for about 20 minutes, before tragically bolting out and around the corner to find the nearest borders, where the atmosphere was about as stale as a melba toast (why are these things food?) that my need instantly evaporated. Alas, and thank goodness, that book shop has closed down (which is a real shame - it was very good). Anyway, back to Berlin.

I appreciate that the snap above does not really convey the joy that was the labyrinth of this bookshop. Upon walking in, it looked like a regular amazing bookshop, until you realised that every corner was not a book nook, but a whole new room of books! Just when I thought I was about pass out with the ecstasy of it all, the chappy quietly and pointedly calmly SLID ONE OF THE SHELVES ASIDE TO REVEAL ANOTHER LAYER OF BOOKIE GOODNESS. I stared at him open mouthed, watched him smugly saunter away and then grappled at the closest shelving unit, successfully clattering something to the ground quite loudly. (This shop was like a library, there was no music playing, where customers serenely glided like spirits, silently taking books of shelves. The only sound to be heard was the slight moistening of one's thumb to turn a crisp and delicious page. By comparison, I am pretty sure Kent and I looked like a pair of rather stupid Labrador puppies.) 

speaking of food - we trundled back toward prams-lauer berg via kastanienallee for a lunch stop.

i am loving the schawarma plates here.

its like souvlaki (have we gone over this before?) but laid out into sections of veggies and meat. 

amazing. We were clever enough to not share a platter this time. This shit is the best.

I do apologise for this particularly toilet themed post - I don't know what it is about today. But I found this intriguing. 

Yes what? Yes I can use you? Yes I did? What do you want from me?! It drove me nuts as I gingerly had to turn my back to it.

apparently, this street is referred to as 'casting-allee', a play on its name, because it's the haunt of actors, models and musicians. but that must be in summer coz it's pretty quiet at the moment.

we've been told, like, a million times that it goes off in berlin in the summer.

next person that says it and i'll be like, 'all right all right already! jesus!'

what else....?

oooh - lucy bought a hat! 

 

Yes, I did. I have been prancing rather pretentiously around the flat while wearing it, then more pretentiously sitting at my desk while wearing it, pretending that I am especially important and probably famous, and eventually reluctantly taking it off and putting it in the wardrobe. 

Because I don't wanna look like one of those gits who wears hats inside or anything ... 

(I am trying pretty hard to resist running to the wardrobe to put it back on, and put a 1940s style male reporter voice on while I narrate verbatim what I am currently writing to Kent.) 

 

as always, she looks amazing.

nyaw - you're so sweet Kent!

photos will come later.

And just to finish - I thought this was pretty cool. Kentaur mit (with) Nymphe? 

Looks like we have a new nick name for Kentus. Heh heh!

get out the shorts (and then take off ya top)!

now this says everything you need to know about the berlin retail trade.
i'm fully enjoying the general vibe here, even though, it does occasionally mean you rock up to a shop like this and discover that it's closed, with no sense of when it may open. if indeed it ever will!
it was kinda annoying at first (such as when we went to pick up concert tickets FOUR times because they had decided to be shit, I mean shut - Freudian slip?), but now, well, it's all just part of the charm of the joint.
all ya can do is go away, get a coffee and chill the fuck out. Oh DAMN! (That was sarcasm by the way.)


this is a fantastic wall near the art shop we go to.
it's massive - both the wall and the shop, actually.
don't ya just love the slightly anxious party monster at top?

i got my hands on a set of 10 drawing pens, part of my birthday present.
sooooo excited! i got six 0.3s, two 0.5s, one 0.2 and a 0.8 - staedtler pigment liners.
now that may not mean anything to those unaccustomed to the delicate glide and consistency of stippling, cross-hatching and general mark-making achieved by a fine quality pen,
but let me assure you, these puppies are the bees' knees.

Oh you are so cute Kent - the bees' knees indeed. I finally picked up some replacement scalpel blades (was running very low) and some gouache that doesn't turn to a powdery piece of shit when you use it - super exciting. Aaaaah art supplies. I can't decide what I love shopping for more: art supplies, stationery or boots - they really should invent an all in one emporium for those three things. (I am now leaning back in my seat, with eyes glazed over and some dribble forming on my chin.)


i dunno what this is supposed to mean - maybe the end of deutschland? who knows.
but what a brilliant colour.
i half expect some of the less visually gifted birds to fly into it, invisible as it is against a cloudless sky.
goes perfectly with this little lawn we stumbled on, not 50m away from this wall...


how's that for a colour segue?!

THAT'S how you spell segue??? Really??? I always thought it was segway!
The red squiggly line under my version says no though. Phwaor.

actually, now that i put this post together, i notice the same blue again in the graffiti photo above.
i wonder if there's a connection there... like that there is blue in all of them?
or maybe they just had a massive sale at the local hardware store on a mis-tint.
yeah, that's my bet.


ok ok ok - this image is way random.
that's right, i said 'way random'.
this is a bakery we pass on our way to the supermarket. it is frequented exclusively by old grannies.
what on earth they think of the massive semi-naked women on the wall is a mystery that needs solving.
Possibly that they all sit along that wall with their backs to the porno bread ladies explains it - bless them.
So fucking weird. "oooh look at meeee, I am climbing a ladder made out of BUNS in some denim knickers!"

mmm, lecker-lecker.

so, now to the actual intended theme of this post.
this weekend, by some bizarre quirk of luck, brought us two consecutive days of 20+ degree weather.
what's the odds of the first two good days falling on a weekend?
it doesn't necessarily mean a great deal to us personally, coz everyday is a weekend at the moment, in a way, but we get to see the noticeable impact this has on the people of the city.

lucy concocted some delicious picnic delights (she's literally over my shoulder now, saying 'some people have been known to call her the sandwich queen'). Well it's true. 'Some people' might be myself, saying these things whilst buttering. haha - i can't argue with that!


yes! sunshine! and check out the greenery on the trees.
(You probably can't see it too well, mostly cuz I changed the picture.)
omg you so did!
Well it was much nicer - I looked like (even more of) a gimp in the one you previously put in.


Look! No shoes! No socks! Spring spring spring SPRING!
Actually, it was pretty hot today, in a 'ooh I really don't have any cool clothing
and now I am sweating like a bitch' kinda way. It was fabulous.

we managed to find a section of the park that was free of annoying 12 year old boys kicking soccer balls, babies screaming (but don't worry, now that we are back in the apartment, the screaming babies are ever present - what do these parents DO to their children?!) and the stench of kerosene. you're able to cook barbies in the park (well, not every part of the park) and there's hundreds of mini-grills belching out smoke everywhere.

This is actually a picture from yesterday's picnic - but every day is a picnic when the sun comes out! Aaah, the good life!

it's pretty awesome, by and large, except that, due to what i can only assume is a lack of practice and acquired expertise in the art of the barbie, quite a few berliners believe that pouring kerosene or lighter fluid onto those black fire-starter thingies that look like coal, is a suitable way to cook their wurst. so, in amongst the occasionally home-sick rendering delights of sizzling snags and chops, you get a waft of nausea inducing petroleum in plumes of black smoke.


but if you don't wanna cook up your own outdoor feast, you can always buy a snag from these dudes.
they wear a barbie on their shoulders! It's like a gigantic sausage satchel. But not.
genius.


wow - these guys were amazing.
we stumbled on a troupe of drumming buskers in the park, and yes, the park is that big, and that crowded, that it is indeed possible to stumble upon an entire drumming quintet banging out some tunes under the spindly trees. i totally had to record some of their beats coz they were killer.

Absolutely mesmerising stuff - the energy of these guys was brilliant, they literally did not stop.
It was one gigantic piece of music, where occasionally one dude would stop for a breather.
Each time the piece sounded like it was well on it's way to winding down,
they would burst into a new frenzy of rhythm and beats.
All with babies in prams being glanced at every few minutes,
clearly lulled to sleep by all of that noise (See bottom left of above pic!) - amazing!



and the karaoke was going off too.
it was like being at a music festival, there were hundreds and hundreds of people,
and it goes on for hours every sunday in a local park. Excellent vibe.


You know Kent, we could probably go back down after this - buy a beer and a brownie out of a man's suitcase (true story - they're everywhere) and kick on!
we could - it's 730 and still light!
I am thinking of shaking it up - making a hot chocolate and taking it down with me.
Yep, I am crazy like that.




it's really great fun coz even though the singers are belting out some pretty lame tunes and not doing it technically well, the crowd just gets into the spirit of 'everyone gets a go' and they cheer and clap at even the most widely missed high notes.

oh, and also, there's people who just set up shop and sell stuff. right there on the footpath.
you can get things like earrings, muffins, rolls and beer. this is completely separate from the market. it's just random people trying to earn a buck by flogging off stuff they either make or buy from the shop around the corner.
hilarious! luckily, for these kiddies on the right, they don't check id either.


And now, literally overnight, the cherry blossoms at the end of our street are bursting forth
some merry blossomy (huh - apparently 'blossomy' is a valid adjective!
I thought I was headed for more red squiggly lines for sure!) joy. Tis is sight to behold.
(ugh I really am turning into Kent - gasp! We are going to be one of those couples, that talk the same and start wearing matching tracksuits and buy small dogs!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!)
- what I mean to say, is that it looks fucking awesome and livens up the whole street.
If it were possible to hug cherry blossoms, I would.
(Now that would be an interesting project - how to get enough cherry blossoms in one space in order to give them a good hearty hug, the type where you need to say 'nnnnnnngh!' to get the hug fully across.)
All we need now if for that child in the courtyard to stop screaming for 4 consecutive minutes,
and it will be another perfect day.
indeed. what at first was a charming array of kiddlies has now morphed into a mind-bendingly, teeth-grindingly, total pain in the ass. What the fuck could they possibly be crying about NOW?!
shut up you little shits!!
(Or the nice people across the hall from you might have to call child services.)
xxx

birthday overflow!

WARNING: this is an ART RANT POST!

beer mountain

I just can't help myself. Now that I'M feeling better (still hacking on an every 5 minute basis, but feeling much better, I know you'll ALL be so glad to know), I am actually in the mood for some quality reflection time.

So today is Friday (that was more for my own benefit - time is confusingly non-existent here. I have heard that this is a luxurious and wonderful thing, but I get that lost confusion that something is amiss - makes me think of that expression cats get when you put a piece of sticky tape on the back of their head. They know something is somewhere ... but they don't know what, how, why, or exactly where. Ah the loss of time.

now this is intriguing to me, coz unlike lucy, i love it when the days lose their specificity. i'm all for the organic process of time where days gain their weight in significance from the activities that occur on them, not by the arbitrary dictates of a machine that designates when my down-time is and when i should feel overburdened with angst looking down the long road of a 5 day week that i cannot escape until a day we call 'friday' coughs up the tick tock tick of 5pm on the windup cogs of a steel and plastic contraption.

sorry lu, i just hijacked your reflection for a philosophically tinged vent. dick.

Anyway. As we say every post, spring spring SPRING is coming! We were greeted with deliciously fragrant and mild air today, with smatterings of sunshine and chirping birds. Kent's birthday is flowing into an unspoken long weekend of birthday jot. I mean joy. Birthday joy. Anyway. Today was spent drifting to and fro from cafes, galleries, shops, oh wait, more cafes and then our desks for some quality cutting, pasting, drawing and writing. Oh hello heaven, so nice to meet you!

Ok, not so much of a desk, but more of a shelf from the cupboard on some garden furniture.
So easy to store!

We started at barn, a cafe in the gallery precinct of Mitte - exceptional coffee and quiche to die for. The only place we have seen in the country that stocks Keepcups - yeah, go team! There seems to be a high quota of Aussie and New Zealand staff here, obviously the origin of the awesome coffee.

have you noticed the two most commonly visited venues for coffees are run by aussies?
tis truly the only reliable way to score caffeinated fixes that adhere to the quality to which we are accustomed.
(Noooo, we're not precious at all!)

The lovely Leo showed us pictures the other day of an art opening she went to in Mitte, that sounded so spectacular we were sad to have missed it, but luckily for us, we stumbled on it today - the aftermath of what was clearly the biggest beer drinking session of the season.

Kent is dubious - is it really free beer?

This work (which Kent will no doubt give all the details, so I am not going to bother getting out of bed to find the artist name, which I have obviously forgotten) consisted of a gigantic pyramid of beer boxes, each filled with beer, to which the audience (at their own peril) were invited to clamber up and help themselves. A quote from Leo 'Oh my goodness, it was so crazy, it was the biggest pile of hipsters I have ever seen!' - and for us, the biggest pile of discarded bottles, cigarette stubs and assorted chip wrappers in a rather silent hall. But oh my. What a surprisingly un-disgusting and peaceful exhibition. We both spent a considerable amount of time lounging on the boxes that were still in tact, quietly contemplative over a warm beer (which was actually quite good - I KNOW, I hate beer!). Kent nearly killed himself (or at least his feet) by jumping off the pyramid into a pile of beer bottles, in a rather deafening clinking and smashing way (I can see both of our mothers clutching their chests and squawking 'Oh Kent you didn't!').

No dad, we didn't visit the tip, this is art!


oh my god, this show was awesome.
just. awesome.
and not because there was 72,000 free beers. which there was, btw, 72,000 ! !
the artist, cyprien gaillard, made a massive monolithic structure, in the style of the egyptians, or maybe the incas/mayans.


long story short - it's about our scrambling desire to consume the monuments of our history. about mass tourism descending on architectural forms, devouring them visually, and quite literally, with their destructive wearing down of their surfaces, the chipping away of souvenir extraction and the resultant litter and mess left behind. the bottles are all imported from turkey and hint at the pillage of grecian and roman ruins and their transportation into european museums. the viewer can get a sense of this through not only looking at, walking around and walking on the massive sculpture (and really, it was on such a scale that it truly eclipsed and dominated your presence in the room), but also partake in the the active consumption of the work, becoming complicit in its destruction. but, paradoxically, engaged in its actualisation and in its accomplishment.

brilliant.

This led to some other gallery hopping, saw a great show by (Kent insert details here please - nicky broekhuysen at pool gallery) which consisted of large scale drawings entirely made from stamps of zeros and ones (you know, like binary code. she made these massive abstract works of accumulated digits, each tending toward pattern and form, but showing hints of disintegration and decay. like systems, with inevitable signs of entropy. systems form, then they collapse. such is life. beautiful).

Totally nicked from the pool website - thanks guys! (Like you had a choice.)

We also popped into another show where we received an extra chilling welcome - one staff member stayed on the phone the whole time, until another staff member stumped out, stared at us and muttered a rather stiff 'guten tag' before giving his coworker a very cold stare. It wasn't until we left that we saw the sign saying that the show would be opened tomorrow. Now that I think of it, I am pretty sure that the staff member on the phone told me this, but seeing as she was on the phone and I don't understand German, I didn't consider that she might have been talking to us. Whoops!

haha - that was funny. interestingly, because we ignored them (by accident, we didn't know what they were saying) and we were clearly engaged in looking at the works, they just backed off and let us be.
and the work was fantastic. three great shows in a row - it was like a miracle. art's about a 20% hit rate in my opinion. for various reasons, and i don't mean it's 80% crap, although you could mount an argument for that, just that you're lucky to find a personal connection to more than fifth of it. like, in the same way that if you met 10 people, chances are you'll only really like 2 of them (OR if we are doing fractions or statistics or whatever, by that deduction you could meet 5 people and only like one? Just saying.). most will be ok, and probably 2 will shit you to tears. art is exactly the same.
the work in this last one (Eelco Brand) was killer. what looked like lightboxes with photos on them, were actually digital flatscreens with amazing animations on them. click on the dude's name in the last sentence to check 'em out. awesome.


Again this is totally illegally stolen from [DAM]Berlin's website - sorry about that. You really should check out the site for the actual animations though - mesmerising! Is is creative genius? Or super advanced computer game software? Are those two things the same? So many questions ...


Aaaaanyway. What else did we do? Oh that's right, a bit of moochy shopping, finally found my perfect 'keeper' ring (to keep my wedding ring on my finger or something), at a cool boutique that specialises in über cool clothes and shop fittings. They had these awesome little kiss rings sitting at the counter, made from ceramic. And huzzah! Found one that fit so perfectly that I made Kent propose all over again, much to the shop keeper's bemusement. (truly, i did the whole, 'lucy james, will you do me the honour, and make me the happiest man... etc etc... but i stayed on my feet, so as not to jinx the original). Feels very old world and medieval with my white gold ring ... mmm ... shiny objects ... drooooooly.

Look at my awesome rings. LOOK!!!

THEN a fantastic lunch at the now truly beloved yamyam (I think this was our fourth visit, and definitely not the last), for some dumpling extravaganza and the broiled beef of the gods (our love is probably due to us trying to stave off scurvy, what with the appearance of edible/affordable red meat at the supermarkets close to nil. No I don't want to buy any more fucking pork products thank you!) This was, of course, followed by a leisurely stroll home via (oh! how did we get here?!) Gaudy, for a cheery afternoon coffee in the sunshine, basking in our 'we don't have any time/place constraints' glow. (Ok I will stop rubbing it in now.)

Broiled beef sounds so gross. But it's not! It is so good! Anyway, that's not broiled beef, that's seaweed.
Which is gross. (killer seedweed. good for what ails ya)

The weekend promises to pass 20 degrees, so we are amping up for 2 days of sunshine (please please please!), picnics and a frenzy of creative activity!

We'll let you all know how we go! Until then, back to some hearty doodling!
xxx

This is to prove the tinyness of the flat - Kent is over there in the study-come-lounge-come-bedroom. I am in the Kitchen. That corner of furniture to the left is the sink, that light part on the right is the window. To the left of Kent is the bed. Mmm - cosy.

ooh - an excuse to show some proof of the said doodling ... check out me blog!

hyper birds say, 'happy birthday'

my wife is awesome
(yes, yes, declaring such to family and friends is obvious i know, but really ... awesome)
Nyaaaw. Shucks.

so i woke up to yet another birthday - do these things ever have a year off? - feeling rather non-plussed by the whole sitch, i mean, 37... it's a dull kinda number (although, a prime, i am reliably advised by the semi-autistic numerosity of andrew). and it's kinda overwhelmingly ... um ... extensive! (Haha!! Kent's OLD!)
nonetheless, age is just number, whatever, i don't really care. (Sobs.)

so, in this frame of mind, i was greeted by a series of wonderful surprises,
all wrapped in stripey string
(we all know stripey string is a hundred times better than just string.)
and soon i was all like, 'fuck yeah. it's my birthday!'


lucy had downloaded 7 albums of new music for me, including a couple i know she's not fond of hearing, but she got coz she knows i love some annoyingly spastic musical irritations. that's pretty sweet no?
I am now tolerating said spastic musical irritations - aaah, married life!
they were set up on my itunes under a special folder she made.
you can see the painting she made - in the above image - which set up the whole gift.

i got spoiled by the wonderful in-law parentals -- massive thanks to brig and abj
(i have turned your generosity into a spanking new pair of jeans acquired from mitte)
You know that sounds like Kent went and bought 'spanking jeans' ...
yeah. i did!


i got some killer bunting flags that instantly added to the atmosphere of festivity and joy.

a hand painted gift voucher for the single best pens available for stippling and various drawing styles to which i am becoming obsessively ... um ... drawn. haha.

brilliant.
it's also worth mentioning she was a bit under the weather, which makes it all the more amazing.

we took ourselves off for breaky at the consistently delicious st gaudy cafe and furnished our bellies with 'proper' coffee, boiled eggs and mini chocolate croissants. then, on to freidrichshain, and its assortment of excellent cafes, pretty ok shops and generally enjoyable vibe.

chicken burgers which seasoned pommes (chips) and as much mayonnaise as i could possibly squeeze out of the bottle before the chef got too grumpy.

a really excellent vietnamese dinner followed later in the eve. there's heaps of vietnamese restaurants in berlin - i saw this doco once, and it explained how the east germans invited the north vietnamese into their country in a gesture of solidarity with their communist brethren, suffering under the relentless bomb-fest imposed by the imperialist machinery of the military-industrial complex of the capitalist pig west. of course, they then subjected them to the relentless paranoia and big-brother autocracy of the ridiculously inefficient communist party and the stasi secret police. still, the upside, many years later, for touring antipodeans with nothing but ingrained democratic leanings, is a plethora of great asian food.

they have, like, 4 options on their menu. we sampled half, and it was good.
damned good.

I had the couple dining next to me glancing in disgust as I not only slurped my soup,
splashed the shit everywhere, but then also leant over Kent's bowl,
guzzling the best bits of noodly goodness into my face, well after he had finished
and was sitting in a PFES (Post Food Euphoric State).

then - drinkies at wohnzimmer with renee and stefano.
And possibly the grouchiest bar tender in the world.
Lots of 'fuck-you-for-ordering-a-drink-I-want-a-drink-you-no-good-yuppie-scum' scowling,
complimented by wet slamming of mojitos onto the counter in a sloshy extravaganza.
(I think she was into me.)

Then some serious flouncing into our area, glaring at us until we handed her our empty glasses,
and then huffing very loudly when we did, because her tray was too full.
I think it was German for 'Is that your girlfriend, or can I ask her to dance?'



mojitos and berliner pilsener in ancient couches, discussions of a proposed move to the country and much general merriment.
(Followed by a cheerful stumble home, toasted sandwiches and Simpsons episodes!)

Well, this post is all very 'Kent' oriented, isn't it! Don't worry, I will talk ALL about me in tomorrow's entry.
(It's ok, I promise I won't. Much.)

Yay for birthdays!
(Great excuse for surrounding company to also enjoy general merriment,
in the shape of a gigantic electric pink cocktail, reminiscent of the days when I was
banned from red cordial and lollies.)