My destination for today was the Museum für Gegenwart (Museum for Contemporary Art) near the main train station.
As with most major cities, Berlin has a graffitti problem, very visible from the S-Bahn. I am not a big fan of graffitti, but some of it can be very artistic. The text on the first image says “Be proud of yourself.”
The Hauptbahnhof (main train station) is just huge, as you can see from the following image.
Outside the station is an immense metal horse. In the base of the statue are relics from old train equipment.
I walked a little past the museum and saw this building, which houses the State Ministry for Economy and Technology.
The museum itself has neon striping, I suppose that is so you know that you have real art here! If you didn’t get the clue, perhaps the boulder wrapped in yellow tape would do the trick. The boulder was my first “I don’t get it” art experience for the day, but I did like the wooden statue in front of the main entrance.
This part I got: a room with art by Andy Warhol, and I liked the airplane and ceiling painting.
Back to the “you call this art?” section of the museum. These are from works by Joseph Beuys. I’m sorry, but I just don’t get it.
The last picture in that preceding set? It’s not an artwork—it’s a room that is being prepared for some new exhibit. Just threw that in there to fool you.
Upstairs was an exhibit entitled “Here comes everybody” by Cory Arcangel. The video of short clips of cats playing the piano was amusing, and I did like the moving wire cubes.
But this section, with framed pictures of lines drawn by a pen plotter? Give me a break.
I have to admit that his piece, “a couple thousand short films about Glenn Gould” was very clever. He put together video clips of people playing guitars and keyboards, and, spliced together, you can hear one of Glenn Gould’s compositions.
Downstairs was one of the strangest exhibitions I have ever seen, with live reindeer and canaries. It’s called SOMA (click the link for an “explanation”), and, from what I gather, it is an “experiment” to derive the drink of the gods. It involves reindeer urine, and I imagine it all goes downhill from there. Apparently you can sign up to spend the night in the exhibit on the elevated bed in the middle of the art installation, for a mere 1000 €.
Upstairs was this wonderful work by Marcel Duchamp, entitled “In Advance of the Broken Arm.”
Also upstairs was an exhibit of videos featuring Valeska Gert, a very strange but fascinating performance artist.
After the museum and lunch, I decided to head off to a station near the end of the line, and chose the Lichtenrade station. It’s a nice residential area, and here are pictures of the houses there. (The first one is a church, not a house.)
Apparently, the people of Lichtenrade are opposed to the plans to have flight paths over their area; the poster here reads: “We are defending ourselves! Lichtenrade/Mahlow Nord Against Airplane Noise”
A nicely painted passageway in Lichtenrade.
This is what is meant by “Park & Ride” in Germany.
I just had to get a picture of this sign.
Here’s half of a streussel pastry with berry filling; that was for breakfast.
For lunch, I had some deep-fried calamari rings at one of the train stations. For dinner, another döner, and finally this pastry to end the day.
An excruciatingly cute ad for a real estate firm.
This is the colorful logo for the initiative for culture and creative economy.
This billboard reads “A city has hunger for science”; it’s an ad for the city of Mainz (“Science City 2011”). Hence the MZ2 instead of mc2.
A billboard about climate change. The image is the Berlin TV tower, almost totaly submerged, and the texted reads “Last one to leave turn out the light.”
The text: “If chicken soup doesn't do it any more / Gesine, your independent apothecary”
The text reads “Wigs that stand out.” The translation doesn’t carry over the pun with the German word herausstechende, written here as HAIRrausstechende.
Another cute ad, but not as horrible-cute as the real estate ad. The text reads: “Climate protection lies in the air and in our hearts.”
Subway station walls
First, the awful. This is a sign above a little döner shop in Lichtenrade. Everything about it is just wrong.
This one is not spectacular, but it is an interesting typeface.
Only one today, in front of the Vodafone headquarters near the Attilastraße station. Vodafone, a major wireless provider, uses red as its primary color, as if you couldn’t guess.
