1 BERLIN + MICHAEL REID BERLIN COLOGNE A BESPOKE GUIDE 2 3 Published as a bespoke guide First published 2015 3rd edition, July 2017 © Michael Reid Sydney, BERLIN + COLOGNE Michael Reid Berlin, 2017 MICHAEL REID BERLIN 4 CONTENTS 5 5 BERLIN 7 Introduction Michael Reid 11 My Berlin Fabian Muir 17 Michael Reid Berlin and its Neighbourhood Rachael Vance BERLIN + COLOGNE 19 See, Do and Stay MICHAEL REID BERLIN 45 Food and Drink 59 Shop 67 Hear 71 Online 77 WALL POWER 81 Wall Power: Contemporary Australian Photography 83 Wall Power Dr. Andrew Frost 87 COLOGNE 89 My Cologne Michael Reid 91 See and Stay 99 Food and Drink 113 Hear 6 7 BERLIN + COLOGNE BERLIN MICHAEL REID BERLIN 8 INTRODUCTION 9 Most of Berlin’s built environment couldn’t be the same Berlin apartment that she has occupied for the show will use the purpose-built exhibition hall in the described as beautiful. But that isn’t to say that Berlin many years. The building lies directly across the street Harry Seidler designed Australian Embassy, by the foot of is a city without beauty. The pre-war splendours that from the Pergamon Museum in Mitte. the Eiffel Tower. survived more than 350 Allied air raids during the Second World War just need to be sought out among Berlin’s openness, its acceptance of whatever you As a key visual-art component of the Australia Now, the pebblecrete and stained concrete of the city’s might want to be, its compassion, and its old-time Germany 2017 festival, the Berlin gallery has been BERLIN + COLOGNE brutalist, Khrushchev-era architectural styles. communist community-mindedness make it unlike any charged with curating and delivering a major exhibition MICHAEL REID BERLIN other place on earth. It’s not surprising that Berlin of contemporary Australian photography in Cologne in What Berlin is rebuilding rather beautifully, however, is the contemporary art exhibition capital of Europe. late 2017. The exhibition, entitled Wall Power, will better is its soaring, ghostly-white, gravity-defying My Berlin gallery now uses the city to springboard connect German and broader European audiences to contemporary public architecture. The city contains Australian art to Europe and some 750 million people. leading Australian artists. The exhibition will then tour the second-highest concentration of massive building Our collectors are German, Norwegian, Swiss, British, Berlin, London and Paris over the following 12 months. tower cranes in the world. The physical Berlin that I Greek and French. knew in 2012, when I first began to exhibit Australian That’s what we do. We connect. The purpose of this art here, increasingly no longer exists. Berlin is This year – 2017 – will be a significant one for the Berlin guide, with a new Cologne supplement for this third change. That is Berlin: war, communism, reunification, Michael Reid Berlin gallery. For the third consecutive edition, is to sift through and highlight the best of what David Bowie, gentrification, springboard to Europe, year, we will be joining more than 90 of the world’s my colleagues and I feel can be found in Berlin; to connect political capital of Germany – and that’s just in the last leading photographic galleries at the art fair visitors with the city we love. I do hope that you enjoy our seven decades. Ever-changing Berlin can be blunt, but Photo London in May. Building on the success of the guide, and that, when in Berlin, you have an opportunity to it’s never without an extraordinary inner beauty. previous two years, the gallery has secured a larger visit the gallery in Ackerstraße, Mitte. (The building was space in one of the heritage rooms of Somerset House not bombed.) I so love this city. I wake up wishing that I had always for a solo exhibition of new work by the internationally lived in Berlin. As time goes on, I’m becoming more acclaimed Luke Shadbolt. Michael Reid, OAM convinced that Germany and Berliners are the de facto leaders of the free world. I’m certain that it’s Also from May, we will undertake a large-scale solo not something they ever sought, and yet they are exhibition of artworks by Christian Thompson in Paris. at the epicentre of world events. The ‘President of The exhibition will include 20 photographs spanning Europe’, German chancellor Angela Merkel, lives in Thompson’s entire career. Held over three months, 10 11 Kelly+Partners Chartered Accountants,they help business owners who want to go somewhere. BERLIN + COLOGNE MICHAEL REID BERLIN Private Businesses Private Clients Family Office 12 MY BERLIN ‘One cannot grow bored in Berlin, for 13 the only limit is one’s own imagination.’ Berlin: hot spot and melting pot. It’s Europe’s worst- fact that Berlin remains remarkably affordable, a lifetime, are required before one can understand its confluence of cultures from all corners of the globe. kept secret. Mere mention of the place seems to send enabling young people to live in a highly stimulating ebbs and flows. As much as I love Sydney, Melbourne Along the way, I might pause in an elegant, high-ceilinged a jolt of electricity through everyone, even those who environment and create works that may or may and the Australian outback, they don’t offer Berlin’s café, where the ghosts still blush from their excesses have never been. ‘Ah, I can’t wait to go there’ is the not (alas, frequently not) be the first important complexity. of the 1920s or 1930s, before visiting some of the city’s most typical response I hear, in stark contrast to the steps towards a significant career. hundreds of galleries. One cannot grow bored in Berlin, Baskerville fog I would see descend in people’s eyes Indeed, each time I begin to feel that I have a handle for the only limit is one’s own imagination. The one thing BERLIN + COLOGNE when, in a former life, I mentioned that I lived in Munich But it does take a certain type of person to live on the place, something new reveals itself. Berlin I probably won’t do is have a plate of Currywurst mit MICHAEL REID BERLIN (a beautiful and culturally vibrant town, I should add and prosper there, for Berlin doesn’t simply is constantly in flux, always experimenting, always Pommes (sausage with curry sauce and chips), Berlin’s – unjustly, a victim of weary clichés about oversized offer herself; it is up to the individual to take the building, rebuilding and reinventing herself. It borders riposte to the pie floater and a strangely vital cog in the beers and Lederhosen). initiative and try to seduce her. One could also on the miraculous, yet it’s easy to take for granted city’s economy. say that it holds a special appeal for those who do Berlin’s emergence as one of the world’s most tolerant Such enthusiasm for a city is not what one would not (yet) crave suburban stability. If you prefer and progressive cities after a seeming age of darkness. Ultimately, everyone has their own Berlin. Mine is just typically expect when it is scruffy, disorganised and, by a predictable environment – one that offers, to one of 3.5 million approaches to the place. Berlin may French or Italian standards, not a beautiful place. The quote Radiohead, ‘no alarms and no surprises’ If I have a free day, I’m spoilt for choice. Do I go to a be 800 years old, but she remains a work in progress modern version thumbs her nose at the Prussian order – Berlin will never be more than a short-term world-class museum or exhibition? Do I visit the opera and her reincarnations make her impossible to define. and perfection that Berlin once embodied. Yet, for all proposition. But for those who thrive on never or the theatre – again, of world class and eminently But whether you are a tourist, an expat or a home- her rough edges and flawed perfection, she exudes an quite knowing what might be around the corner, affordable, thanks to generous government subsidies? grown Berliner, Berlin will always reward those who have undeniable magnetism, drawing you in more than her who nourish themselves on all the changing colours Do I ride my bicycle through the gardens of Schloss the nerve to cross the room and talk to her, the less rivals, in much the same way that the most fashionably of life, bright or dark, and who understand how Charlottenburg or along the many waterways, of which glamorous but most interesting girl at the party. It’s up dressed girl at a party isn’t necessarily the one most monotony is the scourge of creativity, Berlin there are more in Berlin than in Venice? Do I hit the to you to take the first step. worth talking to. presents opportunities that most other European Anna Funder trail and seek out remnants of the East capitals cannot. German regime? Or, for a change of pace, should I pack Fabian Muir Some will be attracted to Berlin’s arts and culture, a camera and creep around the ruins of 19th-century some to her uniquely complex place in history, some Perhaps the fascination of Berlin lies in her layers, sanatoria, Soviet military bases or GDR factories? to her joyous acceptance of every conceivable genre of with the history – inspiring and depressing in equal (Berlin has abundant overgrown, abandoned places weirdness. For others, it’s Berlin’s intellectual rigour or measure – leaping out or lurking on every corner. that no one can afford to rehabilitate or restore.) its sense of calm and slowness – somewhat surprising This was a town turned on its head by a succession Or perhaps I will simply explore as-yet unfamiliar in the capital of Europe’s economic motor.