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Winter Sincerity

Crisp and cold, Sunday afternoon began with sledding down sludgy hills in Volkspark Friedrichshain. Our only social engagement for the day was a rather refined affair: the invitation from Alexander Schroeder and Jasmine Schroeder-Elgarafi had announced a tea "hour"- teestunde - which slowly evolved into hourglasses of champagne, from which we heartily took turns in tipping the glass bottoms up, warming up for a new trick learned from the real Children of Berlin, young Stauffenberg (Damian, age 9 and a half) and young Pernice (Ilsa, age 6) called "stop-dancing". Art critic/rock star Dominic Eichler, who's booked to curate a show at Schroeder's new Kreuzberg venue on April Fool's Day, actually stopped me from doing this silly dance when he approached me with the perplexing problem, "What do you say to a guest of a tea party who approaches you with cream and fox fur on their hands?" So much for the serious symptoms of bubbly overdoses.

The afternoon had began earnestly and sincerely, soberly discussing the subject of Public Art and what that might mean in Korea to a German artist, i.e., Manfred Pernice, who'll be there (Where? Somewhere? Seoul?) at the end of April in co-operation with the Consortium (Dijon). Comparing notes with him on my recent experience with the re-defining of public art in Alexandria, Egypt, and another conversation I had had with the architect Nikolaus Hirsch earlier that week about his attempts (in vain) to contextualize a building in Tbilisi, Georgia, with the commissioners telling him bluntly, "Don't patronize us," i.e., we want an international building and that's what we hired you to give us. The jury is still out as to whether or not Hirsch will build something of glass and concrete or not, and whether or not Pernice will react to the Korean setting. Or will he just give the Koreans what they are looking for? A German-looking sculpture, alas, in Korea, completely ignoring the context which is so important to his work. A fuddle reminding me of my own bullheadedness, I departed the Sunday soirée with artist Julian Goethe tying a symbolic amulet, a miniature bull, around my neck.

It was the end of a hectic week - or just a preview to yet another hectic week of winter parties. It all began with the opening of RothStauffenberg at Esther Schipper on Thursday, but no, that's not right, it rather all began with a surprise Spike party at the Munzclub on Wednesday where I watched the Austrians wield their swords. Whilst artist Gerwald Rockenschaub was disputing the time/money factor of design competitions with book designer star Christoph Steinegger, the dashing Mr Dejanoff (solo) was proudly showing me the cover, ads, and alles wunderbar he had done for Spike, and the gallerist Jan Winkelmann was all a giddy about the success of the carpet "paintings" being sold from the Dennis Loesch show. I popped by the gallery the next day to see the remnants of Loesch's dirty white-carpeted floor in person, with the Frankfurter Schirn's Matthias Ulrich in tow. We had to allow a window-front peepshow suffice, Closed for Lunch. Ah, Berlin and its luxuries!

We then popped into Barbara Wien for a peep at the most recently released book gems and marvel over the Peter Piller show: what joy he makes it to look at genuine photographs! Piller had taken a chance of showing his very own photos in poetic juxtapositions instead of the archival found photos that he is, by now, well-known for.

Though toute Berlin was at a masked ball (read: disco) on Friday involving mysterious transportation in white limousines to an undisclosed location (read: Berlin's most famous disco, i.e., Cookies) and 11 different "secret" dinner locations--and a few pea-green faces showed it at Schroeder's Sunday afternoon affair--I was busy recovering from Sofia Hulten's roisterous birthday (which began with champagne at Mehdi Chouakri's ever-expanding space) and from the RothStauffenberg dinner given by Esther Schipper (in just 3 locations, or so I heard the next day) on the night before. Dinner lists are a muddle these days; a spillover of too many last-minute yes-es yielded 2 extra restaurants booked in order to gracefully save the day. And though I was too wobbly to see what was happening amongst the other constellations, restaurant numero uno, Contadino delle Stelle, was teeming with international zing: amongst the "director" crowd were Palais de Tokyo directeur Marc-Olivier Wahler, meta-MIT Uta Meta Bauer, the Sprengel Museum's Gabi Sand, and Isabel Graw, publisher of Texte zur Kunst (as much of an international institution as any other). At my table, I sat opposite Danish curator Hennrike Nielsen (of the reputed, and deservedly so!, CroyNielsen), and to my right was the ever-charming Indian philosopher/historian Sunil Khilnani, who rather brilliantly understood the connection/un-connection created by RothStauffenberg with their "Monster" exhibition and yet another of their haunted "locations." A German architect dandy sat catty-corner (Tobias Engelschall of PE-P) along with Waling Boers, the flying Dutchman slash BuroFriedrich (Berlin) vater who has just given birth to a Chinese reincarnation thereof, the newish Universal Studios Beijing. The rest was a blur, and somehow I managed to teeter home alone dodging the slushy puddles, catching a glance of a former friend getting into a taxi, and I was reminded of Sunil Khilnani's book The Idea of India, and why it might be a good idea to skip Moscow altogether and hibernate in Bombay 'til the pilgrimage to Kassel-Basel-Venice in June.

April Elizabeth Lamm

April Elizabeth Lamm is a writer based in Berlin since 1998. Her reviews and articles have been widely published in many newspapers and magazines, but what she enjoys most is contributing fiction to artist catalogs (and curating fictional exhibitions). She has also edited several books including '...dontstopdontstopdontstopdontstop', the selected writings of Hans Ulrich Obrist (2006). Currently, she is working on a collection of short stories called 'The Ministry of Leisure'.

RothStauffenberg's exhibition 'MONSTER' is on at Esther Schipper until 10 March.

Dennis Loesch is at Jan Winkelmann until 3 March.

Peter Pillar is at Barbara Wien until 31 March.