Brick Lane, London

On my last full day in London, I revisited Brick Lane to get my fill of curry. I tried at least four different curry shops on Brick Lane alone, and another one or two in the West End. The Indian food in London wasn't quite as good as what I had at Chungking Mansions in Hong Kong, but it wasn't far behind, especially the creamy coconut curries, the names of which I can't recall.

During the six weeks I spent in Europe, it rained probably almost every other day: Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, England; it rained in every country I visited. I expected July and August in Europe to be hotter. It was never unpleasant, almost always mild, and with little humidity.

It's my understanding that Brick Lane is typically more crowded than it was this past week or two, but, because of sporadic rioting elsewhere in London, people may have been hesitant to visit Brick Lane, which has its own history of sporadic unrest and violence dating back decades.

Brick Lane was my favorite neighborhood in London, although I never did make it to Brixton.

Brick Lane, London: Scanned from 200-speed Tudor film, expired in May 2008 but not exposed or processed until last week; I rated the film 160 instead of 200, and overall it looks OK, I think.

Yes, Prime Minister (stage play at Apollo Theatre in London)

Yes, Prime Minister was the fourth play I've seen in London this past week, and the only comedy. I knew nothing of the play except that it was based on a 1980s BBC sitcom of the same name.

If it's BBC, and comedy, chances are that it's worth your time.

It was quite good, and controversial. Near the end of the first act, as the Prime Minister of London is trying to save all of Europe from its financial crisis, it becomes clear that doing so may require securing the services of a child prostitute for a visiting dignitary from an oil-rich Arab country.

As they discuss the well-being of one girl versus the well-being of all of Europe and Great Britain, they are terrified that their dilemma will leak to the press. Obviously they can't write memos using words like child prostitute, so they decide to refer to any potential incident as a Eurojob.

The play also touches upon illegal immigration.

Despite the serious subjects, the play never feels heavy or overbearing. Everything is done with levity, and laughter, and the acting, with one exception, was incredible. The guy who played the foreign assistant, the assistant to the visiting Arab dignitary, was terrible. It felt like the cultural equivalent of performing in blackface. It felt like an insincere effort to play a foreigner. It was simply terrible. But fortunately his role is small enough to overlook it.

The Appolo Theatre was really cool, especially its 110-year-old facade.

The National Gallery, London

The National Gallery in London, adjacent to the National Portrait Gallery, has a heavyweight roster that includes Michelangelo, da Vinci, Rembrandt, Monet, Van Gogh, Vermeer, van Eyck, et al.

The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck is the painting that I was most excited to see. It is nearly 600 years old, and although van Eyck's name isn't as well known as Van Gogh or even Vermeer, it's probably impossible to study art history and not learn about the Arnolfini Portrait, which features a tiny painted mirror that itself reflects the protagonists in the panting.

Another piece that wowed me was, A Peepshow with Views of the Interior of a Dutch House, nearly 500 years old, by Samuel van Hoogstraten. It is a painting with multiple panels, constructed like a diorama, that when viewed through one of two peepholes on the side reveals dimension. A bit gimmicky by today's standards, maybe, and only maybe, and perhaps gimmicky even 500 years ago, but it's said to be the best of only a half-dozen or so peepshows remaining from that era. Despite the name peepshow, the subject matter itself is quite tame. It's the interior of a Dutch house, and not much else. It's like a Vermeer painting, only in 3D.

Tate Britain

I didn't expect this: The Tate Britain, at times, felt more contemporary than the Tate Modern.

Tate Britain has its key works from British history, definitely, but it also has recent acquisitions of contemporary works that'll leave you more bewildered than anything you'd be likely to find at Tate Modern. Don't get me wrong: I'm not equating contemporary or bewildered with better.

Tate Britain and Tate Modern are both fantastic, but what I have in mind specifically is the installation from Mike Nelson, titled, The Coral Reef. Originally installed in East London more than 10 years ago, it is a series of rooms built to explore the instability, or fragility (like coral reefs are fragile), lurking beneath the structures of today's dominant ideologies (like Christianity or Islam or Socialism or Communism). It's kinda tough to describe, but it was the first time I felt truly confused in a museum, and I am not easily confused by artwork, even contemporary artwork. I've seen enough of it over the years to not be easily shocked, especially if the ingredients themselves, apart from the whole, are not shocking (tables, chairs, couches, chairs, magazines, newspapers, fans, clocks, monitors, calendars; all of the normal things you'd find in rooms).

There was a collection of silver-gelatin photography prints from Donald McCullin, a British photojournalist now more than 75 years old. Mostly it was work from East London and Berlin, back in the days of Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin Wall.

My favorite painting in Tate Britain was by Thomas Gainsborough, known for his painting, The Blue Boy. But it was his Pomeranian Bitch and Pup, nearly 250 years old, that caught my eye. Painting a dog might not be the most original subject, but it was beautiful, and let's be fair: Most classical artwork is everything but original in its choice of subject. I wonder what the Renaissance greats would have produced had they been given a bit of secular leeway.

The British Museum

I visited the British Museum, just to make sure the Rosetta Stone is still there (it is).

It was as crowded as I expected, and even more so. People crowded around, taking photographs of the black stone behind glass, with its tiny etched writing, none of which would show up on a casual photograph. The digital camera has made people obsessed with taking pictures of everything, but when you're standing in front of the Rosetta Stone, or the Mona Lisa, or Michelangelo's David, what's wrong with just enjoying it? If you want a photograph for later, buy a poster, or look it up online to fine one of the dozens of photographs certain to be better than your hurried photograph taking in poor conditions. I really wish most museums would disallow photography, and allow everyone to better enjoy the experience of visiting the collection.

I also saw many sarcoph: is the plural of sarcophagus, sarcophagi or sarcophaguses?

Ancient Egyptian culture always impresses me with how advanced it was: the detail, the craftsmanship, the subsequent preservation. I thought the same thing when I visited the Tut exhibit at San Francisco's de Young Museum a couple of years ago. Gilded objects, thousands of years old, that sometimes look as though they could've been finished only yesterday.

I also spent time visiting the collections from Arctic North America, Korea, and Japan.

The Japanese figurines on display, especially those carved from ivory, were so detailed, so very cool, so nearly perfect, they look as though they must have been produced by a machine.

In the Korean room there were some carved Buddhas, of course, and an ancient rooftop tile carved with a demon or dragon face, so as to ward off evil spirits, but unfortunately it also seemed to ward off museum visitors, as the Korean room was nearly empty.

Journey's End (Duke of York's Theatre)

Last night I went to another theatre show: Journey's End, playing at the Duke of York's Theatre in the West End.  I didn't know anything about the play beforehand, staying true to my related preference of never wanting to know anything about films before I see them.

I bought a ticket to Journey's End because the adverts in the Tube stations looked cool.

It was far more traditional than the first two shows I've seen, because it's more than 80 years old, whereas London Road and War Horse were both written or adapted in the past five years.

Journey's End tells the story of British infantry officers during the First World War. Because the entire story takes place in one location, in a dugout bunker on the front lines, it was possible to make an elaborate and beautiful set. Maybe beautiful is the wrong word. Rustic. Detailed. Meticulous but messy in a wartime sort of way. Plenty of whiskey, candles and cigarettes.

The story was long, nearly three hours with intermission, and following the lengthy intermission I found myself hoping the set would change, that perhaps the final of three acts would take place on the battlefield, and not in the bunker, but the set remained the same.

The only battlefield action you get is overheard from offstage: machine guns and mortar fire.

The characters once or twice referred to Germans as Jerry, which along with Kraut I've heard before, but most of the time they referred to the Germans as the Boche. Apparently it is a French French slang portmanteau that takes two French words, one meaning German, and the other meaning head, or cabbage, and together you've got Boche.

When I looked up a list of words used for Germans (on Wikipedia, which of course speaks nothing but the truth) it listed Boche as historical and offensive, Kraut as offensive, and Jerry as neither.

National Portrait Gallery, London

Today I visited the National Portrait Gallery in London, which ranges from typical Victorian-era busts and oil paintings of dead white men and women, to more contemporary works, almost all painting, with the occasional photograph of an artist or the Queen in her younger years.

The exhibition included a portrait competition of contemporary artists. Many or even most of these paintings were photorealism. Very few of them were abstract in any sense of the word, which makes sense considering it's a museum dedicated to portraiture.

The winner of the first prize, though, was a painting with hardly any life. I couldn't imagine how it'd garner even a second glance, let alone first prize. Just another reminder that all art is subjective. Even in the world's greatest museums, whether it be the Louvre or the Uffizi or the MOMA in New York, everything that is on display is there only because somebody, or a small group of somebodies, wielding great power and influence, decided it should be there.

There were some photographs of (not by) Welsh artist, Augustus John, but interestingly none of his paintings, as far as I could tell, were on display. But the photographs and accompanying text told the story of an interesting man, a British painter obsessed with Gypsy culture, a man with two wives, and children by each, a British icon who lived into his 80s before dying in 1961.

Tower Hill (Tower of London)

Some of my favorite moments traveling are when you unexpectedly stumble upon something of interest: no guidebooks, no crowds of tourists, no queuing for tickets, no asking directions.

All of a sudden, it's just there, something of interest.

Last night while waiting for the Jack the Ripper walking tour to begin, I visited the nearby Merchant Navy Falkland Islands Memorial, where sailors are remembered for their role in whatever happened at the Falkland Islands. It may have been part of a larger naval memorial, because there were tens of thousands of names, all sailors who died at sea or in service, and I don't think the Falkland Islands ever resulted in tens of thousands of twentieth-century deaths.

Adjacent to the naval memorial(s), there is a plaque commemorating a scaffold where people once suffered and died. Still thinking that it was part of the naval memorial, I wondered, Why would a temporary structure be erected as a place where sailors would suffer and die?

Initially I thought, gallows. Instead, it was beheading.

It turned out to be a former Tower of London execution spot. From the 1300s to the 1700s, more than 100 prisoners were executed at the scaffolding on Tower Hill, including Sir Thomas More, who sided with the pope in a dispute between the Church and King Henry VIII. Imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1534, and tried for treason in 1535, More was beheaded on Tower Hill.

London walks: Jack the Ripper

For my birthday (33!) I went on a Jack the Ripper walking tour of East London, at night. Whoa, scary. I did the same walk 20 years ago or more, and I remember thinking it was the coolest, but this time around my expectations were low because not much is as cool as you remember it, especially if way back when you were a barely a teenager, or maybe even younger.

Last night's tour was given by Donald Rumbelow, who from what I can tell is the world's leading expert on Jack the Ripper. He's former London police, a sergeant and now crime historian.

I didn't remember much about Jack the Ripper, but after being refreshed, what strikes me most is how tame the whole thing could be considered, by today's standards and all things considered: There were five murders over an autumn stretch of about nine weeks. For some reason I always though the scope was much larger, much more violent and calculated, but it seemed to be mostly crimes of opportunity, a threat that disappeared nearly as quickly as it arrived.

One thing I found interesting: The Jack the Ripper nickname most likely came from a forged letter, written by a journalist to the newspaper, so the name Jack the Ripper was almost certainly rejected by the killer himself. Nobody knows who the killer was, and most of the theories about specific suspects are a waste of time, and presented only to sell books, films, whatever.

As for Rumbelow, the tour guide, he was pretty good, I suppose, but I didn't hear or see anything that made me feel like I would've been cheating myself to take the tour with another guide within the same company, or another tour company entirely. The tour itself, and the information, is all quite basic, but for what it's worth, Rumbelow was the guy who toured Johnny Depp around East London in preparation for his role in From Hell, the Jack the Ripper film from 2001.

London Road (musical): National Theatre (London)

I didn't know what to expect of London Road, playing at the National Theatre's Cottesloe Theatre. I didn't even know it was a musical; if I had, I probably (definitely) would not have bought a ticket for it. Fortunately I didn't know, and fortunately it was not a traditional musical.

London Road is set in the English town of Ipswich, Suffolk. It is a true story focused on community reaction to the Suffolk Strangler, Steve Wright, arrested and later convicted for the murder of five local prostitutes. The play itself was produced, verbatim, from transcripts of interviews with residents, police, and prostitutes, after the murders and during the trial.

Literally word for word, a true story, but in song; a community torn by tragedy and struggling to maintain its pride after being labeled by outsiders, namely the media, following the murders.

Given the source material, the final product is incredibly strange, but not disrespectful or even creepy, as might be expected when transcripts from a serial murder are turned into song. At both the beginning and end of the play, there are original audio excerpts from the interviews transcripted, which adds depth to an already impressive performance.

The play featured more than a dozen but probably fewer than 20 actors, playing what amounted to probably more than 50 characters. It was fast-paced with many set, scene and character changes. It was a dynamic performance, back and forth between song and spoken word.

The theatre itself was fantastic: Small, intimate, probably not a bad seat in the house.

Ai Weiwei at Tate Modern

Yesterday I revisited the Tate Modern. I had a couple of hours to kill, and had debated going to the Imperial War Museum instead, but I wasn't so much in the mood for war.

I explored many of the same rooms I'd explored only a day or two earlier, but I managed to stumble upon at least a few rooms that I'd overlooked during my first visit, the most timely and impressive of which was Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds installation.

Weiwei is a Chinese artist and political dissident who earlier this year was arrested and detained by the Chinese government, an arrest that was met with loud protest from the international community. After a few months in detention, he was released on bail in June, less than a week after I left Beijing. While in Beijing, I visited the art district where Weiwei keeps his studio, although his studio was (and may still be) closed by Chinese authorities.

Sunflower Seeds is a mound of handmade porcelain sunflower seeds, and not just a small mound, but probably one meter high and five meters in circumference. The scale of it speaks to the mass production so common in China, and the sunflower seeds themselves have dual meaning: during the time of Mao, it's my understanding that the Chinese people were sometimes portrayed as sunflower seeds in propaganda artwork, seeds gravitating toward Chairman Mao; also, sunflower seeds are a common snack for the working class in China, and when you think of the working class, you don't think of handmade porcelain or fine China.

I've seen some of Weiwei's artwork elsewhere in my travels, although I can't recall exactly where: maybe Taiwan, or Berlin, but probably not China: not always aesthetically pleasing, but brave.

War Horse (West End, London)

Last night I went to see the play, War Horse, in London's West End at the New London Theatre. I had never heard of the play, or the 1982 novel by Michael Morpurgo on which it is based, but from the little I read about it before attending, I had high expectations. In all of the blurbs and review abstracts, it seemed to be unusually successful, or maybe just successful in an unusual way.

The two main characters are Albert, a young man of about 16, and his horse Joey. Albert's alcoholic father bought Joey while drunk, out of spite for his brother and Albert's uncle. Albert raises the horse, only to see his father sell the horse to the British Army during the First World War. Albert runs away from home, lying about his age to join the Army and find his horse. Eventually they are reunited, with Albert blinded by tear gas and Joey facing euthanasia.

Joey is played/manipulated by three puppeteers, who do an amazing job of breathing life into a character that is clearly not a real horse. It does not matter. The mastery these puppeteers have is incredible. It's almost as if they can make the horse's lungs expand and collapse along with the action. When the horse kicks or rears, suspension of disbelief is no problem.

I was fortunate enough to have a seat in the front row, albeit at the very end of the row at the edge of the stage, which gave me a unique vantage point for much of the play. Near the play's climax, one critical scene took place literally at my feet, in front of the stage which had been partially removed at intermission to mimic war damage. At times I could hear actors whispering to each other; at other times, the action was happening at the far end of the stage, but even then it was never so far away as to not be able to enjoy it all.

London museums: Tate Modern, Victoria & Albert

Over the past two days, I visited the Tate Modern and the Victoria & Albert museums in London.

The Tate Modern is the most popular contemporary art museum in the world, and its collection is almost shocking in its scope and quality. It's enough to make you stop and think about the often untold stories of museums and their collections: how and where they got what they have. Normally sculpture bores me, even Rodin or Michelangelo, but I found the contemporary sculpture in the Tate Modern to be interesting. The museum does an excellent job of providing context for its collection. There is just the right amount of editorial and historical information. I was most pleased to see a large collection of medium-format black-and-white images from American photographer Diane Arbus, including all of her most famous images (e.g. Child with Toy Hand Grenade, Identical Twins, Jewish Giant). During the years Arbus worked (she died in 1971) cameras were met with more curiosity and enjoyment, whereas today they are more likely to be met with questions and paranoia. For the most part, people no longer enjoy having their photographs taken by strangers. If Diane Arbus worked today, I wonder what her portfolio would look like.

The coolest part about the Victoria & Albert may be its facade, which was damaged by German bombs during World War II but never repaired, the damage a reminder of the museum's perseverance through difficult times. Although I enjoyed the post-modern photography exhibit more than I would have expected, my favorites were mostly from the Medieval collection: a three-story French wooden staircase and facade more than 500 years old, from France, preserved and almost fully intact, but definitely not without wear; wooden doors with original ironwork, more than 700 years old; centuries-old Japanese samurai armor, gifts from feudal Japan, including one full suit from the second-to-final shogun. There was also a telling collection from Korea, its style and execution notably more primitive than the works of art from either China or Japan. It's my understanding that centuries ago many Korean artisans either chose or were forced to work instead in China or Japan, somewhat stunting Korean art and culture. But what remains uniquely Korean are its wealth of locally carved Buddhist temples and stone structures.

(Also worth seeing at V & A: The Ardabil Carpet, one of the world's most famous Persian rugs.)

Street photography: East London (Brick Lane)

Yesterday I started my day with a visit to the Museum of London for its London Street Photography exhibit. It was well done, with history and photos dating back more than 150 years. There were old cameras on display, along with explanations detailing how photography technology changed, especially in its early years, allowing shorter exposure times and the birth of street photography. Earlier cameras required such long exposure times that movement could not be frozen on film, so these early photos rarely featured people, unless those people stood still for minutes on end. But with shorter exposure times came the birth of street photography.

Afterward I visited East London, specifically Brick Lane, where I was able to put a modern face on some of the history I learned at the Museum of London. Some of the more influential street photography in the 1960s in London took place on Brick Lane, and there were many photographs in the exhibit from East London. I explored East London on foot for a few hours, and ate some wonderful curry for cheap: five pounds, ninety-five P for a three-course lunch.

Sir Christopher Wren (Old Bell Tavern)

While in Berlin I met a Bulgarian woman who lives in London. From Berlin she traveled to Hamburg and not back to London, so she won't be able to show me around town, but she did give me a short list of places I should visit, the first place on that list being Brixton.

So that was my plan tonight, to visit Brixton, the heart of London's hip-hop and grime community, or if not grime than at least hip-hop, and if not the true heart of hip-hop at least relevant. But I was fairly quickly warned off the idea, with the riots and everything else happening. In his own words, one guy told me, "I'm a fairly brave boy, but I wouldn't go to Brixton."

And I'm not even a fairly brave boy, so instead of chasing ambulances and police sirens, tonight I stayed in downtown London and ate beef pot pie made with ale, carrots and broccoli. It was at the Old Bell Tavern, a pub near St. Paul's Cathedral, and from what I learned, the pub, like St. Paul's Cathedral, was built by Sir Christopher Wren hundreds of years ago. Apparently it housed his stonemasons, who at the time were rebuilding the nearby St. Bride's Church, and also St. Paul's Cathedral, after the Great Fire of London in 1666.

Riots in London

I arrived in London this afternoon, after 20 hours on a bus from Berlin. We hit some delays at the French border, the UK border, and also some bad weather. When we finally arrived in London, we immediately saw the impact of the ongoing riots and demonstrations: smashed windows, increased police presence, businesses boarded shut for fear of opening.

After arriving, I went for a walk: The Strand, Big Ben, Parliament, St. Paul's Cathedral.

Berlin bees + Helmut Newton + Kreuzberg

Berlin bees enjoying some summer sugar.

I made friends in Berlin, many of them bees. I saw at least two people get stung, one after the other, and another woman shed her top in a moment of panic after a bee flew down her shirt. I lost track of the number of times bees buzzed by my face while eating, drinking, or just doing nothing. I'm not sure I ever went more than two or three minutes without a in my face.

During my final few days in Berlin, I visited the Helmut Newton Foundation, and also a couple of great parks: Viktoriapark and Görlitzer Park, both in Kreuzberg, where I stayed for my time in Berlin. Kreuzberg today is a Turkish neighborhood, in former West Berlin, near the old Berlin Wall, and not too far from the Berlin Wall East Side Gallery.

The East Side Gallery features dozens of murals from the former Berlin Wall, in a stretch of remaining Wall that is nearly one mile long. Many of the original paintings were destroyed and later replicated, or damaged and later renovated. It didn't appear as if many, or even any, of the remaining artworks at the East Side Gallery were wholly original.

I tried to do an additional walking tour on my final day in Berlin, but I arrived at the starting point, Brandenburg Gate, at the same time as a massive thunderstorm. So alas, it was not to be.

The Helmut Newtown Foundation was excellent. I'm not especially interested in fashion photography, although Newton didn't exactly make it difficult to enjoy his photographs. There were many interesting personal items from his private collections, including photographs of him, and original copies of old faxes sent to colleagues, both personal and professional.

I remember two faxes specifically: one was a fax he sent to Richard Avedon for Avedon's seventieth birthday, which Newton had already reached and assured Avedon would  be easy, especially because they are both rich and famous; the other was a fax to a business partner or colleague, complaining about 'terrible matchstick women' on his shoots.

Pergamon Museum

Today I visited the Pergamon Museum.

The Pergamon Museum is the most visited museum in Germany, with its rebuilt historical buildings and other archaeological findings from Babylon (Iraq) and Asia Minor (Turkey). The museum has large sections of the original Pergamon Altar, the Market Gate of Miletus, and the Ishtar Gate, which was one of the original walls of Babylon. The Ishtar Gate is made of glazed bricks, fired with special molds, so that when constructed they form together in relief to reveal mythical hybrid animals (dragons, birds, snakes and scorpions) and lions.

The Pergamon Altar is second-century BC; the Market Gate of Miletus is 120 AD, and the Ishtar Gate from Babylon is circa 575 BC. They are massive in size, and even more massive when you consider the scope of the original projects. What you see is just what remains.

The reason the Germans own these pieces, and not Turkey or Iraq, is because of an agreement made when the Germans originally excavated the archaeological site.

C/O Berlin

C/O Berlin is a photography gallery located in a former post office, hence the name, C/O (care of).

There were photographs from Yale photography professor, Gregory Crewdson, and also more than 140 Polaroids from the recently deceased German photographer, Sibylle Bergemann.

The photographs from Crewdson, for the most part, were staged, and many of them were large-format, which was great, but staged photographs often are like eye candy to me: They are nice to look at, but they leave me feeling unsatisfied, or at least unsettled. I am impressed with the amount of patience that goes into staging such large-format photos, though.

During the video interview that accompanied the exhibition, Crewdson spoke of his team, and how it's a large team but how he still feels that photography is an individual expression, but for me, part of the joy of photography is its solitude. It seems like it would be a drag to have an entire team of people working with you on a photo shoot; however, I suppose it's necessary for his work, and to each his own: Crewdson's photographs are impressive, even if a bit unnatural.

The Polaroids from Sibylle Bergemann were simply incredible. I've never seen such thoughtful photographs taken with Polaroids. After seeing her work, I was not surprised to learn that she used to rub elbows with Henri Cartier-Bresson, Helmut Newton, and Robert Frank.

Holocaust Memorial + Topography of Terror

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Holocaust Memorial) in Berlin is quite an interesting space. It is nearly five acres of sloping ground, covered with large, concrete, vertical slabs, some of which are shorter than a foot, and others of which are more than 15 feet tall. Walking, through, inside, and around the memorial leaves you feeling a bit disoriented, which I imagine is partly the point. The play of light and shadows is interesting, even more so with the sloping ground, and slabs that vary in height. The memorial is also an amazing location for children to play tag.

Today (and yesterday too, in passing) I visited the Topography of Terror, an outdoor museum in Berlin that contains the longest surviving stretch of the outer Berlin Wall; outer meaning that it was visible from West Berlin, not just East Berlin. There were dozens or hundreds of reproduced photographs, and more than enough information about the Gestapo, SS, and Nazi Party, but at times I had trouble putting all the pieces together. There were small-scale models indicating which building or landmark was where, and at the time I knew that I was surrounded by what once was the headquarters of this institution or that, but I never did quite figure out what was what. But it was enough to know that it was the decision-making epicenter of the Nazi Party.

Checkpoint Charlie

Checkpoint Charlie was the most disappointing travel experience I've had in quite some time. My expectations weren't high, because I wasn't even planning to see it, at least not then, but while walking nearby I saw a sign for Checkpoint Charlie, so I walked two blocks out of my way.

Two blocks was one and a half blocks too far out of the way, for what you get.

Checkpoint Charlie was the most famous of the crossings between East and West Berlin. Today the original building is located in the Allied Museum, and at the original location there is a replica checkpoint building, manned by German actors pretending to be American soldiers, posing for photographs if you're willing to pay. It's tacky and completely forgettable.

Fortunately, across the street, I was able to sample my first of what will be many currywurst: German sausage, sliced into pieces and seasoned heavily with curry powder and ketchup.

I'm staying in a Turkish neighborhood, where good food is also plentiful and cheap.

Martin-Gropius-Bau

Today after the Berlin Gallery I visited Martin-Gropius-Bau.

Martin-Gropius-Bau is an exhibition hall in Berlin currently featuring two photography exhibits: Hungarian photographer André Kertész (1894-1985) and Swiss photographer Daniel Schwartz.

Most of the photos from Kertész (native name: Kertész Andor) were contact prints made from original negatives, typically two-and-a-half centimeters by four centimeters. Many of them were compelling photographs, but it's tougher to enjoy a photograph when its longest side is only four centimeters. The museum made it a point to use only original prints, or prints approved by the artist, but it would have been nice to see at least one or two enlarged to their full potential.

But the artist's story was worth hearing regardless. The artist was born in Hungary, but a Parisian at heart (having lived there also) who spent most of his life in New York City. Based on impressions from the audio tour, and quotes from the artist, he seemed perhaps a bit full of himself, but some of his photographs were quite interesting, and of course shooting photographs in the 1920s offered a set of challenges unknown today, unless you happen to still use glass-plate negatives.

(To be fair, Kertész was not necessarily full of himself, that's probably not fair to say, but the audio-tour narration was overly effusive in its praise and commentary.)

The work from Schwartz is contemporary, large-format photography, taken mostly in the last 10 or 15 years: Iran, Uzbekistan, China, Afghanistan. Impressive, but I found the accompanying text, also printed in large format and framed alongside the photographs, a bit unnecessary.

Berlin Gallery (Berlinische Galerie)

Today I visited Berlinische Galerie, Germany's contemporary art museum in Berlin.

The Berlin Gallery was quite impressive in its use of space. It is a comfortable museum to visit: spacious but not too spacious, filled but not overfull.

There was an interesting installation piece by Simon Fujiwara, a London-born artist who lives in Berlin, and a number of historical selections from the Berlin Dada movement.

The rest was rather a lot like what you'd find at most museums: some paintings here, some paintings there, maybe a sketch or two, some installations. For my taste, largely ho-hum; but the installation piece from Simon Fujiwara, that was quite unique.

Titled, Phallusies (An Arabian Mystery, 2010), it sought to recreate a story from four points of view: four researchers who were working on a new museum building, at an undisclosed location in the Arabian Desert. While working there, in what is said to be a true story, these four museum workers came across an ancient stone phallus-like structure, and the exhibit explores their different memories of the phallus: Was it three meters or eight? Was it really a phallus or just a column? Was it eventually destroyed, buried, or shipped elsewhere? What was the phallus, and what happened to it? It felt like a hoax, or a hoax explored, but there was also a bit of a shrugged-shoulders feeling to it, like maybe there was this stone artifact, that may or may not have been historical, that may or may not have been saved or destroyed, that regardless was probably less important individually than the museum project already underway. The installation itself wasn't anything exceptionally, but conceptually it was quite interesting.

Which brings me back to the Dadaists: While studying art in college, I always was impressed by the philosophy and theory behind Dadaism; however, when I find myself face-to-face with its remaining works, or in many cases replicas of its remaining works (since the Dada mentality and preservation didn't exactly always go hand-in-hand), I find myself bored by the works, but impressed by the thought and movement behind them.

Marcel Duchamp's (R. Mutt) Fountain, one of the most iconic images from the Dada movement, is only a urinal. Perhaps the world's most famous urinal, but still just a urinal.