Pawel Althamer

Pawel Athamer has set up a sculpture factory named Almech in The Deutsch e Guggenheim. He plans to complete at least 100 sculptures while he is there. Almech is the name of his father's plastic manufacturing plant in the Czech Republic.  His father's factory is now renamed the Deutsche Guggenheim. In the Deutsch Guggenheim, a gallery a little smaller than the Crayola Gallery, he set up a plastic extrusion machine which forces out 2 1/2 inch diameter strands of plastic, just like a giant toothpaste tube. He has prepared life sized welded rebar armatures, and life masks of Deutsche Bank and museum staff volunteers. To create a sculpture he attaches a mask to an armature and drapes the hot strands on the armatures to create a figure. He says in the beginning his father's plant supported his art. He is now a well known artist, but he says now the plant is not doing so well so his art is supporting his father's plant.
This is the Deutsche Guggenheim's 17th funded site-specific art project and it continues into early 2012.

Ka De We (Kaufhaus des Westerns)

    Saturday is a good day for shopping here in Berlin since many stores are closed on Sundays. Ka De We is a must for any Berlin visitor since it's the biggest store in all of Europe and probably has been since its' founding in 1907. When Berlin was divided it became the "poster child" for the economic prosperity of West Berlin.

    Many department stores in the larger cities in Europe have "Food Halls". Ka De We not only has a whole floor dedicated to a huge selection of foods from around the world, it also has a restaurant on the floor above.

Everything is done with precise perfection, Note the white coated team of expert "technicians" restocking the canned goods. 

    The fish counters are superb, note the "Ice School" of fish and the other with a mouth big enough to swallow your arm. Fortunately he has no teeth. At the meat counter you will fing a whole display case filled with the "best of the wurst". There are over 100 varieties of tea and even more choices of coffee and if you'r looking for wine they have over 2400 varieties available. 

    if your not sure what to get, or you're hungry right now they'll cook it up for you and you can eat it there. When I asked for help choosing a coffee they offered to make a sample for me, and when I checked out the the mind boggling assortment of cheeses they also freely offered samples.

    At Ka De We, even though they don't have a king any more, they kept the same motto since they began:

"... where the customer is king and the king is a customer

Berlin Remembers

    The day before I arrived they told me there were flowers all over the streets because it was the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today, Thursday was still a day of remembrance for me. I am staying temporarily in the Wilmersdorf section of town, which is a beautiful, timeless, upscale residential neighborhood. This was the neighborhood where well-to-do Jews, doctors, scholars, business owners, etc. lived, but Kristallnacht changed all that. There are many remembrance markers here. Here is a photo of 4 of them stating the names of the people who lived there and what happened to them, They say there are 120,000 throughout Berlin. Most of the buildings damaged in the war have either been rebuilt or torn down  but here is a ruin not far from where I'm staying, with a picture of what was apparently there originally.
    Remembrance continued into the evening. I went to an opening at Kunstlerhaus Bethanien by a group of Roma and Sinti about their experiences during the war. There were several videos of survivors relating their experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, during the war with drawings and paintings by one. What they lacked in skill was compensated for by the strength of her vision. She had one titled "Even the Devil is Afraid of Auschwitz"

Christmas Markets

I spent the winter in Berlin in 2008 and one of the things I enjoyed the most were the Christmas Markets.
(They are only called Chriskindlemarkts in certain areas of Germany.) They are all over the city and each one has its own special features and character. One of my favorites is in Gendarmenmarkt. So named because the French Gen d'Armes had their stables here in the 17th century and later the Hugenots fleeing France established their church here. Here is a picture of some of the market angels who tower over us on stilts, bestow the joys of the season with their magic wands, and encourage us to sing Christmas carols.

An Adventure in Blogging ... My First Post

Welcome

 Today I begin my new blogging adventure.  This comes just days before my departure to Germany and Italy.