Robert Mapplelthorpe, photographer of eroticism will pass through Berlin from January, for three months. It is enough time to find an excuse to visit an essential work in art history, photography and art history of eroticism.

The exhibition focuses on his first photographs whose protagonists and their sensual treatment took them to be the result of public outrage. The lens of his first camera, a Polaroid, addressed its look to the self-portrait and to the one of who by that time was his inseparable companion, Patti Smith, one of the most emblematic main characters that were first hit by his Polaroid, and in a more mature photographic stage, by the mythic Hasselblad, which would follow him forever.

Along with Patti Smith the growing New York punk scene of the 70s was introduced. As Patti Smith frequented the concert hall where bands came together all the time, the CBGB. And that’s where she began to recite her poems, to later do it singing. Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith always had a special relationship from the moment they met. It was by chance that Mapplethorpe wandered through the streets when she was looking for an excuse to avoid sleeping with the man she had gone to dinner, without knowing him, she asked if he could help her by simulating being her boyfriend so that the other one left her in peace. Thus, they began they adventures, holding hands, and did not separate again. At first their relationship was a partnership, they did not separated unless it was necessary, but Robert soon began to discover his sexuality and their relationship turned into a friendship. They shared one room and a bed, not always alone in the famous Chelsea Hotel, where all the hung ones of the time ended up, people who later would make history, names like Leonard Cohen and Andy Warhol are mixed with the history of this couple. Warhol was one of the major influences on the principles of Mapplethorpe’s work, fortunately or unfortunately he followed other paths with his photograph, as he would say, more for the obsession with the object photographed rather than by the fact of shooting. The elegance and sensuality of light and shadows that surround the photographed bodies even make a pepper look erotic.

For more info: http://www.wechselausstellungen.de/berlin/robert-mapplethorpe-retrospektive/

Sonia Teruel

Do not miss this chance and come to the European capital for culture, rent apartments in Berlin and open your eyes.

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Translated by: salome antigone
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Victor Castillo’s world is populated by grotesque and bizarre figures of empty eyes and biting mouths. Children who sold their soul and therefore were trapped in a desolate and dark limbo where apocalyptic terror reigns.

Born in Chile, the artist takes us into a murky -and not so fictitious- world corrupted by religious hypocrisy, racism and eager consumption, which turns the human being into a heartless comic figure, a clown who cannot do anything but assume it is their own fault.

With reminiscent to some of his contemporaries as the American artist Gary Baseman or Manuel Ocampo, Castillo noted for his unique and dramatic line, which demonstrates his skills as a classical painter, as well as his passionate love for comics from the 40s. A style that places him within that artistic side a few years ago began to haunt art magazines under the term Surrealism Pop. Pop, because it is a style that takes the aesthetics and content of popular culture -in this case, comics- without having to lack that certain conceptual significance, which can also be seen in Castillo’s art. His dark imagination serves as a backdrop to narrate one of the most acidic stories of humanity -that of a capitalist society, politically and ideologically poor, cynical and indifferent to social issues. Therefore, we often find in his paintings rotten characters, or figures with greasy sausages instead of noses, monsters eaten by his own sarcasm.

More info at: http://mkgallery.com/Exhibitions.php?See=Schedule

Heloise Battista

Now he goes back to Europe with an exhibition at Merry Karnowsky in the German capital. If you do not want to miss Victor Castillo’s cynical provocation, we advise you to rent apartments in Berlin and attend the exhibition which opens on February 5 and will run until March 5, 2011.

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Translated by: salome antigone
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On November 28, the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin opened the first solo exhibition of Israeli artist Absalon since 1994.

Born in 1964 in Ashdod, Israel, Absalon emigrated to Paris in the late 80′s, where he lived until his death in 1993, where he also created much of his art. The exhibition at the KW in Berlin shows some of his most enigmatic pieces: Cellules, in the series Propositions d’habitation and the installation Dispositions, as well as some unpublished works. These works reveal his fascination with space and his interventions in it with basic geometric shapes such as rectangle, circle and triangle. An ascetic and neutral language, strictly reduced to these geometric bases, we find in it reminiscents of Le Corbusier, the Bauhaus, Stijl and Russian Constructivism, reflected especially in his Cellules.

The exhibition at the KW in Berlin would like to pay tribute to this fascinating character of the world of art, as well as present his concepts and formal language and, at the same time, give us a narrative thread in his works. Therefore, the sample is accompanied by an extensive catalog where we do not only find Absalon’s texts, but also other interesting figures in the scene as the art critic Bernard Marcade and art theorist Nina Montman, like a discussion between the curator Ute Meta Bauer and Hans Ulrich Obrist, curator and collector par excellence.

Absalon is without doubt one of the most fascinating artists not only for his abstract artistic language, but also for his tragic and premature death at the early age of 29.

Heloise Battista

The exhibition at the KW will remain open until February 20, 2011, so until then you have time to rent apartments in Berlin and explore the arcane world of Absalon.

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Translated by: salome antigone
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The hipster is a phenomenon of the new millennium. With his nerd glasses, mustache and linen bag he transformed into a new urban species that is influenced by New Wave, Mods, Punk and Grunge.

Obsessed with comics, old video games and bands like Animal Collective, Panda Bear and Die Antwoord one of the prime examples of this subculture is photographer Terry Richardson known for his look: Rocking lumberjack shirts and nerd glasses. They pose for fashion blogs like Facehunter in front of the camera and opened the gateway to a different taste to show their savoir-faire.

This subcultural phenomenon gained so much attention that it reached the campus of Ivy League university Harvard where sociologists looked for the basic traits to find a demographic description of the hipster. The term itself appeared in the essay “A Portrait of the Hipster” by Anatole Broyard for the first time in 1948 and described a figure in the Jazz subculture that rebelled against the white supremacy.

However, the white middle class snatched up this term. A group of young people living in the city, that stylistically move somewhere in between white trash with their lumberjack shirts, mustache, and nerd glasses. Thanks to the internet their style spreads quickly and mixes with other styles constantly working on not drowning in the general culture which would be the biggest nightmare for the hipster.

Heloise Battista

If you would like to see this species in its natural habitat we recommend to rent apartments in Berlin where you will find the biggest „hipster density. “

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Translated by: salome antigone
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