From Berlin to Cologne and Back

Herzliche Grüße aus Deutschland!

Before writing the rest of this update, I just want to say how much my thoughts and good wishes are with my friends and family in New York and the surrounding areas of New Jersey and Pennsylvania especially. I hope storm repairs and clean-up come quickly, and that daily life returns to normal as soon as possible.

The following post covers mid-August through the present including our recent trip to Cologne. I will begin with a quick few images from the Vermont Studio Center before we returned to Berlin in mid September.

 Tyson and David Webb with the "Burger Barn" in the background; VSC main building

 Looking across the river to two other VSC studio buildings

 The house where we stayed at VSC; and the former opera house turned lecture hall and event space for VSC

 My amazing studio for the month!

 Our one night venturing out for a fancy dinner at the locally sourcing and deliciously creative Clair's in Hardwick, just the two of us (all other dinners were communal at VSC, and a lot of fun)

Now to some images from our in-house open studios during our last week:

Sue Kennington's very appealing studio presentation

A mysterious foot in the studio of Sadie Barnett

Mairikke Dau in front of paintings by Sophia Casas

Every open studios should include giant bubbles....

 Some of Tyson's new work from VSC in B&W using analog film and wet lab, no less! He was also working on some new videos.

 From left: Caitlin MacDougall, writer; George du Pont and David Webb, both visual artists

 Here are a few paintings by David Webb, my studio neighbor. He has a solo show up including some of his work from VSC at Transitions Gallery in London: LINK

 Right before moving out--all the work I made in VT is now up on my website under "Paintings 2012" www.caetlynnbooth.com

Ten days after VSC, we flew back to Berlin. Besides getting our visas renewed, one of the first things we did is attend the ABC Berlin art fair. The following are a few images of art on display at the fair:

 3D Peace

 Pimp your "ride"

 Jessica Hutchins--one of the visiting artists we got to know at VSC who also lives in Berlin!

 What I imagine to be beaver magic

Shortly after returning, we traveled to Göttingen to act as resource people for the Fulbright orientation welcoming this year's grantees. It was fun to meet everyone, and especially to connect with other Fulbrighters who will be in Berlin this year.

Distinctive architectural patterning in Göttingen on a city walking tour

And then, back in Berlin, there's a current exhibition at the Alte Nationalgalerie on German Romanticism as it relates to the influence of medieval and Gothic architecture. Such a great show with many works by Caspar David Friedrich and Carl Friedrich Schinkel, but I especially enjoyed the following works on paper:

Carl Blechen, Gothic hall with view of the mountains, 1824

Carl Blechen, Gothic hall with staircase and balcony

Friedrich August Elsasser, Lo Spasimo church ruins in Palermo, 1840

I caught the Romanticism show, as well as exhibits at several other galleries with Julie Langsam, one of my former teaching mentors and professor of painting and drawing at Rutgers, who was in town doing research at the Bauhaus archive. Here are some images from our gallery visits:

Looking out the window of Blain Southern... you know, helicopters just park behind apartment buildings

A couple other galleries off Postsdamerstr.

More recently, our latest jam session with Joe!!!!

 We made the separate varieties of blackberry, blackberry basil, plum, clementine orange, and pineapple. All taste amazing!!!!

 The next day enjoyed at Lindsey and Van's lovely brunch party

 Civilized Sunday stroll around Görlitzer park after the feast

Hardly back in Berlin, we leave for Cologne! The location of the DAAD orientation, we thought we'd mix business with pleasure and stay a few extra days. Here are some images from our visit:

 Bits of the Ludwig Museum and Kölner Dom (High Cathedral of St. Peter)

 So massively impressive in person. No photograph captures the impact of the physical presence of this mega-work of architectural genius. It's the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe with the second-tallest spires of any church in the world at 516 ft.

Work on the cathedral began in 1248 and was completed in 1880!

 View from one of the spires

Because of its size, it was used as a navigational landmark for Allied aircraft raiding deeper into Germany, perhaps the reason it was spared unlike the rest of Cologne. Even so, it suffered seventy hits by aerial bombs during the war, but did not collapse. It is now a UNESCO world heritage site.

 Humans: always compelled to leave their mark

 A glowing bejeweled beacon the way it's lit at night

 And some of the most impressive windows I've seen. The one on the right is by Richter--surprisingly successful in person.

And then on to the Ludwig Museum with it's AWESOME collection. One of the best contemporary museums in Germany:

By Poul Gernes

3 works by Mary Heilmann

An interesting show about American landscape photography / Ansel Adams

And a great exhibition focusing on Art Spiegelman! His work is so good.

Predictably Picasso, but I like it

 

Max Ernst, The Virgin Chastising the Christ Child Before Three Witnesses, 1926

I think one of my favorite paintings of all time! So funny

 

A detail from the poignant work by Edward Kienholz, The Portable War Memorial, 1968

 

Even the museum architecture in Cologne is a spiritual experience! Ascending the stairs from the lower level gallery.

Max Beckmann, Beach, 1935

 

Emil Nolde, After Sunset, 1915

We also spent time exploring Cologne on foot, checking out other museums and galleries, meeting up with my former roommate Torsten and his girlfriend Birgit, and trying some tasty cuisine. More from Cologne:

Using the rocky wall by the train bridge to best purpose

Locks of love tradition all along the bridge--lovers names engraved on locks, fastened to the bridge, and the keys get thrown into the Rhine.

Looking out from the platform at the main train station

And now down from a gondola ride across the river!

A fun perspective

More of Cologne's inventive architecture

The following are from the Wallraf Collection. They also had a great show up (but no photos allowed) called 1912 – Mission Moderne as a centennial retrospective of the influential Sonderbund Exhibition. Other works in their permanent collection were top notch--I've only included a couple here, but as always, more can be seen at my Flickr account:

Adam Elsheimer, The Stoning of St. Stephen, 1600-02

 

Gillis Mostaert, The Bearling of the Cross, 1578-89

Claude Monet, Haystack, 1891

 

 And looking out the window of the museum to what I presume to be ancient Roman ruins being excavated next door (Cologne is built upon this intense layering)

 Painting by Ross Bleckner at Jablonka Galerie in Cologne

I’ve also been doing some reading lately: Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Kandinsky; On Kitsch by Greenberg; Notes on Camp by Susan Sontag; Air Guitar by Dave Hickey; Between the Eyes by Levi-Strauss; and all The New Yorker articles about politics as the election is upon us (we've already sent in our absentee ballots!)

To conclude, this passage from Air Guitar especially resonated: 

"The question of whether we can enjoy, or even decipher, the world we see without the experience of images, or the world we hear without the experience of music, seems to me pretty much a no-brainer. In fact, I cannot imagine a reason for categorizing any part of our involuntary, ordinary experience as "unaesthetic," or for imagining that this quotidian aesthetic experience occludes any "real" or "natural" relationship between ourselves and the world around us. All we do by ignoring the live effects of art is suppress the fact that these experiences, in one way or another, inform our every waking hour."

The images in this post are an edited selection. To see more from Berlin, visit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/caetlynn/sets/72157631721607064/

And from our trip to Cologne:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/caetlynn/sets/72157631870847298/

Until the next time,
XO Caetlynn