Tyred, cloudy and missing my gloves and pacifier
Posted: December 29, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: art, Berlin, Graffiti, photos, street Leave a comment »
There are those who say that art is meaningless, that it simply represents what it is.
A picture of deer in a meadow maybe. A canvas full of color splashes. A funny sculpture that doesn’t even look realistic. A prudent long-term investment.
I, on the otherhand–and I know I am not totally alone in this, even nowadays–I say art always has a deaper meaning.
I find the political in a love song. The deaper meaning in even the kitsch old housewives hang on their walls.
It can be a problem. But I don’t care.
I say art has a deaper meaning, , even if (sometimes–especially if) the artist didn’t intend one. Read the rest of this entry »
Berlin Graffiti: Bald Buzzards, Boomers and humanity as a kindergarten
Posted: October 22, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: American dream, baby boomers, Berlin, economic crisis, egypt, Graffiti, photos, politics, sarcasm, satire 6 Comments »
The symbol of America’s Bald Eagle has been replaced by a Greedy Grey Buzzard, an aged vulture feeding on the already stripped carcass of the country’s dead dream.
There is no meat left for the children this winter. And that, now, world-wide. Politics aside…business is running the show anyway.
But what do I know? Who am I? If I have a cold day in hell’s chance of figuring this all out, I ain’t aware of it. It’s all very complicated.
I just notice that a few have all the apples…and the rest of us, none. Read the rest of this entry »
Graffiti, heartbreak and American preachers
Posted: October 16, 2011 Filed under: Eggs | Tags: Alexanderplatz, Berlin, deutsch amerikanishe beziehung, disease fiction, German American relations, Germany, Graffiti, photos, travel writing Leave a comment »
Up the cool echoing stairs from the U-bahn, pausing to lay a cigarette between my lips, to light, to inhale, to light again, and to take a long, off-work-for-the-day drag off that cigarette—basically, a nicotine sigh—I turned the corner out into the bright of daylight, walking toward Alexander Square, across which I was headed to catch my tram home.
The American voice immediately got my attention.
“Hey, thanks a lot for your patience you guys,” the voice said with naïve sincerity. Beaver Cleaver sincerity.
Patience? Berliners?
Berlin Graffiti, episode two
Posted: June 26, 2011 Filed under: Lost in Berlin | Tags: Berlin, culture shock, Germany, Graffiti, History, humor, photos, politics 2 Comments »
Untenstehend, is another random sampling of Berlin graffiti for your viewing pleasure. Also, I give my broader theory about the graffiti in Berlin. I’ll get to that…but first I want to warn viewers: A Black-and-White, adult-audience CSD surprise lurks at the end of the slide show.
Not to mention, this episode is rather epic. 6o some pictures, all from yesterday…many of them even rather beautiful. I hadn’t even set out to take graffiti pictures, we simply went wandering about, but new work was everywhere I looked, and it was all so fragile and transient…and really, all this was just from shooting as we walked. Anyway…on with the theory.
Berlin graffiti
Posted: February 9, 2011 Filed under: Lost in Berlin | Tags: Berlin, Graffiti, photos 3 Comments »
Yes, don’t adjust your monitor, that is William Jefferson Clinton with the word ‘Pimp.’
Now, mind you, plenty of hardcore graffiti websites exist dedicated to the art everywhere on the walls in this city. There are movies and youtube videos and probably several books.
I don’t claim to have discovered anything…and I don’t know anything about the artists, I’m not cool and I don’t know the schools and styles and what’s hip and what’s not, who’s copying who and who is ‘original’…I haven’t even yet seen the Banksy movie yet…I simply enjoy spotting this stuff.
I mean, Bill Clinton with the word “PIMP” below? That is awe-inspiring, mind-blowing…whatever it means.
Spray paint and puddles
Posted: January 26, 2011 Filed under: Lost in Berlin | Tags: Berlin, Graffiti, photos Leave a comment »
Perhaps I’m a bit touched…but I could spend like a day staring at, say…one windowcill.
Let alone a graffitied and dripping ping-pong table.
The tricky part is getting one billionth of the texture to fit in my dumb camera.
Pictures are so flat.
Two dimensional…really.
The wet weather seems to add depth to everything.
I was already digging on the added feel it gives to the stones and gravel…and then I noticed the reflections falling into the distance.
Off in la la photoland.
I didn’t come to again until my camera beeped to say it was full. Read the rest of this entry »
Sunday’s Lost and Found
Posted: January 23, 2011 Filed under: Lost in Berlin | Tags: Berlin, culture shock, dead rats, Graffiti, photos 1 Comment »Here’s a few things I found this strange Sunday, just lying around Berlin. Good I always carry a camera.
The day started out like the opening pages of Camus’s The Plague. I walked down the stairs leaving the apartment and almost tripped over a dead rat. A way to start out the day, that. Nothing else could faze me. Not even the dog shit. Read the rest of this entry »
Public art, an indoor flea market and bird judo
Posted: November 28, 2010 Filed under: Lost in Berlin, Nadja and Andrew's Great Adventure | Tags: Berlin, flea markets, Graffiti, Nadja and Andrew's Great Adventure 2 Comments »Nadja and I got up today and, finding the sun ashining, decided to make hay. Off to the flea market we went. The indoor flea market that is.
Along the way there and back, as always in Berlin, we found a few interesting pieces of public art. On the way home at sunset we came across a bunch of crows having a sort of Fight Club in a parking garage. Below is a slide show of the way there and back. Read the rest of this entry »
