Yayoi Kusama’s retrospective at Gropius Bau. One of the paintings reset my brain. This installation I could live in, very peacefully.
Tag Archives: Japan
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Ballhaus Ost
Dasniya had a residency at Ballhaus Ost the last couple of months, thanks to pandemic and pandemic arts funding. I got to see a private showing last weekend, with Tara (yup, Tara!) and Yui. Yeah I’m a long-time fan of her work and Glutamat confirms it.
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Knives
Long time ago when I washed dishes for cash, the lunch chef was getting fancy with this beautiful knife, steel handle with black dimples and very sexy curves. She told me it was a Global knife, from Japan, and was cheaper than the usual pro kitchen knives and just as good.
Some years later, in one of those rare I have cash student moments, I bought my first one, I think a G2 cook’s knife, with which I’ve been slicing and dicing for probably twenty years, and occasionally adding chunks of finger and fingernail to whatever I’m mincing. I had some unexpected cash to finish 2020 (thanks pandemic?), and have been going down my list of necessary shit I haven’t had coin for in the last decade, and arrived at, “Buy some new Global knives.” Which I did.
I always wanted a proper blocky vegetable knife for bouncing alongside my safely clawed knuckles over a head of garlic. And having a sleek as little peeling knife to match. And here we are, doubling my collection of those dimple-handled knives. Number four is a 15cm utility knife I bought maybe mid-’00s, which is currently primarily on bread and cheese duty, though I’m very tempted to buy a couple more just for that. Along with one of them magnetic knife racks and a couple of tree stumps worth of chopping boards.
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Subaru Impreza S3 WRC 1997
I don’t know why this car makes me love it so much, but here we are. The ultimate ’90s blue and gold burbleburbleBRAAAAAPchitterchitter. You all know I should be driving this.
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German Whip: Toyota Celica 1.8 VVTLi T Sport
’90s ’00s JDM import tuner spoiler red alert. Seen a couple of times on Weserstraße, the curbside rear quarter panel taken a beating, but oh child observe those rims. Observe the hood vent and spoiler. Observe millennial coupé hatchback hoonage. Tight. Apparently a Toyota Celica 1.8 VVTLi T Sport, or possibly a 1.8 VVT-i, defo 7th Gen. and pretty sure post-facelift, so, 2003 or later. I seriously worked out that from the side indicator lights. Memories of Chapel St. on a Friday night, bass bins rattling glass, underside lighting, proper hoonage backed up both sides from Toorak to High St. “See man driving a German whip.”
Isabelle Schad — Reflection, at HAU1
I saw the second full run-through last Sunday of Isabelle Schad’s new work, Reflection, wrapped in the proscenium arch on the HAU1 stage. Everything I could hope for in the continuation of her group works. Opens May 30th.
Isabelle Schad / Reflection / HAU1
Thursday, 30.05.2019, 19:00, world premiere, HAU Hebbel am Ufer (HAU1)
further performances:
31.05.2019, 19:00
01.06.2019, 19:00
02.06.2019, 19:00A group of performers negotiates the theatre as a space for social gathering, (re)presentation and an apparatus whose motors interact with the biomechanics and different energies of the human body’s movements. Reflection is the last part of a trilogy on the collective body. From the community that we form (Collective Jumps) to the analogy of nature (Pieces and Elements), Reflection brings the focus to energetic and physical forces that make us move and the importance of the singularity to move others.
Credits:
Concept & Choreography: Isabelle Schad | Co-Choreography & Performance: Jozefien Beckers, Barbara Berti, Frederike Doffin, Ewa Dziarnowska, Naïma Ferré, Josephine Findeisen, Przemek Kaminski, Mathis Kleinschnittger, Manuel Lindner, Jan Lorys, Josh Marcy, Claudia Tomasi, Nir Vidan, Natalia Wilk | Dramaturgical & Artistic Collaboration: Saša Božić | Artistic Assistance: Claudia Tomasi | Composition & Sound: Damir Šimunović | Light Design & Technical Direction: Emma Juliard | Costumes: Charlotte Pistorius | Costume Assistance: Maja Svartåker | Theoretical Collaboration: Elena Basteri | Production Management: Heiko Schramm | Production: Isabelle Schad | Supported by: Wiesen55 e.V.In the frame of Performing Arts Festival Berlin / 28. May to 2. June 2019 / Performing Arts Festival Berlin 2019
more informations: Isabelle Schad / HAU
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German Whip: Toyota MR2 GT T-Bar
Seen parked on the corner of Sonnenallee for months on end, looking a bit sad through winter, and now sparkling in spring. Metallic cerulean, or ‘Turquoise Pearl 746’, 1992 Toyota MR2 GT T-Bar (MK2 SW20, etc) is one of my favourite pieces of unlikely casual hoonage on the streets of Neukölln. “Give mana-man space, let mana-man breathe.”
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German Whip: Honda CRX del Sol
Seen up in Friedenau on Voralberger Damm, pristine ’90s JDM hoonage, Honda CRX del Sol in cobalt yellow on white rims. Yellow on white rims. Slammed on white rims. Fucking majestic. Wide-ass body kit and proper ’90s-sized rear spoiler, two-tone white-black interior, console dial cluster also in white, and yellow straps for the harness. Be still my heart. Any chick whipping this I would marry. “Guys better show respect”.
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Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo: Katsukawa Shunchō — Imayō irokumi no ito
There was a big Hokusai show in Berlin at (I think) Martin Gropius Bau a couple of years ago, I went to see with Dasniya. No Shunga. No pervy octopus tentacle porn. Not even a mention. But in Marbella, in the small but very nice MGEC Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo, in the very unexpected exhibition, Estampa japonesa — Imágenes del mundo flotante, amidst three rooms of Japanese Edo and Meiji era prints, a whole wall of Shunga. And this one, from Katsukawa Shunchō’s: series, Imayō irokumi no ito. One of my absolute favourites, just hanging on the wall in a small museum in Marbella.
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Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo: Estampa japonesa — Imágenes del mundo flotante
On the afternoon of my hectic 36-hour round-trip to Marbella / Puerto Banùs, I had a couple of free hours in the afternoon. I could have slept, but I figured I’d be all perky at 10pm and needed some distractions. Museums, then. Yes, Marbella has one: MGEC Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo, in the old town, down an alley on the north-east corner of the big church (very tourist; much eye-watering Catholic art), in a former late-Renaissance hospital.
I hadn’t looked at the museum’s website properly, mainly because I was rather thrilled to have found any suitable distraction for the afternoon, and had no idea what to expect. Straight into Picasso and Miró. Straight out and up the stairs into 3 rooms of Japanese Edo and Meiji era prints. I really wasn’t expecting that. And I really, really wasn’t expecting to see Shunga in an exhibition like this. Saving on of those for its own post. That good. So here, without much elaboration, pretty much every piece in Estampa japonesa — Imágenes del mundo flotante. As usual, besides straightening, cropping, and a bit of colour-balancing, this is pretty much what my now rather old Panasonic LX7 saw. The lighting was awkward (the usual direct light glare on glass type nonsense), I am very out of practice in visiting museums and photographing art, they’re all on the underexposed side and tinted a bit blue … excuses. Fuck it. I’m not much for omens, but stumbling into this after the whole reason I was in Marbella in the first place was Pretty Bloody Significant, if you know what I mean.
