Heidestraße: gallery weekend afterglow

by Simon Elson

Well, well. Christof is inspecting Mark Lammert’s pictures in gallery fruehsorge’s exhibition ‘beauty is booty’. Christof says: There is not much to see on the pictures. Is it minimalistic depictions of bones? Joints? The colored soul life of insects? You can never be sure with abstract art, especially if you are into the Old Masters of Seventeenth Century Dutch painting, like Christof. How much do they cost? ……It’s 1500 Euro per piece, Christof thinks about buying one, but he thinks they are overpriced. Lammert was born in the GDR (DDR) in 1960, he’s not only an artist but a stage designer. His first stage design was for Heiner Müller. Christof thinks, the small oil on paper-pieces at fruehsorge implement that he is a stage designer. I don’t think so. We both agree that we can’t recognize his DDR-origin just by looking at the pictures.
Back on the street. Rain. But nice rain, you just get wet, but not cold. Not that cold. Hey, it is May 20, about three weeks after gallery weekend, the shows are still on, but the art herds are gone. We were the only visitors at fruehsorge. Even Haunch of Venison’s Damien Hirst blast is quite deserted, which is fine with Christof and me. We like art normal. The desk girl at Haunch of Venison speaks English only. Christof is impressed by the huge space. You get the impression to just sneak through the door of a garage: Then a wide room opens, surely one of Berlins most spectacular spaces. My friend is not into the Young British Artist thing of the 90’s but curious, wants to know how much the zebra in formaldehyde costs – a piece of Damien Hirst’s most famous series. The girl at the desk smiles: The huge installation with the zebra was not in the official sales, it was a private deal, I don’t know. She smiles, she’s absolutely fantastic, so are the two guys who are watching the artworks at Haunch of Venison’s branch near the Halle am Wasser.
Back in Heidestraße, the project space Infernoesque is closed, they are building up the next show. Quite sad, I wanted Christof to see it, because Haunch of Venison, fruehsorge and Infernoesque represent the Art-‘Kiez’ around the museum Hamburger Bahnhof at Heidestraße perfectly. This permanent ‘Off’-district is about three years old. It is still as strange as it used to be. It’s central, it’s deserted, it’s  nomansland like the whole central Berlin used to be in the 90ies. It’s a microcosm of what Berlin was once – but fewer people with vision now, and more mercantile attitude. Anyway, it is the first time for Christof to be here. He was born 1938 in Tübingen, Schwabenländle, as they say. He is now 72. He likes the galleries and the rough environment. We don’t go back to buy a Lammert. We buy chocolate at Mitte Meer, the Mediterranean supermarket around the corner.



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  1. nicheberlin posted this