I do not use Berlin as a location tag. I return to its walls, rooms, nights and temporary conditions because they keep changing what the work has to do.
Berlin is a working condition
Berlin is not a backdrop I use to make the work look more interesting. It is a working condition, with its own speed, clubs, artists, ruins, independent rooms and public arguments about who gets to belong where.
I have made walls, live drawings, exhibitions, tattoos, installations and studio work here. The city keeps placing the work in situations where it has to meet people before it has fully explained itself.
The wall changes the decision
Teufelsberg taught me to think about the wall as a public encounter rather than a large canvas. A figure has to hold from a distance, while the smaller marks and changes of colour keep the image active when someone comes close.
Paste-ups and street work carry a different pressure. They enter a place without asking the viewer to buy a ticket or know the artist first. The photograph matters because it keeps the conditions of the encounter visible after the wall has changed.
Rooms can be temporary and still matter
THE FLOOR gave DA SWAMP, Human Cocoon, live tattooing and shared work a room in which to meet. Klunkerkranich gave drawing a public rhythm alongside music and conversation. Life in Progress let painting, skin, paste-ups and movement occupy the same exhibition.
Those rooms are not interchangeable venues. Each one changed the work because of who was there, what had already happened in the space and how long the situation could remain open.
A guide without a checklist
This is not a list of the best places to visit in Berlin. It is a record of the conditions I keep returning to: an open wall, a room with a point of view, a late conversation, an artist making something without waiting for permission to become official.
If you want to understand my Berlin, follow the connections between the murals, THE FLOOR, DA SWAMP, the live sessions and the studio. The city is in the work because it has given the work somewhere to happen.
Credits
- Original Sketchy Shona field note based on confirmed Berlin public work, studio, exhibition and live-session records.