The Dahlem Museum in Berlin exhibits an incalculable photographic exhibition, ‘Kashmir in 19th Century Photography’, that examines the interest for Himalayan culture seen by the photographers of Victorian times in the 19th century. The exhibition, organized with photographs that come from private German collections, will be open until the 30th of November and it has the support of the Asian Art Museum.

In the exhibition there are photographs of Burke and Baker, William D. Holmes, John Edward Saché and Samuel Bourne, who shaped Indian photography early on, as well as the view on local culture, which is this case refers to Kashmir.

Kashmir is the Asian region located in the valley which is south of the Himalayan mountains, in the northern area of the Indian subcontinent. It was part of India until 1947. when it became independent of England and Kashmir divided itself, leaving a part in India and another in Pakistan.

Due to its geographic location, it’s captivated the travellers that go and visit the Himalaya and try to climb to its summits. It was also the favourite place by large moguls to establish their summer residencies during the 17th century, because there they had lakes, rivers and the richest agricultural production in the area. The constructions made out of wood and the Hindu temples were the favourite materials of the photographers of the time who saw in them beauty and naturality that reflected Indian culture and its aesthetic trends.

Photography arrived in India, then a British colony, after the invention of the process that took place with the salts for paper printing, in 1839. This eased the processes and allowed photography to improve, making the photographers experiment with chemical substances, formats and voluptuous cameras to improve their work. Photography depended on a mix of elements that imposed technique, knowledge, chemical practice and aesthetic trends.

Burke and Baker, born in Ireland, were Victorian photographers who witnessed wars, discoveries, event news and human diversity. They spared no means and survived the most adverse conditions to carry the heavy equipment and the glass plaques in the sharp mountain ranges.

Their most interesting photographs are the catalogues that they published on Murree, a small town on the slope of the Himalaya. They set camp there and created a special headquarters in Murree, close to the leafy valleys of Kashmir, and they became the most famous photographers of the time and transformed Kashmir into a major photographic selling point for its similar alpine nature, which was attractive to both the Brits and the moguls.

This photography on Kashmir is the most splendid contribution of the time to this artistic expression. Today, seeing the images, you can still enjoy the majestic Himalayas and listen to the sound of clear waters running down the streams that these photographers captured with so much effort.

For more information: http://www.smb.museum/smb/kalender/details.php?objID=31832&datum=05.04.2011+00:00〈=en

Nancy Guzman

It’s a good time to enjoy a holiday in apartments in Berlin and also enjoy this great exhibition that invites us to get to know this selfless process to get to capture images of the Himalaya.

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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Although during its life it enjoyed fame and prestige comparable to those of writers of its time like Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway or Faulkner – who said hello to him as if he was probably the writer with the most talent of that generation – in whose celebrity the passing of time has hardly left a mark, what’s true is that for a few decades, despite a growing appreciation on behalf of the specialized critics that the increase that its work had on authors like Kerouac, Bradbury or Philip Roth, that the long ambitious books of Thomas Wolfe, dead prematurely before the age of 38 due to brain tuberculosis, have stopped being known outside certain select circles of exquisite palates.

As its reflected in his posthumous novel You Can’t Go Home Again, Wolfe passed most of the 30s in Berlin, a city that he adored, specifically until he found unbearable the growing persecution of the Jewish people by Nazi authorities, a policy that he reported in 1937 in the story I Have a Thing to Tell You, which won him the prohibition of his books in Germany, whose territory didn’t allow him entry from then on – he died a year later haunted by the memories of the place where he had managed to foresee happiness.

One of the most famous landscapes of You Can’t Go Home Again, idiomatic phrase that has become part of American language, was that in which he described the Olympic Games celebrated in the German capital in the summer of 1936, immortalized by the filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl in his extraordinary and monumental film Olympia, in whose over four hours of duration they anticipate and prefigure a large part of the defining characteristics of the following television broadcasts of the Olympics.

Specifically, what’s striking is the way in which Wolfe refers to the impressive Olympic Stadium, or Olympiastadion, (http://www.olympiastadion-berlin.de) designed for the occasion by the architect Werner March, which faced by the contemplation of the narrator of the novel one has the imposing and majestic feeling of the unfolding of flags and Nazi symbols, of finding himself in front of the battle tent of a great emperor. Wolfe clearly perceived, despite that to avoid the boycott of the United States and other countries, the Nazi authorities eliminated the antisemitic signs from the media (they even included two athletes of partially hebrew blood in the men’s team) and they hid the expulsion of all the gypsies in Berlin, that what was going on there was far from just the games.

A reliable proof of that is the construction of the stadium and the colossal sporting complex, the Reichsportfeld or Reich’s Sports Fields, where one signed up, which you access it through two giant tower of 36 metres each, which today still hold the Olympic arches.

Paul Oilzum

This year it’s the 75th anniversary of the inauguration of what was the first great urbanistic project of the Third Reich, for whose making they mobilized all the material and financial resources of the state. For different reasons, today it still makes one shudder. Don’t miss out on visiting it when you rent apartments in Berlin

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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Women who play soccer are ugly, butch, harsh, have the legs of a man etc. How many times have we heard this already? We could say having this mental image of the physique of a female soccer player is as far from reality as dealing with homosexuality of male soccer players and that is dumb and without any connection to reality…Anyways, how do we deal with the majority of this stereotype? It originated from the fact that historically soccer is viewed as a “male” sport and generally has nothing feminine. But this is as ridiculous as thinking that all men who can cook are gay…Just to demonstrate how absurd this construction is.

The first official female soccer game how we know it in the western world was played in Glasgow, Scotland in 1892, but the participation of women in the development of the sport dates way back. During the Han dynasty in China an active participation of females in an antique variation of soccer – called Tsu Chu – was detected. Futhermore, there is information and registration of women, that have played with a ball using their feet as early as the Middle Ages, mainly in France and Scotland. If we would investigate more ancient variations of the sport we would probably find more female examples.

Despite the historical evidence social change has lead to placing the woman in a domestic setting. And this is why the first female soccer team was founded by an activist and defendant of female rights in 1894. Nettie Honeyball founded the “British Ladies Football Club” and ever since then female soccer was associated with the female emancipation movement and that is why the stereotype of the “manly woman” stuck which led to a certain image of female soccer in society.

Since the female world cup took place in Germany a couple of months ago much has happened. The FIFA has recognized female soccer in 1991 with the first European championship, but two decades earlier world cups had already been organized with great success. Considering the last world cup we can state that female soccer has become the victim of boycott which starts with the fact that many important games took place on rugby fields or similar fields…but nontheless the player could show their excellent skills and prove that this is not just a male sport.

After decades and decades it was achieved that the FIFA recognizes female soccer as official sport. Why doesn’t this take away the stereotype of the “butch woman” already?

Soccer is neither male nor female. Both genders have contributed to this sport in their own ways.

Luz Obscura

The world cup in Germany this year was a big success and a trip into the capital would be as well. Rent apartments in Berlin and prepare for a great experience.

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Translated by: Maria
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Arthur Schopenhauer was born in 1788 and died 72 years later in his beloved Germany. He was one of the most significant philosophers of the nineteenth century and his magnificent work remains in force, due to the fact that many contemporary thinkers and writers adopted his doctrine.

Make a journey through the life of this historical figure, allows us to understand and assimilate his work, because it is so tragic, as the reality that we often refuse to know. During his youth, he read every book he crossed on his way, although he never studied, because he was an excellent merchant. At the age of 20, he decides to leave the office and start college. He began to study medicine, but after completing several courses, he met a professor of philosophy, Gottlob Schulze, who introduced the young entrepreneur in the art of studies, letters and thoughts.

It is since then that Schopenhauer began to take shape as philosopher himself and his works were so decisive that he created a current itself, the “deep pessimism” that many other authors have adopted as a style of writing and even a lifestyle itself. Examples include the case of Albert Einstein or Jorge Luis Borges.

Read and interpret his way of seeing the world is, without a doubt, change your own perception of reality, the good, the bad and sad. His principal work is The World as Will and Representation, book that was translated into all languages and analyzed in the most prestigious universities in philosophy.

What draws the attention to the German philosopher is how, through the sadness and desolation, he reflects an objective reality and not many reasons to enhance it. Although realistic, Arthur Schopenhauer did not lose his sense of humor, another key in his works.

d.b

If you rent apartments in Berlin you will be able to live for a few days in the beautiful German capital, meet its people and its culture, to imagine how was the life of this great philosopher of the nineteenth century, how he lived and what led him to create the ideas that make his novels tragic and funny at once.

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Translated by: Hans
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That night was an ordinary night, because any night can be a good night for anything like: to beget a son, to build a city, to start a book or to knock down a wall. There are walls, and there will always be, of all kinds: some are physical, but also psychological, spiritual and emotional. And the wall that fell on a cold November night (at the same time it finished off the decade of the eighties prodigious with its punk aesthetic and winds of change) was one that divided, like all the walls, but also the one that had become a heavy burden for a humanity that screamed freedom. It was the Berlin Wall.

Artists are always ready to record the events, problems, needs, illusions and desires that occupy, seize, or predispose to their contemporaries. And this was precisely what, over 100 artists from around the world did in the east face of the Berlin Wall; left there reflected what society wanted that cold autumn night. They used the most appropriate technique for this expression, then, it was considered simply as a street outpouring: The graffiti. In those paintings of the Wall of Shame, each with their particular form, made a personal ode to freedom, thus breaking down the barriers that put an end to a spiritual expansion.

For logistical, town planning, political, economic and moral reasons, the Berlin Wall was not-entirely knocked down, it survived as a reminder of this barbarity in some inherent parts of the city. The longer piece that stands out, with its inherent paintings is the Mühlenstraße Street, next to the river Spree. Its more than 1300 meters long are internationally known as East Side Gallery, the community space where reside left over 103 works by artists from over 20 countries.

Unfortunately, the hand of man (the vandals ready to make any prank with a spray), the inclement weather, the abandonment of the responsible authorities, and the rodents have been destroying the East Side Gallery to the point that, it was threatened to a new collapse, this time of twinning art. A partnership sponsored by the artists themselves did the best to save this witness of contemporary history. The wall was cleaned up and the paiters were asked to return to redo the paintings. Although not all accepted, in the place of theones who did not go for it, there is a white space, which invites them to change their minds and return to the joy of those days. Some of these works are already part of the current iconography, like the work of the Russian artist Dmitry Vrubel entitled: Mein Gott hilf mir, diese tödliche Liebe zu überleben (God help me to survive this deadly love), also known as the Kiss of the brothers or the German artist Birgit Kinder called Trabi (a car breaking the wall).

East Side Gallery is a nondescript place in Berlin, right beside the train tracks, but it is worth visiting, walking and contemplating its paintings, because that is art: something seemingly minor, but essential for existence.

Candela Vizcaíno

The apartments in Berlin that are located opposite the East Side Gallery, enjoy magnificent views of what is considered the largest outdoor exhibition in the world.

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Translated by: Hans
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The Hamburger Bahnhof Contemporary Art Museum exhibits, until the 25th of September, ‘Secret Universe’, an exhibition dedicated to the work of Horst Ademeit, that fits in the museum’s aim to carry out a series of exhibitions dedicated to artists that the art establishment has left out of the museums.

Horst Ademeit, was born in 1937, and has been working independently for 20 years outside all the art and photography circles, in an interesting proposal of collecting evidence and documenting what he called ‘cold rays’ through photography.

Ademeit searches for this fictional image in all of the spaces he photographs with his Polaroid. It’s a paranoid search for these rays that invade everything and penetrate through everyday spaces. His camera captures the building, the neighbourhood, the lanscape, the wastelands and artifacts.

This proposal that talks to us about the paranoia of horror that the ones in power have drilled into us, where everything that we see and read seems to see our faces and the voice of power. The writer Loers Veit interprets the work of Ademeit as “the presence of the live system, where Ademeit’s life mixes inside a web of horror”.

It’s what a citizen who lives in a neoliberal system sees everyday, where everyday life is immersed in collective fear: fear of unemployment, of poor health, of public authorities, etc. Those fears that they live daily, Ademeit lived it in a personal way by being surrounded by legal procedures that took him to live in an oppressive atmosphere, which he captures in his complex and controversial aesthetic search for the existence in a society which is provided of mechanisms that catch the subject in horror.

In 2004 he’d produced various thousands of Polaroid photographs. As well as these photographic and written documents, he created 3000 small spheres shaped in different types of wood that he installed in different parts of his body. The investigation and elaboration process of his work ‘cold ray’ culminated in 2007, reaching the point of gathering thousands of Polaroid and digital photographs and over a hundred writings that complete the architecture of his work.

Ademeit was a student and disciple of the German conceptual artist Joseph Beuys, who stood out in the 60s with his interesting theories on art and society. He was known for his theory of ‘social sculpture’ that took the great problems of society in a political mark and, from that, he built his ephemeral works that he registered with photographs.

These interesting theories were fundamental in the development of Ademeit’s work, who developed the work around the large oppressions of modern and post-modern society. Ademeit died in 2010.

For more information: http://www.hamburgerbahnhof.de/exhibition.php?id=32228〈=es

Nancy Guzman

Hamburger Bahnhof is a contemporary art museum that occupies an old train station designed by Friedrich Neuhaus and which is in the centre of Berlin. If you’re in apartments in Berlin you can come and enjoy this wonderful place, its exhibitions and contemporary art collections.

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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We usually don’t remember changes in images and why they occur, it is only when we look at a photograph that shows the passage of time reflected in the aesthetics and the vision that each moment in history has had a way of reflecting beauty and welfare that we are aware. Based on these affirmations, Sonderausstellungshallen Kulturforum has  on display “Vision&Fashion. Images of Fashion 1980-2010″ until the 9th of October.

To see how images between the late twentieth century and the years passed in this century have changed, is one of the purposes of  this exhibit that gathers the work of 200 photographers, illustrators and independent artists, as well as billboards design of major companies such as Benetton, Missoni, Comme and Des Garcons. There also are images that appeared in press or on television and in magazines such as Visionaire, Achtung or lokbooks

How many times while looking at a photograph taken in the 80′s gives us the feeling of seeing ourselves older and less natural than at earlier and later years. The truth is that it is the truth. Fashion has always been a field where there political expression of its time remained. Thus, the 80′s  were back to conservatism with the onset of the neoliberal policies of Reagan and Thatcher, which resulted in conservative fashion and design.

After the dreams of the revolution planted in the 60′s and 70′s that brought an air of freedom in dress and design reflected in the community life, the 80′s and 90′s returned to the cult of appearance and body. Men and women were eagerly seeking the perfect body to wear  Calvin Klein jeans while anorexia and bulimia appears strongly in rich countries while poor countries suffer from major famines, a product of war and the desertification of the planet.

This daunting  image was used by Benetton to sell a new concept of fashion, design and aesthetics that taken from diversity, tolerance and protection of children, as notions of a new era where it was necessary to protect the planet and human rights.

Also, fashion and design of the ugliness appears in these years, a trend born in Japan as a mean of expression and representation of an era that focuses on the exaltation of the conservative aesthetic concept of beauty imposed by the market, which does not take into consideration artistic creation. Representative of this alternative current is Rei Kawakubo, with the brand Comme des Garcons and Yohji Yamamoto, in which black, the deconstruction of garments and and exaggerated forms of identity that  signals a critical reflection about they ways of production and the destruction of the planet is a trademark

Among the 200 original works of international photographers, illustrators and independent artists included are works by Tony Viramontes, the  fashion illustrator and photographer active in the 80′s until his untimely death in 1988. His style is characterized by expressive and colorful hand-drawed  layers on high-contrast photography. There also  will be art pieces by Michel Comte, Eric Traoré, Lorenzo Mattotti and François Berthoud, among others.

For more information http://www.smb.museum/smb/kalender/details.php?objID=32942&datum=30.06.2011+00:00

Nancy Guzman

An interesting exhibition to visit if you are renting apartments in Berlin and want to take a tour through contemporary fashion and design.

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Translated by: Marc
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Dora Mar (1907-1997) was one of those women who the surrealist group fell in love with. It was Paul Eluard who presented her to Picasso (it is thanks to this that she is globally famous – not, for example, for his brilliant photographs documenting the creative process of what would become the Guernica – but for having been the lover and model of the Malaga painter, and having, according to common legend, destroyed when he decided to leave her). Eluard introduced her to Picasso one winter’s day in 1936 in the terrace of the mythical Cafe les Deux Magots in Saint-Germain-de-Pres.

Dora Maar had everything that the surrealist men looked and hoped for in a woman; she was a projection of all their desires; an exotic being, an inspirational muse, a mystic woman – somebody somehow in contact with that strange, intense potency of life which the artists pursued; the subconscious and the depths of dreams, madness and death. Dora embodied all of these things – which seems to have been more important than the other women who had relations with the group, and more important than her own work in painting, writing or photography. As it has often been pointed out, in the surrealist gatherings, just like in all cultural history, created and orated by men, the seats of the women tended to stay empty – and if they were filled, it was to listen in silent reverence to the masculine discourse. Obviously, the intentions of these discussions were not bad – the heated discussions were rooted in strong values on femininity, and the future roles of women in society. But, when it came down to it, in the dreams of Breton, the canvasses of Ernst or in the image of the girl playing naked with Duchamp, the surrealists were, in general, incapable of putting into practice the idea of equality amongst the sexes.

One of the recurring topic of discussion about Dora Maar is her enigmatic character; the image of her detached, distant, impenetrable face; the odd taste for dressing in clothes from the past, the fact that in all the thousands of photographs and images of her, she is only smiling in a couple of them; the strange death of her mother whilst she was on the phone to her. This air of unique distance and different was captured in a special way by the extraordinary series of portraits Picasso painted of her. One of the most beautiful of these, rich and subtle, calling to mind metamorphoses and distant worlds is hanging in the walls of the Berggruen Museum in Berlin – along with great works by Cezanne, Van Gogh, Bracque, Klee, Matisse, Giacometti amongst others. (http://www.smb.museum/smb/sammlungen/details.php?objID=22〈=en)

Paul Oilzum

It was painted 1939 and it’s called The Yellow Jersey. It’s practically a good enough reason alone to visit the museum when you rent apartments in Berlin – but make sure you explore the rest of the fascinating museum too.

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Translated by: Poppy
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More than a festival, Dark Dance Treffen is a party, an invitation to dance from 7pm until 7am the next morning, which includes six live bands in the five dancefloors designated to the darkest electronica in Germany.

The festival has been taking place for many years, as many as this dark trend has history in Germany. It started as a ‘meeting’, as its name indicates, of lovers of EBM and, in general, of all the darkest sounds of electronica, giving room for the scene DJs and to emerging national bands. With the years it started taking shape, widening the space and the lineup, which now not only included German bands but also foreign ones: today it’s part of the enormous gothic and dark scene festival offering in Germany, that year after year shines for the great number of loyal fans and devote adepts of Gothic, dark and all dark music genres.

The 39th Edition of the festival includes the presentations of Diary of Dreams as a headliner, End of Green, Funkervogt, Elsenfunk, 100 Blumen and Le Moderniste. As well as the bands, there’ll be the best 10 German DJs distributed along the five dancefloors of the club, that has an open space, (in typical German fashion!) available for food stalls, bars, clothes shops and accessories shops.

The festival opens its doors at 7pm on September 17th. The ticket price is a fix 24 euros. Remember that if you buy it online, they’ll give you 3 euros per ticket.

So it’s time to prepare the corsets, platform shoes, hair extensions, fake eyelashes, military boots, makeup and everything necessary for giving it all on the dancefloor of Dark Dance Treffen.

For more information visit: http://www.dark-dance.de/

Luz Obscura

Germany, land of festivals that gather the strangest and most beautiful creatures from around the world, festivals of which Dark Dance Treffen is part of and that you shouldn’t miss out on if your destination is Germany. So rent apartments in Berlin next September because it’s going to be a blast!

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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Today the museum is situated in the heart of Berlin and its majestic baroque building distinguishes antiques and the historical cultural value that we can see inside it. To give optical effects to the building as from the water, the architects grouped the three-winged building around several interior courtyards and presented it in a completely new and magnificent look.

During the second world war, the building got damaged near it’s done and therefore Ernst von Ihne conducted its work between 1897 and 1904 and designed the building in a neo baroque way. On October 19, 2006 the building was reopened in a grand style with three collections of international standing in its unique architecture: the Sculpture Collection, the Museum of Byzantine Art and the Numismatic Collection. The museum now includes collections of Byzantine art and Paleo Christian. The idiosyncratic construction of the museum’s outset is a magnificent combination of architecture and exhibit which together give it a Palace’s look.

A diverse collection of fireplaces, wood ceilings, and door frames of different eras in Italy have been integrated into the architecture of the building. Since World War II, the Bode Museum offers a historic walk through the German culture and past of this beautiful country. It also demonstrates the difficult and different situations faced by the country. A collection of 750000 medals, banknotes, coins and a range of other objects used by the people as a symbol of money at that time which is exhibited here is the largest of all time.

And the most important collection of icons of the period from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century is hardly missed by anybody. There is numerous pieces Italian sculpture from various schools from the Renaissance period. The 1,700 works of art in Roman, Coptic, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque style is also admired by people.

The interactive exhibit of Mosaic art in the Bode Museum introduces young visitors to the art of producing Mosaics. The exhibition is complemented by gaming elements and a Mosaic work table, where experience in dealing with colors and forms can be collected. So this gives a child friendly atmosphere to the museum.

The museum offers a festive setting for events such as receptions, concerts and partly for exclusive dinners also. So this museum surely deserves a visit to its glorious history and a dazzling architecture.

Address:

The Bode Museum

On Kupfergraben 1
10178 Berlin.

Service telephone: +49 (0) 30 – 20 90 55 77.

Opening times:
The Bode Museum is open daily from 10-22 while on Thursday it is open from 10-18. The Old National Gallery is still closed on Mondays.

Admission Fee:
The Bode Museum:

Normal Price: 8 €

Reduced Price: 4 €

Museum Island:

Normal Price: € 12

Reduced Price: € 6

The reduction refers to students, unemployed and people with disabilities and they have to present a valid certificate.

John

The bode museum is a live symbol of the great history of Berlin. So rent apartments in Berlin and attach yourself with this history by giving a look to this museum.

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