I went to see the play Triumph der Liebe at the Deutsches Theater tonight. It was a rococo comedy by Pierre Carlet de Marivaux. The production was directed by Barbara Frey. It was a real pleasure to see it and the stage design was wonderful! After all the pre-christmas stress this was a perfect release, although the play also had its tragic sides.

On Sunday I crushed into the annual Open Art Gallery at the Oberbaumbrücke. There were a couple of very good artists and a wallpaper in the middle of the entire bridge where you were invited to paint. I bought five very cool art prints by Dutch artist Johan Potma and Mateo from California.

From 20 to 22 July the different houses of the University of the Arts Berlin were accessible to the public. Sonya and Tarik presented some of their work. The above image is from Tarik’s installation autofokus. You can find more about the installation on his website and you can watch a video here.

Today, I went to the Nationalgalerie in Berlin to see the current exhibition of the most beautiful 19th-century French masterpieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. I had so-called VIP tickets which basically meant they were more expensive, we had a group guide and I didn’t have to wait in the line. I’m pretty sure the regular audio guides are very good, too and as far as I know the line isn’t too long. Furthermore they had “Live!Speakers”, i.e. art history students you can ask about each individual picture. That was really great, as you could virtually discuss and interpret the pictures with the knowledge of the Live!Speakers.

I spent a couple of days in London last week and I had the chance to see the Gilbert & George exhibition at the Tate Modern. Bringing together a selection of pictures that spans their entire 40-year career, it is fitting that it is the largest retrospective of any artist to be held at Tate Modern.
‘Large’ also in aspects of their artworks. Most of them are huge mega-sized images with bright powerful colors. One thing I noticed is that when they started using computers in 2003, I didn’t like their art as much as their work in the 80s and 90s.

Sonya, a very good friend of mine opened a new exhibition “Hope and Glory” together with three other artists. It’s a very interesting mixture of styles and concepts. You can find the gallery here in Berlin.

I just bumped into this impressive piece of street art down the street where I live. Check out the full resolution image for the details! If you are in Berlin you can find it here.

David Lloyd — co-creator of V for Vendetta gave a book-signing in Berlin. He was so kind to sketch in my copy of V for Vendetta.

Today we had an exclusive guided tour through the Reichstag and we could see the works of art on the different stories of the building. I came up with the idea a couple of months ago when I had the chance to visit the Jakob-Kaiser-Haus which is connected to the Reichstag on the underground. But it was Simone who organized the tour and the invitations to our members of interface!berlin and she made it all happen.

Los Berlin Beamboys show an video installation at the St. Elisabeth church in Berlin-Mitte — two huge balls in the middle of the church and combined with a surround sound concept. The entrance is free, but I think it’s much better to see it when it’s darker. You can watch a video clip here.

On Saturday night I was on a very special event: Apollo und Hyacinth at the Bode Museum. The Bode Museum was just re-opened in October and now they present Mozart’s first opera in the halls of the museum on the Museum Island. The Chamber Orchester of the Berliner Philharmoniker directed by Christoph Hagel played. Brilliant vocalists and an excellent dance ensemble choreographed by Ismael Ivo completed the superb musical performance. If you have the chance — go and see it!

This weekend I visited the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) to see some of the students’ and a friend’s work — some really interesting and inspiring ideas. Unfortunately I didn’t have much time to talk to the students, but I recorded a couple of movies which you can see here. Sascha at we-make-money-not-art wrote a good article about the digital class of Prof. Sauter.

Escaping the hot weather of 100° F, I went to see the Berlin Cathedral with my parents who are here on holiday. It’s always an impressive visit to see the grandiosity of the architecture and the sculptures. Video here.

I had a meeting at the Jakob-Kaiser-Haus in the Parliament Quarter in Berlin. The building has an amazing number of paintings and installations. One is a set of hundreds of boxes on which the names of all members of the parliament are labeled. See a video here.

On Wednesday Jenny Pilz had her final diploma presentation in textile / surface design. She designed wallpapers and reliefs for a bar in Berlin near the popular Helmholtzplatz in Prenzlauer Berg (which is my borough). She succeeded in conserving the original old walls of the place and she used silk wall papers with bird patterns to fill the whole room with life. Depending on how the light shines on the surfaces there are really nice reflexions. The bar’s ‘official’ opening is this Friday and you can find it here.

Just around the corner where I live was the showroom of this year’s Designmai – an international designfestival. You can find tons of photos at flickr. I only had the chance to see a glimpse of what was presented but there was some really cool stuff!

Never miss the Tate if you’re in London! I didn’t have much time, so I only visited the Tate Modern section and the exhibition Albers and Moholy-Nagy: From the Bauhaus to the New World which was brilliant. I wished some of my students could see it, as part of the design basics I teach are still originated in the Bauhaus approach and I thought it was very inspiring, as well.

Just some impressions on the Design Museum, London.

Yesterday, I happened to hit on an exhibition by Andreas Sauer at Schiele & Schön Publishing. I was very fascinated by the colorful style and impression of his work, so I took some pictures with my cell phone (not literally) which you can find in my gallery.
Go and check more of Andreas Sauer’s great work on his website.

‘City Gaze’ (Die Stadt hat Augen) is an exhibition that pursues a unique concept. An office building on Potsdamer Platz is being transformed into a seeing object. From 24 November to 28 February 2006, SPOTS, a light and media installation that has been integrated into the building’s facade, will be presenting new works by internationally renowned artists that have been created especially for this location and this medium. The show will launch with a work from Berlin-based artists and architects realities:united – who also have overall responsibility for the development of the light and media facade – in collaboration with the artist John deKron.
A friend of mine – Steffen Zimmermann – shot a movie at the opening. You can find the movie here (QT required).
This installation is just amazing and go see it if you're around Berlin!

I’ve been to the “Frakatale IV Exhibition” at the “Palast der Republik”. It’s titled “death” but it’s definitely worth a visit! And everyone who hasn’t had the chance to see the “Palace” from the inside yet – tomorrow is the last chance, because the building will be knocked down in about 40 days!
That’s why there was a demonstration in front of the building todoay – hard to say, but I think there were a couple hundred people demonstrating.

More info you can find here www.fraktale-berlin.de and here www.volkspalast.com/_vp/aktuell.htm