Friday was grey. Again. And felt cold: I wore an extra layer for the first time, and was glad of it. I got up slowly, after all that art on Thursday, but was out by 7:30. Walked to Oranienburger Tor station and took the S-bahn down to Unter den Linden.
Pariser Platz had been cleared of its rubbish and was almost empty, so a chance for a couple of pix of the Brandenberg Gate, although an almost white sky was not what I wanted. I'd picked up a coffee on the way and found it fits neatly in the camera bag – with a lid on of course – in the space where the camera normally sits.
To the nearby Holocaust Memorial, the huge field of marble-like concrete blocks; evenly spaced, yet uneven, the outer blocks like graves. Walking among the tall ones in the centre feels oppressive and disorientating, though the way out is clear. Thought provoking. I spent 45 minutes or so taking abstract photos, with the thought of some sort of photo essay in the back of my mind:
Then a disrupted U-bahn journey (due to engineering work) towards the Kurfurstendamm 'shopping street'; specifically to the Käthe Kollwitz Museum. I've only recently become aware of her: active from around 1890 to World War II, her work in sculpture, charcoal, ink, lithograph and woodcut – always monochrome – often follows a mother and child theme, and particularly the suffering and sacrifice of war. It was heavily influenced by the death of her son Peter as an underage volunteer in 1914.
Her original pictures, beautifully displayed here, are incredibly moving, yet not depressing: her mothers are always protective, cradling. Often she seems to convey grief through the hands. She made a large number of self portraits, and has a striking profile. Predictably she was outlawed by the National Socialists in the 1930s.
To Berlin Zoo station, then, and ran for an M45 bus just leaving for Schloss Charlottenberg. In fact I was heading for the Berggreun Museum opposite the palace, but found that the ticket is now a joint one with the Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection opposite (new to me), a modest but super display of Surrealist art by Max Klinger, Manet, Paul Klee, Hans Bellmer, Dali, Magritte and others; an unexpected bonus. Also in the same museum an exhibition of photos by the photographer Brassaï: 'On the Street: Graffiti', interspersed with paintings by Jean Debuffet; another bonus.
After an hour and a quarter there, across the road to Museum Berggreun, an outstanding collection of 20th century art, originally put together as a personal selection, and often with the collaboration of the artists themselves. Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Giacometti, among others. And photos by Brassaï of the artists. Well, it kept me entertained for another 75 minutes.
By which time it was 5:00pm, and I'd missed a couple of highlights from the day's itinerary: one was the Funkturm, the old TV tower with a 126m high observation platform. It was open late, but the weather was too dull for any good daytime photos, and it's not properly dark – to capture city lights – until after 10:30pm, so I was happy to give it a miss.
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