‘Art & Culture’ Archives
Miron Zownir: A Radical Man
Natalie Holmes chats to photographer, film-maker, author and all-round "radical man" Miron Zownir... Having taken up photography during the peak of the punk phenomenon in the late 70s, German photographer Miron Zownir emigrated to the USA in 1980, living in New York, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh. It was in New York that Zownir made his name as a moody, expressionistic and unflinching photographer, capturing the darker fringes of society in the style of Diane Arbus or Weegee. In spite [...]
Q&A: Amit Elan
Hannae Kim talks to 22 year old Israeli artist Amit Elan about painting, faces and photography... Amit Elan is a 22 years old Berlin based Israeli artist. He studied at Hamidrasha Art Academy and has since developed mixed media installations. He exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Europe, Asia and Israel. He writes for the artists' blog Art in Transit published by the international artists' organization I.G.B.K. Spring 2011 he completed an artist residency in the Philippines [...]
CTM Festival 2012
Between 30th January and 5th February 2012, the thirteenth edition of Berlin's CTM (Club Transmediale) festival will be taking over a range of venues in the city. Paired with the Transmediale festival for media art, the two will run concurrently, with a number of crossover events as well as their own individual line-ups. Both already have significant reputations for fantastic, thought-provoking programmes that avoid treading along established genre lines in favour of a broader, more thematic [...]
Haus Schwarzenberg
Grashina Gabelmann explores the story behind Mitte's Haus Schwarzenberg... Most visitors to Berlin find themselves ambling along Mitte’s Rosenthaler Strasse at some point, often to browse well-known commercial landmarks like the Rosen and Hackeschen Höfe. While these places possess their own kind of charm, located between these highly buffed retail magnets, at No. 39, is a more subdued, scruffy building whose brown, pockmarked façade -- conspicuously un-refurbished – is decorated [...]
Waxing Poetic: Berlin’s Live Lit Scene
Looking for lit events in Berlin? Marian Ryan outlines the best of the city's regular shindigs, salons and slams... For literature geeks in Berlin looking to sample the local scene, there’s no shortage of salons, readings, talks and slams. In English or German, whether at big institutions like the embassies and the American Academy, the traditional, clubby Literaturhäuser or intimate Lesebühnen, options are ample. That’s not even counting the hordes of festivals with a literary [...]
Natur-Park Schöneberger Südgelände
The snappily-titled Natur-Park Schöneberger Südgelände is a not-so-well-known 18-hectare urban park at the southern end of Schöneberg. The park has blossomed from the ruins of an old railway hub that was built in the 1890s, and which for 70 years operated as one of the city's busiest (including during WWII). The area was closed and abandoned following the division of the city and nature slowly began to work its magic, reclaiming the old crumbling administrative buildings and rotting [...]
Another Country
Marian Ryan profiles one of Berlin's most characterful bookshops... In November 2010, one of the world’s best-known travel-guide brands, Lonely Planet, named Berlin’s Another Country among the top ten bookshops in the world. The quirky, thirteen-year-old Kreuzberg institution took its place at number six, alongside legends like Paris’s adored Shakespeare & Company and San Francisco’s iconic City Lights. Not a few jaws dropped among the Berlin literati. “None of the other [...]
Berlin’s Lesbische Frauen
Brendan Nash explores Berlin's Weimar-era lesbian scene... In 1928, Ruth Margarete Roellig wrote a guide book for visitors to Berlin. But this wasn't just any run-of-the-mill guidebook. This was "Berlin's Lesbische Frauen" a comprehensive guide to the hottest and most happening lesbian bars and clubs the city had to offer. With an estimated 85,000 living in the city, Berlin was the lesbian capital of the world, and visitors were flocking in to experience all the city had to offer, and [...]
Readux: Reading in Berlin
Adrian Pasen chats to Amanda DeMarco, founder of German literature portal Readux... For English-speaking literary fiends in Berlin, there’s no denying the growing number of English-language outlets, events, and emerging writers to satisfy even the most particular of tastes. It’s comforting and insular, but precludes full integration into the local German culture, for whom literature has always played such a vibrant and integral role. A wealth of fantastic German and international [...]
Record Store Day Berlin
Record Store Day is a new event which will be taking place in Berlin alongside the BerMuDa festival on the 5th of November. The idea behind the event is to create a special day for record shops across Berlin who will offer one-off exclusive releases from leading record labels and in-store performances from affiliated artists. Some of the labels that are taking part on the release-side are Dirtybird, Get Physical, Monkey Town, Wolf & Lamb and Hypercolor, and more. Interview with Oye record [...]
