Berlin

The Martin-Gropius-Bau is my favourite museum in Berlin. I like everything here, from the unique Neo-Renaissance architecture to the excellent exhibitions, which confidently remain “old fashioned” without any interactive tricks.

The Martin-Gropius-Bau just opened a broad retrospective of American “hot spot” photographer Margaret Bourke-White. Bourke-White once said that she “wants to be where history is being made.” Following the exhibition, you have the impression that she certainly was there and, a brief moment before it was made, even made history herself. Uniquely rare shots of collisions in the stormy 20th century in varied intonations: from the children murdered by their own mother, the wife of a Nazi, to a donkey in the Italian monastery who laid his head next to a row of American soldiers giving themselves a shave.

Margaret Bourke-White’s enthusiasm for machines, engines and engineering achievements can be better understood when one walks through Berlin’s new main railway station, Europe’s largest, which opened in 2006. It’s hard to remain indifferent to this urban charm.

Crowds of people wander through the photography exhibition, including young people. A boy of about 15 reads the comments on the photographs intently. Apparently, young people in the 21st century can not only press buttons and move their fingers over the screens of tablets, smartphones and such. Where there is supply, there is demand.

Friday, 25 January, Haus am Lützowplatz

While leafing through the newspapers at breakfast, I notice that one front page is adorned with the shouting letters U-Bahn Nollendorfplatz. I grab the paper and start to “read.” Yesterday, while I was trying to get to the exhibition at Rosa von Praunheim’s “Haus am Lützowplatz,” the subway traffic was interrupted to the stop at Nollendorfplatz. What happened? Flooded. From my burning interest it seems as if I even understood something. Huge amounts of water flooded the station and the images look like the location of a disaster film.

It works in an elementary way – it’s not news of international scope that is shown on CNN or Euronews, but as soon as something affects you personally, the news seems to be of immense importance. Perhaps people would like to know in the early morning what happened to them yesterday.

I finally do make it to the exhibition of Rosa von Praunheim. Twice I watch the brief documentary film about a family into which a girl was born who was actually a boy. Amateur film shots: a robust girl with red braids and angular, boyish movements, the next shot shows the boy. I am less surprised at the confounding moods of nature than at the parents’ laudable understanding, their openness and their courageous thinking. “She was simply a boy,” the mother says.

I later watch a genuine Brecht production in a genuine Brecht theatre. There is a lot of laughter in the auditorium, but I am sadly not amused. This is probably due to the different national codes and the different senses of humour. But then I notice that my neighbours in the box next to me are also not laughing and seem to be bored in spite of being German. When I leave the theatre following the play, I am surprised to find a man at the entrance already selling the Tagesspiegel, fragrant with printer's ink. Tomorrow’s edition.




More entries from Undīne Adamaite’s Berlin Journal:

Berlin, 5.1.2013: Neither a False Tourist Nor Truly a Local
Berlin, 6.1.2013: Sunday Rest in the City
Berlin, 7.1.2013: The Berliners’ Lightness of Being
Berlin, 8.1.2013: At the Tagesspiegel
Berlin, 9.1.2013: A Monthly Portion of Courtesy
Berlin, 10.1.2013: A Play in a Foreign Language Remains a Façade
Berlin, 12.1.2013: At the Theatre in Knitted Caps
Berlin, 13.1.2013: An Intermediate Summary
Berlin, 16.1.2013: Fired with Premium Fuel
Berlin, 19.1.2013: Blind Date
Berlin, 26.1.2013: Čus, Berlin!