Natalie Holmes unearths the intriguing story behind Zehlendorf’s most singular housing estate…

Photo by Natalie Holmes

Imagine this: in 1925, 70,000 Berliners lived in basements and about 600,000 people inhabited rooms shared with three others. Many apartments had little or no heating and the lack of running water made for appalling sanitary conditions. In winter the apartments were damp and icy. In summer they were unbearably hot.

Times were tough, so in order to survive, women and children frequently had to work at home, turning some of their valuable living space into working areas, only adding to the horrendous noise and smells of a sickeningly claustrophobic effervescence.

With the industrial revolution, Berlin’s population had exploded to 4.5 million by 1920. Exacerbated by the style of housing, the city quickly became one of the most populous and densest in the world, where life for the majority of its inhabitants was one of misery and abject poverty.

The most common type of building at this time was a square block – 22 meters high and 150 wide, according to the limits of planning regulations of the time. This block consisted of a Vorderhaus facing the street, two perpendicular Quergebäuden, a side area (Seitenflügel) and the backyard (Hinterhof).

With demand for housing so high, it was not unusual for up to 600 people to cram into one of these tightly knit constructions; over 1000 people lived at the building on Ackerstraße 132 in Wedding, probably breaking some grim record at the time.

The (recently formed) Weimar Republic had to take drastic action to alleviate the growing housing crisis, and architect Martin Wagner was a key figure in the housing reform that followed.

A dedicated socialist, Wagner recognised the failings of purely capitalist projects and set about pursuing a more sustainable form of financing. He was instrumental in the creation of the GEHAG (Gemeinnützige Heimstätten-, Spar- und Bau-Aktiengesellschaft – Housing Cooperative for Savings and Construction) in 1924.

Working with his contemporary and fellow architect Bruno Taut, Wagner was also a rationalist, advocating the replacement of manual labour by machines, which he believed would liberate the workers. Inspired by the towering steel structures being constructed Stateside, the pair saw mass production and prefabrication as the solution to driving down construction costs by cutting out the middle man.

Photo by Natalie Holmes

The first product of this new wave of building technique was Britz in Neukölln, the site of the famous Hufeisensiedlung (Horseshoe Estate) that went on to become an emblem of the movement and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, along with five other subsidised projects (built between 1910 and 1933) that together make up the Berlin Modernism Housing Estates.

In 1926, Taut worked with architect Hugo Häring to design and build Onkel Toms Hütte. Financed by the GEHAG and heavily influenced by Taut’s previous partnership with Wagner, Onkel Toms Hütte is relatively underrated as a building project that was arguably revolutionary in both its theory and execution. Taut visualised a Utopian society – classless and at one with nature, and criticised the capitalist system, describing it as a headless body, selfish and utilitarian.

Onkel Toms Hütte, the penultimate stop on Berlin’s U3, is testament to Taut’s success. Named after Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1853 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the district acquired its label in around 1885, after a local landlord called Thomas installed cabins in his beer garden, which came to be known as ‘Tom’s Cabins’.

The housing estate that Taut created on the 12-hectare site is a triumph of colour and light. Rationalist in influence but human in style, the accommodations are somehow conformist but not monotonous. Back in the twenties, Taut anticipated his buildings’ degradation over time and allowed for this in his design so that, unlike most other ageing housing estates, they look as modern, warm and comfortable now as they must have when first erected. More so, perhaps.

Photo by Natalie Holmes

The buildings are modernist and practical, but Taut avoids monotony by including diversity within their homogeneity. Various sections of the sprawling estate look different to each other in terms of colour, shape and size.

Space is as important as what fills it, with housing blocks broken up at intervals with unpredictably pleasing paths, roads, woods and parks. The mechanical lines of the buildings are also softened by homely details such as asymmetric windows and invitingly individual doors.

Use of colour can often look gaudy and catalyse the ageing process, at least aesthetically. One of Taut’s many achievements with Onkel Toms Hütte is the enduring polychromatic success, apparently inspired by the likes of Mondrian, Kandinski and De Stijl.

Somewhere between pastel and primary, and clearly well-maintained, the buildings manage to be both vividly and subtly allochroous; the blues, greens and oranges a comfortable compromise between urbanity and nature.

Nature features heavily in this space too. Towering trees are ubiquitous, and wildlife is all around. Bird-life is pleasantly apparent, actively encouraged by the numerous feeders and nesting boxes. In keeping with the architects’ intention to bring inhabitants closer to nature, the vegetation itself is important in the estate’s overall effect. The low-rise constructions are dwarfed by arboreal monoliths that cast dramatic shadows, providing an external wallpaper of dynamic, interrupted light.

Wandering around Onkel Toms Hütte, one gets the strong impression that this is a wonderful place to live. Almost a century since its construction, the area evokes an excitingly futuristic feel and would not seem out of place in a Utopian sci-fi story. That this estate has survived and flourished is all the more moving given the horrors of the decades that were to follow.

About The Author

Natalie Holmes lives and works in Berlin. She loves learning German, birdwatching and travelling by train, in between working as a freelance travel consultant and aspiring writer. A keen environmentalist, Natalie writes about sustainability and responsible travel on her blog, The Horseshoe Nail.

Natalie Holmes unearths the intriguing story behind Zehlendorf’s most singular housing estate…

Photo by Natalie Holmes

Imagine this: in 1925, 70,000 Berliners lived in basements and about 600,000 people inhabited rooms shared with three others. Many apartments had little or no heating and the lack of running water made for appalling sanitary conditions. In winter the apartments were damp and icy. In summer they were unbearably hot.

Times were tough, so in order to survive, women and children frequently had to work at home, turning some of their valuable living space into working areas, only adding to the horrendous noise and smells of a sickeningly claustrophobic effervescence.

With the industrial revolution, Berlin’s population had exploded to 4.5 million by 1920. Exacerbated by the style of housing, the city quickly became one of the most populous and densest in the world, where life for the majority of its inhabitants was one of misery and abject poverty.

The most common type of building at this time was a square block – 22 meters high and 150 wide, according to the limits of planning regulations of the time. This block consisted of a Vorderhaus facing the street, two perpendicular Quergebäuden, a side area (Seitenflügel) and the backyard (Hinterhof).

With demand for housing so high, it was not unusual for up to 600 people to cram into one of these tightly knit constructions; over 1000 people lived at the building on Ackerstraße 132 in Wedding, probably breaking some grim record at the time.

The (recently formed) Weimar Republic had to take drastic action to alleviate the growing housing crisis, and architect Martin Wagner was a key figure in the housing reform that followed.

A dedicated socialist, Wagner recognised the failings of purely capitalist projects and set about pursuing a more sustainable form of financing. He was instrumental in the creation of the GEHAG (Gemeinnützige Heimstätten-, Spar- und Bau-Aktiengesellschaft – Housing Cooperative for Savings and Construction) in 1924.

Working with his contemporary and fellow architect Bruno Taut, Wagner was also a rationalist, advocating the replacement of manual labour by machines, which he believed would liberate the workers. Inspired by the towering steel structures being constructed Stateside, the pair saw mass production and prefabrication as the solution to driving down construction costs by cutting out the middle man.

Photo by Natalie Holmes

The first product of this new wave of building technique was Britz in Neukölln, the site of the famous Hufeisensiedlung (Horseshoe Estate) that went on to become an emblem of the movement and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, along with five other subsidised projects (built between 1910 and 1933) that together make up the Berlin Modernism Housing Estates.

In 1926, Taut worked with architect Hugo Häring to design and build Onkel Toms Hütte. Financed by the GEHAG and heavily influenced by Taut’s previous partnership with Wagner, Onkel Toms Hütte is relatively underrated as a building project that was arguably revolutionary in both its theory and execution. Taut visualised a Utopian society – classless and at one with nature, and criticised the capitalist system, describing it as a headless body, selfish and utilitarian.

Onkel Toms Hütte, the penultimate stop on Berlin’s U3, is testament to Taut’s success. Named after Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1853 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the district acquired its label in around 1885, after a local landlord called Thomas installed cabins in his beer garden, which came to be known as ‘Tom’s Cabins’.

The housing estate that Taut created on the 12-hectare site is a triumph of colour and light. Rationalist in influence but human in style, the accommodations are somehow conformist but not monotonous. Back in the twenties, Taut anticipated his buildings’ degradation over time and allowed for this in his design so that, unlike most other ageing housing estates, they look as modern, warm and comfortable now as they must have when first erected. More so, perhaps.

Photo by Natalie Holmes

The buildings are modernist and practical, but Taut avoids monotony by including diversity within their homogeneity. Various sections of the sprawling estate look different to each other in terms of colour, shape and size. Space is as important as what fills it, with housing blocks broken up at intervals with unpredictably pleasing paths, roads, woods and parks. The mechanical lines of the buildings are also softened by homely details such as asymmetric windows and invitingly individual doors.

Use of colour can often look gaudy and catalyse the ageing process, at least aesthetically. One of Taut’s many achievements with Onkel Toms Hütte is the enduring polychromatic success, apparently inspired by the likes of Mondrian, Kandinski and De Stijl.  Somewhere between pastel and primary, and clearly well-maintained, the buildings manage to be both vividly and subtly allochroous; the blues, greens and oranges a comfortable compromise between urbanity and nature.

Nature features heavily in this space too. Towering trees are ubiquitous, and wildlife is all around. Bird-life is pleasantly apparent, actively encouraged by the numerous feeders and nesting boxes. In keeping with the architects’ intention to bring inhabitants closer to nature, the vegetation itself is important in the estate’s overall effect. The low-rise constructions are dwarfed by arboreal monoliths that cast dramatic shadows, providing an external wallpaper of dynamic, interrupted light.

Wandering around Onkel Toms Hütte, one gets the strong impression that this is a wonderful place to live. Almost a century since its construction, the area evokes an excitingly futuristic feel and would not seem out of place in a Utopian sci-fi story. That this estate has survived and flourished is all the more moving given the horrors of the decades that were to follow.

About The Author

Natalie Holmes lives and works in Berlin. She loves learning German, birdwatching and travelling by train, in between working as a freelance travel consultant and aspiring writer. A keen environmentalist, Natalie writes about sustainability and responsible travel on her blog, The Horseshoe Nail.

Natalie Holmes explores the story of Zehlendorf’s most singular housing estate…

Photo by Natalie Holmes

Imagine this: in 1925, 70,000 Berliners lived in basements and about 600,000 people inhabited rooms shared with three others. Many apartments had little or no heating and the lack of running water made for appalling sanitary conditions. In winter the apartments were damp and icy. In summer they were unbearably hot.

Times were tough, so in order to survive, women and children frequently had to work at home, turning some of their valuable living space into working areas, only adding to the horrendous noise and smells of a sickeningly claustrophobic effervescence.

With the industrial revolution, Berlin’s population had exploded to 4.5 million by 1920. Exacerbated by the style of housing, the city quickly became one of the most populous and densest in the world, where life for the majority of its inhabitants was one of misery and abject poverty.

The most common type of building at this time was a square block – 22 meters high and 150 wide, according to the limits of planning regulations of the time. This block consisted of a Vorderhaus facing the street, two perpendicular Quergebäuden, a side area (Seitenflügel) and the backyard (Hinterhof).

With demand for housing so high, it was not unusual for up to 600 people to cram into one of these tightly knit constructions; over 1000 people lived at the building on Ackerstraße 132 in Wedding, probably breaking some grim record at the time.

The (recently formed) Weimar Republic had to take drastic action to alleviate the growing housing crisis, and architect Martin Wagner was a key figure in the housing reform that followed.

A dedicated socialist, Wagner recognised the failings of purely capitalist projects and set about pursuing a more sustainable form of financing. He was instrumental in the creation of the GEHAG (Gemeinnützige Heimstätten-, Spar- und Bau-Aktiengesellschaft – Housing Cooperative for Savings and Construction) in 1924.

Working with his contemporary and fellow architect Bruno Taut, Wagner was also a rationalist, advocating the replacement of manual labour by machines, which he believed would liberate the workers. Inspired by the towering steel structures being constructed Stateside, the pair saw mass production and prefabrication as the solution to driving down construction costs by cutting out the middle man.

Photo by Natalie Holmes

The first product of this new wave of building technique was Britz in Neukölln, the site of the famous Hufeisensiedlung (Horseshoe Estate) that went on to become an emblem of the movement and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, along with five other subsidised projects (built between 1910 and 1933) that together make up the Berlin Modernism Housing Estates.

In 1926, Taut worked with architect Hugo Häring to design and build Onkel Toms Hütte. Financed by the GEHAG and heavily influenced by Taut’s previous partnership with Wagner, Onkel Toms Hütte is relatively underrated as a building project that was arguably revolutionary in both its theory and execution. Taut visualised a Utopian society – classless and at one with nature, and criticised the capitalist system, describing it as a headless body, selfish and utilitarian.

Onkel Toms Hütte, the penultimate stop on Berlin’s U3, is testament to Taut’s success. Named after Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1853 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the district acquired its label in around 1885, after a local landlord called Thomas installed cabins in his beer garden, which came to be known as ‘Tom’s Cabins’.

The housing estate that Taut created on the 12-hectare site is a triumph of colour and light. Rationalist in influence but human in style, the accommodations are somehow conformist but not monotonous. Back in the twenties, Taut anticipated his buildings’ degradation over time and allowed for this in his design so that, unlike most other ageing housing estates, they look as modern, warm and comfortable now as they must have when first erected. More so, perhaps.

Photo by Natalie Holmes

The buildings are modernist and practical, but Taut avoids monotony by including diversity within their homogeneity. Various sections of the sprawling estate look different to each other in terms of colour, shape and size. Space is as important as what fills it, with housing blocks broken up at intervals with unpredictably pleasing paths, roads, woods and parks. The mechanical lines of the buildings are also softened by homely details such as asymmetric windows and invitingly individual doors.

Use of colour can often look gaudy and catalyse the ageing process, at least aesthetically. One of Taut’s many achievements with Onkel Toms Hütte is the enduring polychromatic success, apparently inspired by the likes of Mondrian, Kandinski and De Stijl.  Somewhere between pastel and primary, and clearly well-maintained, the buildings manage to be both vividly and subtly allochroous; the blues, greens and oranges a comfortable compromise between urbanity and nature.

Nature features heavily in this space too. Towering trees are ubiquitous, and wildlife is all around. Bird-life is pleasantly apparent, actively encouraged by the numerous feeders and nesting boxes. In keeping with the architects’ intention to bring inhabitants closer to nature, the vegetation itself is important in the estate’s overall effect. The low-rise constructions are dwarfed by arboreal monoliths that cast dramatic shadows, providing an external wallpaper of dynamic, interrupted light.

Wandering around Onkel Toms Hütte, one gets the strong impression that this is a wonderful place to live. Almost a century since its construction, the area evokes an excitingly futuristic feel and would not seem out of place in a Utopian sci-fi story. That this estate has survived and flourished is all the more moving given the horrors of the decades that were to follow.

Hannae Kim talks to 22 year old Israeli artist Amit Elan about painting, faces and photography…

Amit Elan (photo by Eli Saban)

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 with a solo exhibition.

In Berlin he has taken part in several exhibitions (co)organized by Kunstraum Richard Sorge, notably the “La Creche” project…

When and why did you move to Berlin and what attracted you to the city?

My first encounter with Berlin was rather random. It was about five years ago when I was hitchhiking across Europe, from Athens through the Balkans. I actually wasn’t on my way to Berlin; I was on my way to Amsterdam, but the Turkish truck driver I caught a ride with in Serbia was heading to Berlin so I decided to go with him and check it out.

I immediately fell in love with the city and ended up hanging here for three months that summer. A year later I moved into town to live. The city has all the things I love in one place: a booming art scene, alternative-everything, amazing party scene, huge queer scene. I saw no reason not to move here. Also Tel Aviv was getting very expensive and Berlin is so cheap to live in comparison. As an artist it’s much easier to survive here, I can afford an apartment and a studio for the same price I would be paying for just a flat in Israel…

You work in different mediums – painting, photography, installation. Why do you use these different mediums and how do you inter-relate them to each other?

I started out originally with photography a few years ago, and at some point began playing around with paints and colours. I was always painting things inspired by photography. I used my photos as a jump start for paintings, looking at different images and creating a mash-up from bits and pieces and interpreting it into a painted dimension. In my work I like to be naughty and mix contradicting materials like oil paint with aquarelle, crayons with markers, pen, pencil, fake tattoos, charcoal, spray, stencils, glue, fire, tapes, stickers and about any type of tool that leaves a mark. As I get bored quickly, the whole rectangular painting-on-canvas thing got a little bit old, so gradually my work moved more towards installations. I started thinking more in 3D and how I can work in space rather then on each piece individually in two dimensions.

Totem Painting by Amit Elan

Some of your paintings seem to abosrb some of the darker or more “taboo” aspects of human nature…

I like the idea of creating a world where distorted creatures, characters and splashing body fluids are not taboo and are even gladly welcomed. Lots of sexuality, perfectionism, fetish and violence, combined with a colourful, childish and humorous contrast of dinosaurs, rainbows, intergalactic laser wars and sparkly road kill.

A painted/sculpted dimension where laws of physics and social prohibitions no longer prevent us from connecting with our real element. All is allowed in this utopian dimension; fluffy, talking marshmallows, upside-down grannies or supernatural porn stars are all welcome and respected. No one needs an excuse for doing what they are doing or permission to be who they are. No one needs to be interpreted, their existence itself is enough.

Faces stand out in your paintings – who do these faces belong to and what do they mean to you? 

The faces I paint vary from people I know and meet on my journeys to random faces I find on the internet and feel some kind of connection with. On my last “totem” project I was going in both directions with a different topic that I fancied at that moment, i.e. every time something else. So one totem pole was all inspired by the faces of transvestites, another was albino Africans. There was one with orgasm faces where I took the facial expressions from porn. Sometimes I’m more random and intuitive with my choices and sometimes more thought through and conceptual. In the end it’s not really about who I choose to portray – I’m much more interested in expressing the emotions in the faces, and being expressive with the paint and colours.

Your photos are somewhat different in aesthetic and execution…there’s more humour, less concern with straight portraits. Can you tell us more about your photographic approach?

I’m not interested in portraying reality in my photos. I like distorting and creating a new reality, re-inventing and staging a whole new scenario especially for the frame I’m trying to catch. I like to take what I see in front of me and try to compose it in a less usual way. The staging process is never in a studio or something of that sort, it happens in unplanned situations like in the streets or when I see someone that has something interesting about them; then I ask them to pose for me in certain poses or with different backgrounds. These are usually random strangers I meet. My photos usually contain people or abstract things like rotting body parts, or sick people. I like to combine dirty stuff and very trashy vibrant colorful things in one shot.

You took on a South China Sea residency a while ago: how did that come about and what were your experiences like?

Well as I love traveling, last Berlin winter I decided I must escape the cold to a tropical exotic climate for an unlimited time. After dreaming of it for a long time I finally made it to Tao Philippines, this breathtaking island where I was invited by Eddie Barrok and Jack Footit to stay and work in my own studio for as long as I want. Eddie and Jack are two amazing guys I originally met in Berlin and became very close friends with. This super remote island was the ultimate paradise.

I ended up staying for five months in the jungle with very few people, a monkey, dogs, pigs, monitor lizards, huge python snakes and many other bizarre creatures I don’t know by name – and hardly any communication with civilization. My studio was placed between the beach and the jungle, and I used sea water to paint and to wash my brushes and coconut shells to mix my paint. At the end I had a solo show called “Mosquitos, Monkey & Pigdogs”.

Painting by Amit Elan

Who (or what) would you say are your main inspirations as an artist?

I have to say that most inspiring for me are wild new experiences and fishing and exploring through the conscious realm. Music is also one of my biggest inspirations. I can’t work without music. I really love Sufjan Stevens, he’s amazing.

What can you tell us about your current new exhibition?

The exhibition I’m showing now is the beginning of a much bigger project I’m working on. It’s the first exhibition in a series of upcoming shows that will exhibit the same project as it will be growing in complexity with each show. I started doing these totem poles mainly to satisfy my obsession of painting faces. I wanted to find a way to make as many heads as possible without having to make banal single portraits. To collage as many faces as possible in one piece, to get this facial addiction out of my system (or not). I was also lead to the totem shape by my growing interest in shamanism and spiritual consciousness of self growth. The totem pole is often linked to the shamanic practice of the indigenous people of South America, which is definitely my next location to explore.

What are your future plans in the art world?

No one can tell the future, not even me. But I definitely know that before I leave Berlin – not that I’m planning to – I will Make a huge street painting on the whole of a big building like those massive paintings in Kreuzberg as a little remembrance of this era of my life.

Finally, where are your favorite places to hang out and take it easy in the city (parks, bars, cafes, museums etc.) and which local artists would you big up?

One of my favorite places, where I can hang out for hours in is Cafe Kotti, on the Kottbusser Tor. It’s an old, queer, friendly, Turkish left-wing coffee salon with lots of old cozy sofas, nice to hang out in the afternoon, good ethnic Turkish music and tea – and a very interesting mixture of people. Another great place is Agora in Neukoelln – a great art space with a beautiful coffee shop and lots of things going on, workshops, performances, exhibitions parties. I also enjoy clubs like Homopatik, Cocktail D’amore, Berghain. A local artist I lately discovered would be Aerea Negrot. I was at one of her performances last week and she completely blew my mind!

Amit Elan’s current works are now showing at Berlin’s AKA Gallery (Pflügerstr. 6, Neukölln) until Feb 9th. You can also check his personal website here.

Hannae Kim talks to 22 year old Israeli artist Amit Elan about painting, faces and photography…

Totem Painting by Amit Elan

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 with a solo exhibition.

In Berlin he has taken part in several exhibitions (co)organized by Kunstraum Richard Sorge, notably the “La Creche” project…

When and why did you move to Berlin and what attracted you to the city?

My first encounter with Berlin was rather random. It was about five years ago when I was hitchhiking across Europe, from Athens through the Balkans. I actually wasn’t on my way to Berlin; I was on my way to Amsterdam, but the Turkish truck driver I caught a ride with in Serbia was heading to Berlin so I decided to go with him and check it out.

I immediately fell in love with the city and ended up hanging here for three months that summer. A year later I moved into town to live. The city has all the things I love in one place: a booming art scene, alternative-everything, amazing party scene, huge queer scene. I saw no reason not to move here. Also Tel Aviv was getting very expensive and Berlin is so cheap to live in comparison. As an artist it’s much easier to survive here, I can afford an apartment and a studio for the same price I would be paying for just a flat in Israel…

You work in different mediums – painting, photography, installation. Why do you use these different mediums and how do you inter-relate them to each other?

I started out originally with photography a few years ago, and at some point began playing around with paints and colours. I was always painting things inspired by photography. I used my photos as a jump start for paintings, looking at different images and creating a mash-up from bits and pieces and interpreting it into a painted dimension. In my work I like to be naughty and mix contradicting materials like oil paint with aquarelle, crayons with markers, pen, pencil, fake tattoos, charcoal, spray, stencils, glue, fire, tapes, stickers and about any type of tool that leaves a mark. As I get bored quickly, the whole rectangular painting-on-canvas thing got a little bit old, so gradually my work moved more towards installations. I started thinking more in 3D and how I can work in space rather then on each piece individually in two dimensions.

Painting by Amit Elan

Some of your paintings seem to abosrb some of the darker or more “taboo” aspects of human nature…

I like the idea of creating a world where distorted creatures, characters and splashing body fluids are not taboo and are even gladly welcomed. Lots of sexuality, perfectionism, fetish and violence, combined with a colourful, childish and humorous contrast of dinosaurs, rainbows, intergalactic laser wars and sparkly road kill.

A painted/sculpted dimension where laws of physics and social prohibitions no longer prevent us from connecting with our real element. All is allowed in this utopian dimension; fluffy, talking marshmallows, upside-down grannies or supernatural porn stars are all welcome and respected. No one needs an excuse for doing what they are doing or permission to be who they are. No one needs to be interpreted, their existence itself is enough.

Faces stand out in your paintings – who do these faces belong to and what do they mean to you? 

The faces I paint vary from people I know and meet on my journeys to random faces I find on the internet and feel some kind of connection with. On my last “totem” project I was going in both directions with a different topic that I fancied at that moment, i.e. every time something else. So one totem pole was all inspired by the faces of transvestites, another was albino Africans. There was one with orgasm faces where I took the facial expressions from porn. Sometimes I’m more random and intuitive with my choices and sometimes more thought through and conceptual. In the end it’s not really about who I choose to portray – I’m much more interested in expressing the emotions in the faces, and being expressive with the paint and colours.

Your photos are somewhat different in aesthetic and execution…there’s more humour, less concern with straight portraits. Can you tell us more about your photographic approach?

I’m not interested in portraying reality in my photos. I like distorting and creating a new reality, re-inventing and staging a whole new scenario especially for the frame I’m trying to catch. I like to take what I see in front of me and try to compose it in a less usual way. The staging process is never in a studio or something of that sort, it happens in unplanned situations like in the streets or when I see someone that has something interesting about them; then I ask them to pose for me in certain poses or with different backgrounds. These are usually random strangers I meet. My photos usually contain people or abstract things like rotting body parts, or sick people. I like to combine dirty stuff and very trashy vibrant colorful things in one shot.

You took on a South China Sea residency a while ago: how did that come about and what were your experiences like?

Well as I love traveling, last Berlin winter I decided I must escape the cold to a tropical exotic climate for an unlimited time. After dreaming of it for a long time I finally made it to Tao Philippines, this breathtaking island where I was invited by Eddie Barrok and Jack Footit to stay and work in my own studio for as long as I want. Eddie and Jack are two amazing guys I originally met in Berlin and became very close friends with. This super remote island was the ultimate paradise.

I ended up staying for five months in the jungle with very few people, a monkey, dogs, pigs, monitor lizards, huge python snakes and many other bizarre creatures I don’t know by name – and hardly any communication with civilization. My studio was placed between the beach and the jungle, and I used sea water to paint and to wash my brushes and coconut shells to mix my paint. At the end I had a solo show called “Mosquitos, Monkey & Pigdogs”.

Painting by Amit Elan

Who (or what) would you say are your main inspirations as an artist?

I have to say that most inspiring for me are wild new experiences and fishing and exploring through the conscious realm. Music is also one of my biggest inspirations. I can’t work without music. I really love Sufjan Stevens, he’s amazing.

What can you tell us about your current new exhibition?

The exhibition I’m showing now is the beginning of a much bigger project I’m working on. It’s the first exhibition in a series of upcoming shows that will exhibit the same project as it will be growing in complexity with each show. I started doing these totem poles mainly to satisfy my obsession of painting faces. I wanted to find a way to make as many heads as possible without having to make banal single portraits. To collage as many faces as possible in one piece, to get this facial addiction out of my system (or not). I was also lead to the totem shape by my growing interest in shamanism and spiritual consciousness of self growth. The totem pole is often linked to the shamanic practice of the indigenous people of South America, which is definitely my next location to explore.

What are your future plans in the art world?

No one can tell the future, not even me. But I definitely know that before I leave Berlin – not that I’m planning to – I will Make a huge street painting on the whole of a big building like those massive paintings in Kreuzberg as a little remembrance of this era of my life.

Finally, where are your favorite places to hang out and take it easy in the city (parks, bars, cafes, museums etc.) and which local artists would you big up?

One of my favorite places, where I can hang out for hours in is Cafe Kotti, on the Kottbusser Tor. It’s an old, queer, friendly, Turkish left-wing coffee salon with lots of old cozy sofas, nice to hang out in the afternoon, good ethnic Turkish music and tea – and a very interesting mixture of people. Another great place is Agora in Neukoelln – a great art space with a beautiful coffee shop and lots of things going on, workshops, performances, exhibitions parties. I also enjoy clubs like Homopatik, Cocktail D’amore, Berghain. A local artist I lately discovered would be Aerea Negrot. I was at one of her performances last week and she completely blew my mind!

Amit Elan’s current works are now showing at Berlin’s AKA Gallery (Pflügerstr. 6, Neukölln) until Feb 9th. You can also check his personal website here.

Hannae Kim talks to 22 year old Israeli artist Amit Elan about painting, faces and photography…

Totem Painting by Amit Elan

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 with a solo exhibition.

In Berlin he has taken part in several exhibitions (co)organized by Kunstraum Richard Sorge, notably the “La Creche” project…

When and why did you move to Berlin and what attracted you to the city?

My first encounter with Berlin was rather random. It was about five years ago when I was hitchhiking across Europe, from Athens through the Balkans. I actually wasn’t on my way to Berlin; I was on my way to Amsterdam, but the Turkish truck driver I caught a ride with in Serbia was heading to Berlin so I decided to go with him and check it out.

I immediately fell in love with the city and ended up hanging here for three months that summer. A year later I moved into town to live. The city has all the things I love in one place: a booming art scene, alternative-everything, amazing party scene, huge queer scene. I saw no reason not to move here. Also Tel Aviv was getting very expensive and Berlin is so cheap to live in comparison. As an artist it’s much easier to survive here, I can afford an apartment and a studio for the same price I would be paying for just a flat in Israel…

You work in different mediums – painting, photography, installation. Why do you use these different mediums and how do you inter-relate them to each other?

I started out originally with photography a few years ago, and at some point began playing around with paints and colours. I was always painting things inspired by photography. I used my photos as a jump start for paintings, looking at different images and creating a mash-up from bits and pieces and interpreting it into a painted dimension. In my work I like to be naughty and mix contradicting materials like oil paint with aquarelle, crayons with markers, pen, pencil, fake tattoos, charcoal, spray, stencils, glue, fire, tapes, stickers and about any type of tool that leaves a mark. As I get bored quickly, the whole rectangular painting-on-canvas thing got a little bit old, so gradually my work moved more towards installations. I started thinking more in 3D and how I can work in space rather then on each piece individually in two dimensions.

Painting by Amit Elan

Some of your paintings seem to abosrb some of the darker or more “taboo” aspects of human nature…

I like the idea of creating a world where distorted creatures, characters and splashing body fluids are not taboo and are even gladly welcomed. Lots of sexuality, perfectionism, fetish and violence, combined with a colourful, childish and humorous contrast of dinosaurs, rainbows, intergalactic laser wars and sparkly road kill.

A painted/sculpted dimension where laws of physics and social prohibitions no longer prevent us from connecting with our real element. All is allowed in this utopian dimension; fluffy, talking marshmallows, upside-down grannies or supernatural porn stars are all welcome and respected. No one needs an excuse for doing what they are doing or permission to be who they are. No one needs to be interpreted, their existence itself is enough.

Faces stand out in your paintings – who do these faces belong to and what do they mean to you? 

The faces I paint vary from people I know and meet on my journeys to random faces I find on the internet and feel some kind of connection with. On my last “totem” project I was going in both directions with a different topic that I fancied at that moment, i.e. every time something else. So one totem pole was all inspired by the faces of transvestites, another was albino Africans. There was one with orgasm faces where I took the facial expressions from porn. Sometimes I’m more random and intuitive with my choices and sometimes more thought through and conceptual. In the end it’s not really about who I choose to portray – I’m much more interested in expressing the emotions in the faces, and being expressive with the paint and colours.

Your photos are somewhat different in aesthetic and execution…there’s more humour, less concern with straight portraits. Can you tell us more about your photographic approach?

I’m not interested in portraying reality in my photos. I like distorting and creating a new reality, re-inventing and staging a whole new scenario especially for the frame I’m trying to catch. I like to take what I see in front of me and try to compose it in a less usual way. The staging process is never in a studio or something of that sort, it happens in unplanned situations like in the streets or when I see someone that has something interesting about them; then I ask them to pose for me in certain poses or with different backgrounds. These are usually random strangers I meet. My photos usually contain people or abstract things like rotting body parts, or sick people. I like to combine dirty stuff and very trashy vibrant colorful things in one shot.

You took on a South China Sea residency a while ago: how did that come about and what were your experiences like?

Well as I love traveling, last Berlin winter I decided I must escape the cold to a tropical exotic climate for an unlimited time. After dreaming of it for a long time I finally made it to Tao Philippines, this breathtaking island where I was invited by Eddie Barrok and Jack Footit to stay and work in my own studio for as long as I want. Eddie and Jack are two amazing guys I originally met in Berlin and became very close friends with. This super remote island was the ultimate paradise.

I ended up staying for five months in the jungle with very few people, a monkey, dogs, pigs, monitor lizards, huge python snakes and many other bizarre creatures I don’t know by name – and hardly any communication with civilization. My studio was placed between the beach and the jungle, and I used sea water to paint and to wash my brushes and coconut shells to mix my paint. At the end I had a solo show called “Mosquitos, Monkey & Pigdogs”.

Painting by Amit Elan

Who (or what) would you say are your main inspirations as an artist?

I have to say that most inspiring for me are wild new experiences and fishing and exploring through the conscious realm. Music is also one of my biggest inspirations. I can’t work without music. I really love Sufjan Stevens, he’s amazing.

What can you tell us about your current new exhibition?

The exhibition I’m showing now is the beginning of a much bigger project I’m working on. It’s the first exhibition in a series of upcoming shows that will exhibit the same project as it will be growing in complexity with each show. I started doing these totem poles mainly to satisfy my obsession of painting faces. I wanted to find a way to make as many heads as possible without having to make banal single portraits. To collage as many faces as possible in one piece, to get this facial addiction out of my system (or not). I was also lead to the totem shape by my growing interest in shamanism and spiritual consciousness of self growth. The totem pole is often linked to the shamanic practice of the indigenous people of South America, which is definitely my next location to explore.

What are your future plans in the art world?

No one can tell the future, not even me. But I definitely know that before I leave Berlin – not that I’m planning to – I will Make a huge street painting on the whole of a big building like those massive paintings in Kreuzberg as a little remembrance of this era of my life.

Finally, where are your favorite places to hang out and take it easy in the city (parks, bars, cafes, museums etc.) and which local artists would you big up?

One of my favorite places, where I can hang out for hours in is Cafe Kotti, on the Kottbusser Tor. It’s an old, queer, friendly, Turkish left-wing coffee salon with lots of old cozy sofas, nice to hang out in the afternoon, good ethnic Turkish music and tea – and a very interesting mixture of people. Another great place is Agora in Neukoelln – a great art space with a beautiful coffee shop and lots of things going on, workshops, performances, exhibitions parties. I also enjoy clubs like Homopatik, Cocktail D’amore, Berghain. A local artist I lately discovered would be Aerea Negrot. I was at one of her performances last week and she completely blew my mind!

Amit Elan’s current works are now showing at Berlin’s AKA Gallery (Pflügerstr. 6, Neukölln). You can also check his personal website here.

Hannae Kim talks to 22 year old Israeli artist Amit Elan about painting, faces and photography…

Totem Painting by Amit Elan

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 with a solo exhibition.

In Berlin he has taken part in several exhibitions (co)organized by Kunstraum Richard Sorge, notably the “La Creche” project…

When and why did you move to Berlin and what attracted you to the city?

My first encounter with Berlin was rather random. It was about five years ago when I was hitchhiking across Europe, from Athens through the Balkans. I actually wasn’t on my way to Berlin; I was on my way to Amsterdam, but the Turkish truck driver I caught a ride with in Serbia was heading to Berlin so I decided to go with him and check it out.

I immediately fell in love with the city and ended up hanging here for three months that summer. A year later I moved into town to live. The city has all the things I love in one place: a booming art scene, alternative-everything, amazing party scene, huge queer scene. I saw no reason not to move here. Also Tel Aviv was getting very expensive and Berlin is so cheap to live in comparison. As an artist it’s much easier to survive here, I can afford an apartment and a studio for the same price I would be paying for just a flat in Israel…

You work in different mediums – painting, photography, installation. Why do you use these different mediums and how do you inter-relate them to each other?

I started out originally with photography a few years ago, and at some point began playing around with paints and colours. I was always painting things inspired by photography. I used my photos as a jump start for paintings, looking at different images and creating a mash-up from bits and pieces and interpreting it into a painted dimension. In my work I like to be naughty and mix contradicting materials like oil paint with aquarelle, crayons with markers, pen, pencil, fake tattoos, charcoal, spray, stencils, glue, fire, tapes, stickers and about any type of tool that leaves a mark. As I get bored quickly, the whole rectangular painting-on-canvas thing got a little bit old, so gradually my work moved more towards installations. I started thinking more in 3D and how I can work in space rather then on each piece individually in two dimensions.

Painting by Amit Elan

Some of your paintings seem to abosrb some of the darker or more “taboo” aspects of human nature…

I like the idea of creating a world where distorted creatures, characters and splashing body fluids are not taboo and are even gladly welcomed. Lots of sexuality, perfectionism, fetish and violence, combined with a colourful, childish and humorous contrast of dinosaurs, rainbows, intergalactic laser wars and sparkly road kill.

A painted/sculpted dimension where laws of physics and social prohibitions no longer prevent us from connecting with our real element. All is allowed in this utopian dimension; fluffy, talking marshmallows, upside-down grannies or supernatural porn stars are all welcome and respected. No one needs an excuse for doing what they are doing or permission to be who they are. No one needs to be interpreted, their existence itself is enough.

Faces stand out in your paintings – who do these faces belong to and what do they mean to you? 

The faces I paint vary from people I know and meet on my journeys to random faces I find on the internet and feel some kind of connection with. On my last “totem” project I was going in both directions with a different topic that I fancied at that moment, i.e. every time something else. So one totem pole was all inspired by the faces of transvestites, another was albino Africans. There was one with orgasm faces where I took the facial expressions from porn. Sometimes I’m more random and intuitive with my choices and sometimes more thought through and conceptual. In the end it’s not really about who I choose to portray – I’m much more interested in expressing the emotions in the faces, and being expressive with the paint and colours.

Your photos are somewhat different in aesthetic and execution…there’s more humour, less concern with straight portraits. Can you tell us more about your photographic approach?

I’m not interested in portraying reality in my photos. I like distorting and creating a new reality, re-inventing and staging a whole new scenario especially for the frame I’m trying to catch. I like to take what I see in front of me and try to compose it in a less usual way. The staging process is never in a studio or something of that sort, it happens in unplanned situations like in the streets or when I see someone that has something interesting about them; then I ask them to pose for me in certain poses or with different backgrounds. These are usually random strangers I meet. My photos usually contain people or abstract things like rotting body parts, or sick people. I like to combine dirty stuff and very trashy vibrant colorful things in one shot.

You took on a South China Sea residency a while ago: how did that come about and what were your experiences like?

Well as I love traveling, last Berlin winter I decided I must escape the cold to a tropical exotic climate for an unlimited time. After dreaming of it for a long time I finally made it to Tao Philippines, this breathtaking island where I was invited by Eddie Barrok and Jack Footit to stay and work in my own studio for as long as I want. Eddie and Jack are two amazing guys I originally met in Berlin and became very close friends with. This super remote island was the ultimate paradise.

I ended up staying for five months in the jungle with very few people, a monkey, dogs, pigs, monitor lizards, huge python snakes and many other bizarre creatures I don’t know by name – and hardly any communication with civilization. My studio was placed between the beach and the jungle, and I used sea water to paint and to wash my brushes and coconut shells to mix my paint. At the end I had a solo show called “Mosquitos, Monkey & Pigdogs”.

Painting by Amit Elan

Who (or what) would you say are your main inspirations as an artist?

I have to say that most inspiring for me are wild new experiences and fishing and exploring through the conscious realm. Music is also one of my biggest inspirations. I can’t work without music. I really love Sufjan Stevens, he’s amazing.

What can you tell us about your current new exhibition?

The exhibition I’m showing now is the beginning of a much bigger project I’m working on. It’s the first exhibition in a series of upcoming shows that will exhibit the same project as it will be growing in complexity with each show. I started doing these totem poles mainly to satisfy my obsession of painting faces. I wanted to find a way to make as many heads as possible without having to make banal single portraits. To collage as many faces as possible in one piece, to get this facial addiction out of my system (or not). I was also lead to the totem shape by my growing interest in shamanism and spiritual consciousness of self growth. The totem pole is often linked to the shamanic practice of the indigenous people of South America, which is definitely my next location to explore.

What are your future plans in the art world?

No one can tell the future, not even me. But I definitely know that before I leave Berlin – not that I’m planning to – I will Make a huge street painting on the whole of a big building like those massive paintings in Kreuzberg as a little remembrance of this era of my life.

Finally, where are your favorite places to hang out and take it easy in the city (parks, bars, cafes, museums etc.) and which local artists would you big up?

One of my favorite places, where I can hang out for hours in is Cafe Kotti, on the Kottbusser Tor. It’s an old, queer, friendly, Turkish left-wing coffee salon with lots of old cozy sofas, nice to hang out in the afternoon, good ethnic Turkish music and tea – and a very interesting mixture of people. Another great place is Agora in Neukoelln – a great art space with a beautiful coffee shop and lots of things going on, workshops, performances, exhibitions parties. I also enjoy clubs like Homopatik, Cocktail D’amore, Berghain. A local artist I lately discovered would be Aerea Negrot. I was at one of her performances last week and she completely blew my mind!

Amit Elan’s current works are now showing at Berlin’s AKA Gallery (Pflügerstr. 6, Neukölln). You can also check his personal website here.

Hannae Kim talks to 22 year old Israeli artist Amit Elan about his love of faces, the dark side and mixing painting and photography…

Totem Painting by Amit Elan

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 with a solo exhibition. In Berlin he took part in several exhibitions (co)organized by Kunstraum Richard Sorge, notably the “La Creche” project.

When and why did you move to Berlin and what attracted you to the city?

My first encounter with Berlin was rather random. It was about five years ago when I was hitchhiking across Europe started out from Athens and through the Balkans. Throughout two months with many stops and adventures on the way I hitchhiked the whole way to Berlin by coincidence.

I actually wasn’t on my way to Berlin! I was on my way to Amsterdam, but the Turkish truck driver I caught a ride with in Serbia was heading to Berlin so I decided to go with him and check it out. I immediately fell in love with Berlin and ended up hanging here for 3 months that summer – and a year later moving into town to live. The city has all the things I love in one place.

A booming art scene, great alternative-everything, amazing party scene, huge queer scene. I saw no reason not to move here. Also Tel Aviv was getting very expensive and Berlin is so cheap to live in comparison. As an artist it’s much easier to survive here, I can afford an apartment and a studio for the same price I would be paying for just a flat in Israel…

You work in different mediums – painting, photography, installation. Why do you use these different mediums and how do they inter-relate to each other?

I started out originally with photography a few years ago, and at some point began playing around with paints and colours. I was always painting things inspired by photography, I used my photos as a jump start for paintings looking at different images and creating a mash-up from bits and pieces and interpreting it into a painted dimension. In my work I like to be naughty and mix contradicting materials like oil paint with aquarelle, crayons with markers, pen, pencil, fake tattoos, charcoal, spray, stencils, glue, fire, tapes, stickers and about any type of tool that leaves a mark. As I get bored quickly, the whole rectangular painting-on-canvas thing got a little bit old, so gradually my work moved more towards installations. I started thinking more in 3D and how I can work in space rather then on each piece individually in two dimensions.

Painting by Amit Elan

Your paintings seem drawn to the darker or more prohibited aspects of human nature…

I like the idea of creating a world where distorted creatures, characters and splashing body fluids are not taboo and are even gladly welcomed. Lots of sexuality, perfectionism, fetish and violence, combined with a colorful, childish and humorous contrast of dinosaurs, rainbows, intergalactic laser wars and sparkly road kill.

A painted/sculpted dimension where laws of physics and social prohibitions no longer prevent us from connecting with our real element. All is allowed in this utopian dimension; fluffy talking marshmallows, upside-down grannies or supernatural porn stars are all welcome and respected. No one needs an excuse for doing what they are doing or permission to be who they are. No one needs to be interpreted, their existence itself is enough.

Faces stand out in your paintings – who are these faces and what do they mean to you? 

The faces I paint vary from people I know and meet on my journeys to random faces I find on the internet and feel some kind of connection with. On my last totem project I was going in each direction with a different topic that I fancied at that moment every time something else, one pole was all transvestites, another was albino Africans. There was one that was orgasm faces where I took the facial expressions from porn. Sometimes I’m more random and intuitive with my choices and sometimes more thought through and conceptual. In the end it’s not really about who I choose to portray – I’m much more interested in expressing the emotions in the faces, and being expressive with the paint and colours.

Your photos are somewhat different in aesthetic and execution…there’s more humour, less concern with straight portraits. Can you tell us more about your photographic approach?

I’m not interested in portraying reality in my photos. I like distorting and creating a new reality, re-inventing and staging a whole new scenario especially for the frame I’m trying to catch. I like to take what I see in front of me and try to compose it in a less usual way. The staging process is never in a studio or something of that sort, it happens in unplanned situations like in the streets or when I see someone that has something interesting about them; then I ask them to pose for me in certain poses or with different backgrounds. These are usually random strangers I meet. My photos usually contain people or abstract things like rotting body parts, or sick people. I like to combine dirty stuff and very trashy vibrant colorful things in one shot.

How did the South China Sea residency come about and what were your experiences like?

Well as I love traveling, last Berlin winter I decided I must escape the cold to a tropical exotic climate for an unlimited time. After dreaming of it for a long time I finally made it to Tao Philippones, this breathtaking island where I was invited by Eddie Barrok and Jack Footit (the directors of Tao Philippines) to stay and work in my own studio for as long as I want. Eddie and Jack are two amazing guys I originally met in Berlin and became very close friends with. This super remote island was the ultimate paradise.

I ended up staying for five months in the jungle with very few people, a monkey, dogs, pigs, monitor lizards, HUGE python snakes and many other bizarre creatures I don’t know by name – and hardly any communication with civilization. My studio was placed between the beach and the jungle, and I used sea water to paint and to wash my brushes and coconut shells to mix my paint. At the end I had a solo Show called “Mosquitos, Monkey & Pigdogs”.

Who (or what) would you say are your main inspirations as an artist?

I have to say that most inspiring for me are wild new experiences and fishing and exploring through the conscious realm. Music is also one of my biggest inspirations. I can’t work without music. I really love Sufjan Stevens, he’s amazing.

What can you tell us about your current new exhibition?

Well the exhibition I’m showing now is the beginning of a much bigger project I’m working on. It’s the first exhibition in a series of upcoming shows that will exhibit the same project as it will be growing in complexity with each show. I started doing these totem poles mainly to satisfy my obsession of painting faces. I wanted to find a way to make as many heads as possible without having to make banal single portraits. To collage as many faces as possible in one piece, to get this facial addiction out of my system (or not). I was also lead to the totem shape by my growing interest in shamanism and spiritual consciousness of self growth. The totem pole is often linked to the shamanic practice of the indigenous people of South America, which is definitely my next location to explore.

What are your future plans in the art world?

No one can tell the future, not even me. But I definitely know that before I leave Berlin (not that I’m planning to) I will Make a HUGE street painting on the whole of a big building like those massive paintings in Kreuzberg as a little remembrance of this era of my life.

Finally, where are your favorite places to hang out and take it easy in the city (parks, bars, cafes, museums etc.) and which local artists would you big up?

One of my favorite places, where I can hang out for hours in is Caffe Kotti, in Kottbusser Tor. It’s an old queer friendly Turkish left-wing coffee salon with lots of old cozy sofas, nice to hang out in the afternoon good ethnic Turkish music and tea and a very interesting mixture of people coming around. Another great place is Agora in Nuekolln – a great art space with a beautiful coffee shop lots of things going on, workshops, performances, exhibitions parties. I’m less of a bar guy, more into parties, so I enjoy Homopatik Cocktail D’amore, Berghain. A local artist i lately discovered which i would totally big up would be Aerea Negrot. I was at one of her performances last week and she completely blew my mind!

The works of Amit Elan are now showing at Berlin’s AKA Gallery (Pflügerstr. 6, Neukölln) until XX.  You can also check his personal website here.

Hannae Kim talks to 22 year old Israeli artist Amit Elan about his love of faces, photography and painting…

Totem Painting by Amit Elan

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 with a solo exhibition. In Berlin he took part in several exhibitions (co)organized by Kunstraum Richard Sorge, notably the “La Creche” project.

When and why did you move to Berlin and what attracted you to the city?

My first encounter with Berlin was rather random. It was about five years ago when I was hitchhiking across Europe started out from Athens and through the Balkans. Throughout two months with many stops and adventures on the way I hitchhiked the whole way to Berlin by coincidence.

I actually wasn’t on my way to Berlin! I was on my way to Amsterdam, but the Turkish truck driver I caught a ride with in Serbia was heading to Berlin so I decided to go with him and check it out. I immediately fell in love with Berlin and ended up hanging here for 3 months that summer – and a year later moving into town to live. The city has all the things I love in one place.

A booming art scene, great alternative-everything, amazing party scene, huge queer scene. I saw no reason not to move here. Also Tel Aviv was getting very expensive and Berlin is so cheap to live in comparison. As an artist it’s much easier to survive here, I can afford an apartment and a studio for the same price I would be paying for just a flat in Israel…

You work in different mediums – painting, photography, installation. Why do you use these different mediums and how do they inter-relate to each other?

I started out originally with photography a few years ago, and at some point began playing around with paints and colours. I was always painting things inspired by photography, I used my photos as a jump start for paintings looking at different images and creating a mash-up from bits and pieces and interpreting it into a painted dimension. In my work I like to be naughty and mix contradicting materials like oil paint with aquarelle, crayons with markers, pen, pencil, fake tattoos, charcoal, spray, stencils, glue, fire, tapes, stickers and about any type of tool that leaves a mark. As I get bored quickly, the whole rectangular painting-on-canvas thing got a little bit old, so gradually my work moved more towards installations. I started thinking more in 3D and how I can work in space rather then on each piece individually in two dimensions.

Painting by Amit Elan

Your paintings seem drawn to the darker or more prohibited aspects of human nature…

I like the idea of creating a world where distorted creatures, characters and splashing body fluids are not taboo and are even gladly welcomed. Lots of sexuality, perfectionism, fetish and violence, combined with a colorful, childish and humorous contrast of dinosaurs, rainbows, intergalactic laser wars and sparkly road kill.

A painted/sculpted dimension where laws of physics and social prohibitions no longer prevent us from connecting with our real element. All is allowed in this utopian dimension; fluffy talking marshmallows, upside-down grannies or supernatural porn stars are all welcome and respected. No one needs an excuse for doing what they are doing or permission to be who they are. No one needs to be interpreted, their existence itself is enough.

Faces stand out in your paintings – who are these faces and what do they mean to you? 

The faces I paint vary from people I know and meet on my journeys to random faces I find on the internet and feel some kind of connection with. On my last totem project I was going in each direction with a different topic that I fancied at that moment every time something else, one pole was all transvestites, another was albino Africans. There was one that was orgasm faces where I took the facial expressions from porn. Sometimes I’m more random and intuitive with my choices and sometimes more thought through and conceptual. In the end it’s not really about who I choose to portray – I’m much more interested in expressing the emotions in the faces, and being expressive with the paint and colours.

Your photos are somewhat different in aesthetic and execution…there’s more humour, less concern with straight portraits. Can you tell us more about your photographic approach?

I’m not interested in portraying reality in my photos. I like distorting and creating a new reality, re-inventing and staging a whole new scenario especially for the frame I’m trying to catch. I like to take what I see in front of me and try to compose it in a less usual way. The staging process is never in a studio or something of that sort, it happens in unplanned situations like in the streets or when I see someone that has something interesting about them; then I ask them to pose for me in certain poses or with different backgrounds. These are usually random strangers I meet. My photos usually contain people or abstract things like rotting body parts, or sick people. I like to combine dirty stuff and very trashy vibrant colorful things in one shot.

How did the South China Sea residency come about and what were your experiences like?

Well as I love traveling, last Berlin winter I decided I must escape the cold to a tropical exotic climate for an unlimited time. After dreaming of it for a long time I finally made it to Tao Philippones, this breathtaking island where I was invited by Eddie Barrok and Jack Footit (the directors of Tao Philippines) to stay and work in my own studio for as long as I want. Eddie and Jack are two amazing guys I originally met in Berlin and became very close friends with. This super remote island was the ultimate paradise.

I ended up staying for five months in the jungle with very few people, a monkey, dogs, pigs, monitor lizards, HUGE python snakes and many other bizarre creatures I don’t know by name – and hardly any communication with civilization. My studio was placed between the beach and the jungle, and I used sea water to paint and to wash my brushes and coconut shells to mix my paint. At the end I had a solo Show called “Mosquitos, Monkey & Pigdogs”.

Who (or what) would you say are your main inspirations as an artist?

I have to say that most inspiring for me are wild new experiences and fishing and exploring through the conscious realm. Music is also one of my biggest inspirations. I can’t work without music. I really love Sufjan Stevens, he’s amazing.

What can you tell us about your current new exhibition?

Well the exhibition I’m showing now is the beginning of a much bigger project I’m working on. It’s the first exhibition in a series of upcoming shows that will exhibit the same project as it will be growing in complexity with each show. I started doing these totem poles mainly to satisfy my obsession of painting faces. I wanted to find a way to make as many heads as possible without having to make banal single portraits. To collage as many faces as possible in one piece, to get this facial addiction out of my system (or not). I was also lead to the totem shape by my growing interest in shamanism and spiritual consciousness of self growth. The totem pole is often linked to the shamanic practice of the indigenous people of South America, which is definitely my next location to explore.

What are your future plans in the art world?

No one can tell the future, not even me. But I definitely know that before I leave Berlin (not that I’m planning to) I will Make a HUGE street painting on the whole of a big building like those massive paintings in Kreuzberg as a little remembrance of this era of my life.

Finally, where are your favorite places to hang out and take it easy in the city (parks, bars, cafes, museums etc.) and which local artists would you big up?

One of my favorite places, where I can hang out for hours in is Caffe Kotti, in Kottbusser Tor. It’s an old queer friendly Turkish left-wing coffee salon with lots of old cozy sofas, nice to hang out in the afternoon good ethnic Turkish music and tea and a very interesting mixture of people coming around. Another great place is Agora in Nuekolln – a great art space with a beautiful coffee shop lots of things going on, workshops, performances, exhibitions parties. I’m less of a bar guy, more into parties, so I enjoy Homopatik Cocktail D’amore, Berghain. A local artist i lately discovered which i would totally big up would be Aerea Negrot. I was at one of her performances last week and she completely blew my mind!

The works of Amit Elan are now showing at Berlin’s AKA Gallery (Pflügerstr. 6, Neukölln) until XX.  You can also check his personal website here.

Hannae Kim talks to 22 year old Israeli artist Amit Elan about his love of faces, photography and painting…

Totem Painting by Amit Elan

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 with a solo exhibition. In Berlin he took part in several exhibitions (co)organized by Kunstraum Richard Sorge, notably the “La Creche” project.

When and why did you move to Berlin and what attracted you to the city?

My first encounter with Berlin was rather random. It was about five years ago when I was hitchhiking across Europe started out from Athens and through the Balkans. Throughout two months with many stops and adventures on the way I hitchhiked the whole way to Berlin by coincidence. I actually wasn’t on my way to Berlin! I was on my way to Amsterdam, but the Turkish truck driver I caught a ride with in Serbia was heading to Berlin so I decided to go with him and check it out. I immediately fell in love with Berlin and ended up hanging here for 3 months that summer – and a year later moving into town to live. The city has all the things I love in one place. A booming art scene, great alternative-everything, amazing party scene, huge queer scene. I saw no reason not to move here. Also Tel Aviv was getting very expensive and Berlin is so cheap to live in comparison. As an artist it’s much easier to survive here, I can afford an apartment and a studio for the same price I would be paying for just a flat in Israel…

You work in different mediums – painting, photography, installation. Why do you use these different mediums and how do they inter-relate to each other?

I started out originally with photography a few years ago, and at some point began playing around with paints and colours. I was always painting things inspired by photography, I used my photos as a jump start for paintings looking at different images and creating a mash-up from bits and pieces and interpreting it into a painted dimension. In my work I like to be naughty and mix contradicting materials like oil paint with aquarelle, crayons with markers, pen, pencil, fake tattoos, charcoal, spray, stencils, glue, fire, tapes, stickers and about any type of tool that leaves a mark. As I get bored quickly, the whole rectangular painting-on-canvas thing got a little bit old, so gradually my work moved more towards installations. I started thinking more in 3D and how I can work in space rather then on each piece individually in two dimensions.

Painting by Amit Elan

Your paintings seem drawn to the darker or more prohibited aspects of human nature…

I like the idea of creating a world where distorted creatures, characters and splashing body fluids are not taboo and are even gladly welcomed. Lots of sexuality, perfectionism, fetish and violence, combined with a colorful, childish and humorous contrast of dinosaurs, rainbows, intergalactic laser wars and sparkly road kill. A painted/sculpted dimension where laws of physics and social prohibitions no longer prevent us from connecting with our real element. All is allowed in this utopian dimension; fluffy talking marshmallows, upside-down grannies or supernatural porn stars are all welcome and respected. No one needs an excuse for doing what they are doing or permission to be who they are. No one needs to be interpreted, their existence itself is enough.

Faces stand out in your paintings – who are these faces and what do they mean to you? 

The faces I paint vary from people I know and meet on my journeys to random faces I find on the internet and feel some kind of connection with. On my last totem project I was going in each direction with a different topic that I fancied at that moment every time something else, one pole was all transvestites, another was albino Africans. There was one that was orgasm faces where I took the facial expressions from porn. Sometimes I’m more random and intuitive with my choices and sometimes more thought through and conceptual. In the end it’s not really about who I choose to portray – I’m much more interested in expressing the emotions in the faces, and being expressive with the paint and colours.

Your photos are somewhat different in aesthetic and execution…there’s more humour, less concern with straight portraits. Can you tell us more about your photographic approach?

I’m not interested in portraying reality in my photos. I like distorting and creating a new reality, re-inventing and staging a whole new scenario especially for the frame I’m trying to catch. I like to take what I see in front of me and try to compose it in a less usual way. The staging process is never in a studio or something of that sort, it happens in unplanned situations like in the streets or when I see someone that has something interesting about them; then I ask them to pose for me in certain poses or with different backgrounds. These are usually random strangers I meet. My photos usually contain people or abstract things like rotting body parts, or sick people. I like to combine dirty stuff and very trashy vibrant colorful things in one shot.

How did the South China Sea residency come about and what were your experiences like?

Well as I love traveling, last Berlin winter I decided I must escape the cold to a tropical exotic climate for an unlimited time. After dreaming of it for a long time I finally made it to Tao Philippones, this breathtaking island where I was invited by Eddie Barrok and Jack Footit (the directors of Tao Philippines) to stay and work in my own studio for as long as I want. Eddie and Jack are two amazing guys I originally met in Berlin and became very close friends with. This super remote island was the ultimate paradise. I ended up staying for five months in the jungle with very few people, a monkey, dogs, pigs, monitor lizards, HUGE python snakes and many other bizarre creatures I don’t know by name – and hardly any communication with civilization. My studio was placed between the beach and the jungle, and I used sea water to paint and to wash my brushes and coconut shells to mix my paint. At the end I had a solo Show called “Mosquitos, Monkey & Pigdogs”.

Amit Elan

I have to say that most inspiring for me are wild new experiences and fishing and exploring through the conscious realm. Music is also one of my biggest inspirations. I can’t work without music. I really love Sufjan Stevens, he’s amazing.

What can you tell us about your current new exhibition?

Well the exhibition I’m showing now is the beginning of a much bigger project I’m working on. It’s the first exhibition in a series of upcoming shows that will exhibit the same project as it will be growing in complexity with each show. I started doing these totem poles mainly to satisfy my obsession of painting faces. I wanted to find a way to make as many heads as possible without having to make banal single portraits. To collage as many faces as possible in one piece, to get this facial addiction out of my system (or not). I was also lead to the totem shape by my growing interest in shamanism and spiritual consciousness of self growth. The totem pole is often linked to the shamanic practice of the indigenous people of South America, which is definitely my next location to explore.

What are your future plans in the art world?

No one can tell the future, not even me. But I definitely know that before I leave Berlin (not that I’m planning to) I will Make a HUGE street painting on the whole of a big building like those massive paintings in Kreuzberg as a little remembrance of this era of my life.

Finally, where are your favorite places to hang out and take it easy in the city (parks, bars, cafes, museums etc.) and which local artists would you big up?

One of my favorite places, where I can hang out for hours in is Caffe Kotti, in Kottbusser Tor. It’s an old queer friendly Turkish left-wing coffee salon with lots of old cozy sofas, nice to hang out in the afternoon good ethnic Turkish music and tea and a very interesting mixture of people coming around. Another great place is Agora in Nuekolln – a great art space with a beautiful coffee shop lots of things going on, workshops, performances, exhibitions parties. I’m less of a bar guy, more into parties, so I enjoy Homopatik Cocktail D’amore, Berghain. A local artist i lately discovered which i would totally big up would be Aerea Negrot. I was at one of her performances last week and she completely blew my mind!

Young Isreal-born and Berlin-based artist Amit Elan – http://www.amitelan.com/ -  is opening his new solo show of amazingly vibrant paintings at AKA Gallery – http://akaberlin.com/exhibition/amit-elan/ -  at Pflügerstr. 6 in Neukölln, starting at 20h.

Hannae Kim talks to 22 year old Israeli artist Amit Elan about his love of faces, photography and painting…

Totem Painting by Amit Elan

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 with a solo exhibition. In Berlin he took part in several exhibitions (co)organized by Kunstraum Richard Sorge, notably the “La Creche” project.

When and why did you move to Berlin and what attracted you to the city?

My first encounter with Berlin was rather random. It was about five years ago when I was hitchhiking across Europe started out from Athens and through the Balkans. Throughout two months with many stops and adventures on the way I hitchhiked the whole way to Berlin by coincidence. I actually wasn’t on my way to Berlin! I was on my way to Amsterdam, but the Turkish truck driver I caught a ride with in Serbia was heading to Berlin so I decided to go with him and check it out. I immediately fell in love with Berlin and ended up hanging here for 3 months that summer – and a year later moving into town to live. The city has all the things I love in one place. A booming art scene, great alternative-everything, amazing party scene, huge queer scene. I saw no reason not to move here. Also Tel Aviv was getting very expensive and Berlin is so cheap to live in comparison. As an artist it’s much easier to survive here, I can afford an apartment and a studio for the same price I would be paying for just a flat in Israel…

You work in different mediums – painting, photography, installation. Why do you use these different mediums and how do they inter-relate to each other?

I started out originally with photography a few years ago, and at some point began playing around with paints and colours. I was always painting things inspired by photography, I used my photos as a jump start for paintings looking at different images and creating a mash-up from bits and pieces and interpreting it into a painted dimension. In my work I like to be naughty and mix contradicting materials like oil paint with aquarelle, crayons with markers, pen, pencil, fake tattoos, charcoal, spray, stencils, glue, fire, tapes, stickers and about any type of tool that leaves a mark. As I get bored quickly, the whole rectangular painting-on-canvas thing got a little bit old, so gradually my work moved more towards installations. I started thinking more in 3D and how I can work in space rather then on each piece individually in two dimensions.

Painting by Amit Elan

Your paintings seem drawn to the darker or more prohibited aspects of human nature…

I like the idea of creating a world where distorted creatures, characters and splashing body fluids are not taboo and are even gladly welcomed. Lots of sexuality, perfectionism, fetish and violence, combined with a colorful, childish and humorous contrast of dinosaurs, rainbows, intergalactic laser wars and sparkly road kill. A painted/sculpted dimension where laws of physics and social prohibitions no longer prevent us from connecting with our real element. All is allowed in this utopian dimension; fluffy talking marshmallows, upside-down grannies or supernatural porn stars are all welcome and respected. No one needs an excuse for doing what they are doing or permission to be who they are. No one needs to be interpreted, their existence itself is enough.

Faces stand out in your paintings – who are these faces and what do they mean to you? 

The faces I paint vary from people I know and meet on my journeys to random faces I find on the internet and feel some kind of connection with. On my last totem project I was going in each direction with a different topic that I fancied at that moment every time something else, one pole was all transvestites, another was albino Africans. There was one that was orgasm faces where I took the facial expressions from porn. Sometimes I’m more random and intuitive with my choices and sometimes more thought through and conceptual. In the end it’s not really about who I choose to portray – I’m much more interested in expressing the emotions in the faces, and being expressive with the paint and colours.

Your photos are somewhat different in aesthetic and execution…there’s more humour, less concern with straight portraits. Can you tell us more about your photographic approach?

I’m not interested in portraying reality in my photos. I like distorting and creating a new reality, re-inventing and staging a whole new scenario especially for the frame I’m trying to catch. I like to take what I see in front of me and try to compose it in a less usual way. The staging process is never in a studio or something of that sort, it happens in unplanned situations like in the streets or when I see someone that has something interesting about them; then I ask them to pose for me in certain poses or with different backgrounds. These are usually random strangers I meet. My photos usually contain people or abstract things like rotting body parts, or sick people. I like to combine dirty stuff and very trashy vibrant colorful things in one shot.

How did the South China Sea residency come about and what were your experiences like?

Well as I love traveling, last Berlin winter I decided I must escape the cold to a tropical exotic climate for an unlimited time. After dreaming of it for a long time I finally made it to Tao Philippones, this breathtaking island where I was invited by Eddie Barrok and Jack Footit (the directors of Tao Philippines) to stay and work in my own studio for as long as I want. Eddie and Jack are two amazing guys I originally met in Berlin and became very close friends with. This super remote island was the ultimate paradise. I ended up staying for five months in the jungle with very few people, a monkey, dogs, pigs, monitor lizards, HUGE python snakes and many other bizarre creatures I don’t know by name – and hardly any communication with civilization. My studio was placed between the beach and the jungle, and I used sea water to paint and to wash my brushes and coconut shells to mix my paint. At the end I had a solo Show called “Mosquitos, Monkey & Pigdogs”.

Amit Elan

I have to say that most inspiring for me are wild new experiences and fishing and exploring through the conscious realm. Music is also one of my biggest inspirations. I can’t work without music. I really love Sufjan Stevens, he’s amazing.

What can you tell us about your current new exhibition?

Well the exhibition I’m showing now is the beginning of a much bigger project I’m working on. It’s the first exhibition in a series of upcoming shows that will exhibit the same project as it will be growing in complexity with each show. I started doing these totem poles mainly to satisfy my obsession of painting faces. I wanted to find a way to make as many heads as possible without having to make banal single portraits. To collage as many faces as possible in one piece, to get this facial addiction out of my system (or not). I was also lead to the totem shape by my growing interest in shamanism and spiritual consciousness of self growth. The totem pole is often linked to the shamanic practice of the indigenous people of South America, which is definitely my next location to explore.

What are your future plans in the art world?

No one can tell the future, not even me. But I definitely know that before I leave Berlin (not that I’m planning to) I will Make a HUGE street painting on the whole of a big building like those massive paintings in Kreuzberg as a little remembrance of this era of my life.

Finally, where are your favorite places to hang out and take it easy in the city (parks, bars, cafes, museums etc.) and which local artists would you big up?

One of my favorite places, where I can hang out for hours in is Caffe Kotti, in Kottbusser Tor. It’s an old queer friendly Turkish left-wing coffee salon with lots of old cozy sofas, nice to hang out in the afternoon good ethnic Turkish music and tea and a very interesting mixture of people coming around. Another great place is Agora in Nuekolln – a great art space with a beautiful coffee shop lots of things going on, workshops, performances, exhibitions parties. I’m less of a bar guy, more into parties, so I enjoy Homopatik Cocktail D’amore, Berghain. A local artist i lately discovered which i would totally big up would be Aerea Negrot. I was at one of her performances last week and she completely blew my mind!

Young Isreal-born and Berlin-based artist Amit Elan – http://www.amitelan.com/ -  is opening his new solo show of amazingly vibrant paintings at AKA Gallery – http://akaberlin.com/exhibition/amit-elan/ -  at Pflügerstr. 6 in Neukölln, starting at 20h.

Painting by Amit Elan

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 with a solo exhibition. In Berlin he took part in several exhibitions (co)organized by Kunstraum Richard Sorge, notably the “La Creche” project.

When and why did you move to Berlin and what attracted you to the city?

My first encounter with Berlin was rather random. It was about five years ago when I was hitchhiking across Europe started out from Athens and through the Balkans. Throughout two months with many stops and adventures on the way I hitchhiked the whole way to Berlin by coincidence. I actually wasn’t on my way to Berlin! I was on my way to Amsterdam, but the Turkish truck driver I caught a ride with in Serbia was heading to Berlin so I decided to go with him and check it out. I immediately fell in love with Berlin and ended up hanging here for 3 months that summer – and a year later moving into town to live. The city has all the things I love in one place. A booming art scene, great alternative-everything, amazing party scene, huge queer scene. I saw no reason not to move here. Also Tel Aviv was getting very expensive and Berlin is so cheap to live in comparison. As an artist it’s much easier to survive here, I can afford an apartment and a studio for the same price I would be paying for just a flat in Israel…

You work in different mediums – painting, photography, installation. Why do you use these different mediums and how do they inter-relate to each other?

I started out originally with photography a few years ago, and at some point began playing around with paints and colours. I was always painting things inspired by photography, I used my photos as a jump start for paintings looking at different images and creating a mash-up from bits and pieces and interpreting it into a painted dimension. In my work I like to be naughty and mix contradicting materials like oil paint with aquarelle, crayons with markers, pen, pencil, fake tattoos, charcoal, spray, stencils, glue, fire, tapes, stickers and about any type of tool that leaves a mark. As I get bored quickly, the whole rectangular painting-on-canvas thing got a little bit old, so gradually my work moved more towards installations. I started thinking more in 3D and how I can work in space rather then on each piece individually in two dimensions.

Painting by Amit Elan

Your paintings seem drawn to the darker or more prohibited aspects of human nature…

I like the idea of creating a world where distorted creatures, characters and splashing body fluids are not taboo and are even gladly welcomed. Lots of sexuality, perfectionism, fetish and violence, combined with a colorful, childish and humorous contrast of dinosaurs, rainbows, intergalactic laser wars and sparkly road kill. A painted/sculpted dimension where laws of physics and social prohibitions no longer prevent us from connecting with our real element. All is allowed in this utopian dimension; fluffy talking marshmallows, upside-down grannies or supernatural porn stars are all welcome and respected. No one needs an excuse for doing what they are doing or permission to be who they are. No one needs to be interpreted, their existence itself is enough.

Faces stand out in your paintings – who are these faces and what do they mean to you? 

The faces I paint vary from people I know and meet on my journeys to random faces I find on the internet and feel some kind of connection with. On my last totem project I was going in each direction with a different topic that I fancied at that moment every time something else, one pole was all transvestites, another was albino Africans. There was one that was orgasm faces where I took the facial expressions from porn. Sometimes I’m more random and intuitive with my choices and sometimes more thought through and conceptual. In the end it’s not really about who I choose to portray – I’m much more interested in expressing the emotions in the faces, and being expressive with the paint and colours.

Your photos are somewhat different in aesthetic and execution…there’s more humour, less concern with straight portraits. Can you tell us more about your photographic approach?

I’m not interested in portraying reality in my photos. I like distorting and creating a new reality, re-inventing and staging a whole new scenario especially for the frame I’m trying to catch. I like to take what I see in front of me and try to compose it in a less usual way. The staging process is never in a studio or something of that sort, it happens in unplanned situations like in the streets or when I see someone that has something interesting about them; then I ask them to pose for me in certain poses or with different backgrounds. These are usually random strangers I meet. My photos usually contain people or abstract things like rotting body parts, or sick people. I like to combine dirty stuff and very trashy vibrant colorful things in one shot.

How did the South China Sea residency come about and what were your experiences like?

Well as I love traveling, last Berlin winter I decided I must escape the cold to a tropical exotic climate for an unlimited time. After dreaming of it for a long time I finally made it to Tao Philippones, this breathtaking island where I was invited by Eddie Barrok and Jack Footit (the directors of Tao Philippines) to stay and work in my own studio for as long as I want. Eddie and Jack are two amazing guys I originally met in Berlin and became very close friends with. This super remote island was the ultimate paradise. I ended up staying for five months in the jungle with very few people, a monkey, dogs, pigs, monitor lizards, HUGE python snakes and many other bizarre creatures I don’t know by name – and hardly any communication with civilization. My studio was placed between the beach and the jungle, and I used sea water to paint and to wash my brushes and coconut shells to mix my paint. At the end I had a solo Show called “Mosquitos, Monkey & Pigdogs”.

Amit Elan

I have to say that most inspiring for me are wild new experiences and fishing and exploring through the conscious realm. Music is also one of my biggest inspirations. I can’t work without music. I really love Sufjan Stevens, he’s amazing.

What can you tell us about your current new exhibition?

Well the exhibition I’m showing now is the beginning of a much bigger project I’m working on. It’s the first exhibition in a series of upcoming shows that will exhibit the same project as it will be growing in complexity with each show. I started doing these totem poles mainly to satisfy my obsession of painting faces. I wanted to find a way to make as many heads as possible without having to make banal single portraits. To collage as many faces as possible in one piece, to get this facial addiction out of my system (or not). I was also lead to the totem shape by my growing interest in shamanism and spiritual consciousness of self growth. The totem pole is often linked to the shamanic practice of the indigenous people of South America, which is definitely my next location to explore.

What are your future plans in the art world?

No one can tell the future, not even me. But I definitely know that before I leave Berlin (not that I’m planning to) I will Make a HUGE street painting on the whole of a big building like those massive paintings in Kreuzberg as a little remembrance of this era of my life.

Finally, where are your favorite places to hang out and take it easy in the city (parks, bars, cafes, museums etc.) and which local artists would you big up?

One of my favorite places, where I can hang out for hours in is Caffe Kotti, in Kottbusser Tor. It’s an old queer friendly Turkish left-wing coffee salon with lots of old cozy sofas, nice to hang out in the afternoon good ethnic Turkish music and tea and a very interesting mixture of people coming around. Another great place is Agora in Nuekolln – a great art space with a beautiful coffee shop lots of things going on, workshops, performances, exhibitions parties. I’m less of a bar guy, more into parties, so I enjoy Homopatik Cocktail D’amore, Berghain. A local artist i lately discovered which i would totally big up would be Aerea Negrot. I was at one of her performances last week and she completely blew my mind!

Young Isreal-born and Berlin-based artist Amit Elan – http://www.amitelan.com/ -  is opening his new solo show of amazingly vibrant paintings at AKA Gallery – http://akaberlin.com/exhibition/amit-elan/ -  at Pflügerstr. 6 in Neukölln, starting at 20h.

About The Author

Painting by Amit Elan

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 with a solo exhibition. In Berlin he took part in several exhibitions (co)organized by Kunstraum Richard Sorge, notably the “La Creche” project.

When and why did you move to Berlin and what attracted you to the city?

My first encounter with Berlin was rather random. It was about five years ago when I was hitchhiking across Europe started out from Athens and through the Balkans. Throughout two months with many stops and adventures on the way I hitchhiked the whole way to Berlin by coincidence. I actually wasn’t on my way to Berlin! I was on my way to Amsterdam, but the Turkish truck driver I caught a ride with in Serbia was heading to Berlin so I decided to go with him and check it out. I immediately fell in love with Berlin and ended up hanging here for 3 months that summer – and a year later moving into town to live. The city has all the things I love in one place. A booming art scene, great alternative-everything, amazing party scene, huge queer scene. I saw no reason not to move here. Also Tel Aviv was getting very expensive and Berlin is so cheap to live in comparison. As an artist it’s much easier to survive here, I can afford an apartment and a studio for the same price I would be paying for just a flat in Israel…

You work in different mediums – painting, photography, installation. Why do you use these different mediums and how do they inter-relate to each other?

I started out originally with photography a few years ago, and at some point began playing around with paints and colours. I was always painting things inspired by photography, I used my photos as a jump start for paintings looking at different images and creating a mash-up from bits and pieces and interpreting it into a painted dimension. In my work I like to be naughty and mix contradicting materials like oil paint with aquarelle, crayons with markers, pen, pencil, fake tattoos, charcoal, spray, stencils, glue, fire, tapes, stickers and about any type of tool that leaves a mark. As I get bored quickly, the whole rectangular painting-on-canvas thing got a little bit old, so gradually my work moved more towards installations. I started thinking more in 3D and how I can work in space rather then on each piece individually in two dimensions.

Painting by Amit Elan

Your paintings seem drawn to the darker or more prohibited aspects of human nature…

I like the idea of creating a world where distorted creatures, characters and splashing body fluids are not taboo and are even gladly welcomed. Lots of sexuality, perfectionism, fetish and violence, combined with a colorful, childish and humorous contrast of dinosaurs, rainbows, intergalactic laser wars and sparkly road kill. A painted/sculpted dimension where laws of physics and social prohibitions no longer prevent us from connecting with our real element. All is allowed in this utopian dimension; fluffy talking marshmallows, upside-down grannies or supernatural porn stars are all welcome and respected. No one needs an excuse for doing what they are doing or permission to be who they are. No one needs to be interpreted, their existence itself is enough.

Faces stand out in your paintings – who are these faces and what do they mean to you? 

The faces I paint vary from people I know and meet on my journeys to random faces I find on the internet and feel some kind of connection with. On my last totem project I was going in each direction with a different topic that I fancied at that moment every time something else, one pole was all transvestites, another was albino Africans. There was one that was orgasm faces where I took the facial expressions from porn. Sometimes I’m more random and intuitive with my choices and sometimes more thought through and conceptual. In the end it’s not really about who I choose to portray – I’m much more interested in expressing the emotions in the faces, and being expressive with the paint and colours.

Your photos are somewhat different in aesthetic and execution…there’s more humour, less concern with straight portraits. Can you tell us more about your photographic approach?

I’m not interested in portraying reality in my photos. I like distorting and creating a new reality, re-inventing and staging a whole new scenario especially for the frame I’m trying to catch. I like to take what I see in front of me and try to compose it in a less usual way. The staging process is never in a studio or something of that sort, it happens in unplanned situations like in the streets or when I see someone that has something interesting about them; then I ask them to pose for me in certain poses or with different backgrounds. These are usually random strangers I meet. My photos usually contain people or abstract things like rotting body parts, or sick people. I like to combine dirty stuff and very trashy vibrant colorful things in one shot.

How did the South China Sea residency come about and what were your experiences like?

Well as I love traveling, last Berlin winter I decided I must escape the cold to a tropical exotic climate for an unlimited time. After dreaming of it for a long time I finally made it to Tao Philippones, this breathtaking island where I was invited by Eddie Barrok and Jack Footit (the directors of Tao Philippines) to stay and work in my own studio for as long as I want. Eddie and Jack are two amazing guys I originally met in Berlin and became very close friends with. This super remote island was the ultimate paradise. I ended up staying for five months in the jungle with very few people, a monkey, dogs, pigs, monitor lizards, HUGE python snakes and many other bizarre creatures I don’t know by name – and hardly any communication with civilization. My studio was placed between the beach and the jungle, and I used sea water to paint and to wash my brushes and coconut shells to mix my paint. At the end I had a solo Show called “Mosquitos, Monkey & Pigdogs”.

Amit Elan

I have to say that most inspiring for me are wild new experiences and fishing and exploring through the conscious realm. Music is also one of my biggest inspirations. I can’t work without music. I really love Sufjan Stevens, he’s amazing.

What can you tell us about your current new exhibition?

Well the exhibition I’m showing now is the beginning of a much bigger project I’m working on. It’s the first exhibition in a series of upcoming shows that will exhibit the same project as it will be growing in complexity with each show. I started doing these totem poles mainly to satisfy my obsession of painting faces. I wanted to find a way to make as many heads as possible without having to make banal single portraits. To collage as many faces as possible in one piece, to get this facial addiction out of my system (or not). I was also lead to the totem shape by my growing interest in shamanism and spiritual consciousness of self growth. The totem pole is often linked to the shamanic practice of the indigenous people of South America, which is definitely my next location to explore.

What are your future plans in the art world?

No one can tell the future, not even me. But I definitely know that before I leave Berlin (not that I’m planning to) I will Make a HUGE street painting on the whole of a big building like those massive paintings in Kreuzberg as a little remembrance of this era of my life.

Finally, where are your favorite places to hang out and take it easy in the city (parks, bars, cafes, museums etc.) and which local artists would you big up?

One of my favorite places, where I can hang out for hours in is Caffe Kotti, in Kottbusser Tor. It’s an old queer friendly Turkish left-wing coffee salon with lots of old cozy sofas, nice to hang out in the afternoon good ethnic Turkish music and tea and a very interesting mixture of people coming around. Another great place is Agora in Nuekolln – a great art space with a beautiful coffee shop lots of things going on, workshops, performances, exhibitions parties. I’m less of a bar guy, more into parties, so I enjoy Homopatik Cocktail D’amore, Berghain. A local artist i lately discovered which i would totally big up would be Aerea Negrot. I was at one of her performances last week and she completely blew my mind!

Young Isreal-born and Berlin-based artist Amit Elan – http://www.amitelan.com/ -  is opening his new solo show of amazingly vibrant paintings at AKA Gallery – http://akaberlin.com/exhibition/amit-elan/ -  at Pflügerstr. 6 in Neukölln, starting at 20h.

About The Author

Christopher Isherwood

“For Christopher, Berlin meant boys,” goes a memorable line in Christopher Isherwood’s memoir. It is the starting point for Brendan Nash’s walking tour of the area around Nollendorfplatz in Schöneberg, one of Berlin’s oldest gay neighborhoods.

Isherwood, whose portrayal of Berlin between the late 1920s and early 1930s gave us the images many of us still associate with this period, lived here during his third visit to the city.

While still a student in Cambridge, Isherwood and his friend Upward created an imaginary world while taking a walk through the town. Turning into an alley, they came across a strange-looking old door in a high blank wall. They called it “the doorway into the Other Town” and imagined themselves passing through it into a secret realm, where they became tourists in another world.

This is the feeling you get as you walk with Nash from U-Nollendorfplatz down Maaßenstraße. following a roughly quadrangular route across Nollendorfstraße, Motzstraße, and Kleiststraße. You turn a corner and discover a secret realm.

Every so often, Nash pulls aside the curtain on a familiar street and reveals to you the city of Isherwood’s Berlin Stories or the 1970s movie version of the hit musical Cabaret. Remember Liza Minelli in the role of Sally Bowles?

That character was based on Jean Ross, the young British actress/singer whom Isherwood met in 1930, when he moved into a boarding house at Nollendorfstraße 17, owned by Fräulein Thurau. The apricot-colored house is one of the tour’s first stops. Nash’s well-researched narrative is peppered with anecdotes, quotes, historical and architectural sidebars, often shot through with dry humor. Here, for example, he tells us of the depressing, rainy late afternoon when Ross said to Isherwood, “… a pity we can’t make love, there’s nothing else to do …” to which Isherwood replied that it was and there wasn’t.

Other highlights of the tour include the building that was once the famous Eldorado nightclub and the Kleist Casino. The Eldorado, on the corner of Motzstraße and Kalckreuthstraße, was one of the most popular clubs for night-time cabarets, and performers included celebrities like Marlene Dietrich.

In a bizarre twist of fate, Nazi forces raided and shut down the premises in the 1930s, then converted it into their own local headquarters. The building is now a Bio supermarket, but Nash’s narrative continues on inside the building, where black and white photographs of the nightclub in its heyday help recreate its flamboyant Art Deco-style interior.

The Kleist Casino, between Nollendorfplatz and Wittenbergplatz, just a stone’s throw away from Isherwood’s lodgings, was perhaps the oldest gay bar in Europe, and was in operation till 2002. The Eldorado and Kleist Casino were only two of many gay establishments featured in a slew of guidebooks with seductive titles such as Berlin: Was Nicht im Baedeker Steht (“Berlin: What’s Not Included in Baedeker”).

The Eldorado today

Already the gay capital of Europe by the late 1920s, Berlin had at least 160 flourishing gay bars and clubs. Although they were illegal, sheer economic necessity encouraged people to flout the law.

And the uncertainty of the future, at a historical moment suspended between the hedonism of the waning Weimar era and the ominous long shadow of Nazism, created a kind of carpe diem atmosphere. It was, Nash says, quoting Isherwood, “an extraordinary place in an extraordinary time.”

Nash clearly loves his subject and, unlike the usual “Highlights of Berlin” tours, this walk has many personal touches. “I’ve lived in this neighborhood,” he says, “so I know it well. Like Isherwood, I came for just a brief visit, fell in love with Berlin, and decided I was here to stay.”

He spent years researching the gay scene in Berlin during the 20s and 30s, Isherwood’s life, and the urban history of the neighborhood. “Isherwood’s letters, diaries and memoirs aren’t always accurate,” he says, “so my research also included Berlin Noir fiction, such as the detective novels of Philip Kerr.”

Nash’s neighborhood walking tour costs 10 euros and lasts 60 minutes. It begins and ends at the U-Bahn Nollendorfplatz. You can join one of the regular tours or arrange your own by calling Brendan or following him on Twitter. All details can be found at his blog Cabaret Berlin. To read more about Isherwood’s Berlin Stories, click here.

About the Author

Lily Philipose has contributed to the Guardian Weekly, the Chronicle of Higher Education and University World News. Her blog Berlin Culture Crawl was featured on the website of NPR Berlin and the Scene in Berlin column of Deutsche Welle. She lives in Friedenau.

Christopher Isherwood

“For Christopher, Berlin meant boys,” goes a memorable line in Christopher Isherwood’s memoir. It is the starting point for Brendan Nash’s walking tour of the area around Nollendorfplatz in Schöneberg, one of Berlin’s oldest gay neighborhoods.

Isherwood, whose portrayal of Berlin between the late 1920s and early 1930s gave us the images many of us still associate with this period, lived here during his third visit to the city.

While still a student in Cambridge, Isherwood and his friend Upward created an imaginary world while taking a walk through the town. Turning into an alley, they came across a strange-looking old door in a high blank wall. They called it “the doorway into the Other Town” and imagined themselves passing through it into a secret realm, where they became tourists in another world.

This is the feeling you get as you walk with Nash from U-Nollendorfplatz down Maaßenstraße. following a roughly quadrangular route across Nollendorfstraße, Motzstraße, and Kleiststraße. You turn a corner and discover a secret realm.

Every so often, Nash pulls aside the curtain on a familiar street and reveals to you the city of Isherwood’s Berlin Stories or the 1970s movie version of the hit musical Cabaret. Remember Liza Minelli in the role of Sally Bowles?

That character was based on Jean Ross, the young British actress/singer whom Isherwood met in 1930, when he moved into a boarding house at Nollendorfstraße 17, owned by Fräulein Thurau. The apricot-colored house is one of the tour’s first stops. Nash’s well-researched narrative is peppered with anecdotes, quotes, historical and architectural sidebars, often shot through with dry humor. Here, for example, he tells us of the depressing, rainy late afternoon when Ross said to Isherwood, “… a pity we can’t make love, there’s nothing else to do …” to which Isherwood replied that it was and there wasn’t.

Other highlights of the tour include the building that was once the famous Eldorado nightclub and the Kleist Casino. The Eldorado, on the corner of Motzstraße and Kalckreuthstraße, was one of the most popular clubs for night-time cabarets, and performers included celebrities like Marlene Dietrich.

In a bizarre twist of fate, Nazi forces raided and shut down the premises in the 1930s, then converted it into their own local headquarters. The building is now a Bio supermarket, but Nash’s narrative continues on inside the building, where black and white photographs of the nightclub in its heyday help recreate its flamboyant Art Deco-style interior.

The Kleist Casino, between Nollendorfplatz and Wittenbergplatz, just a stone’s throw away from Isherwood’s lodgings, was perhaps the oldest gay bar in Europe, and was in operation till 2002. The Eldorado and Kleist Casino were only two of many gay establishments featured in a slew of guidebooks with seductive titles such as Berlin: Was Nicht im Baedeker Steht (“Berlin: What’s Not Included in Baedeker”).

The Eldorado today

Already the gay capital of Europe by the late 1920s, Berlin had at least 160 flourishing gay bars and clubs. Although they were illegal, sheer economic necessity encouraged people to flout the law.

And the uncertainty of the future, at a historical moment suspended between the hedonism of the waning Weimar era and the ominous long shadow of Nazism, created a kind of carpe diem atmosphere. It was, Nash says, quoting Isherwood, “an extraordinary place in an extraordinary time.”

Nash clearly loves his subject and, unlike the usual “Highlights of Berlin” tours, this walk has many personal touches. “I’ve lived in this neighborhood,” he says, “so I know it well. Like Isherwood, I came for just a brief visit, fell in love with Berlin, and decided I was here to stay.”

He spent years researching the gay scene in Berlin during the 20s and 30s, Isherwood’s life, and the urban history of the neighborhood. “Isherwood’s letters, diaries and memoirs aren’t always accurate,” he says, “so my research also included Berlin Noir fiction, such as the detective novels of Philip Kerr.”

Nash’s neighborhood walking tour costs 10 euros and lasts 60 minutes. It begins and ends at the U-Bahn Nollendorfplatz. You can join one of the regular tours or arrange your own by calling Brendan or following him on Twitter. All details can be found at his blog Cabaret Berlin. To read more about Isherwood’s Berlin Stories, click here.

About the Author

Lily Philipose has contributed to the Guardian Weekly, the Chronicle of Higher Education and University World News. Her blog Berlin Culture Crawl was featured on the website of NPR Berlin and the Scene in Berlin column of Deutsche Welle. She lives in Friedenau.

Lily Philipose reports on a tour of Isherwood’s Berlin…

Christopher Isherwood

“For Christopher, Berlin meant boys,” goes a memorable line in Christopher Isherwood’s memoir. It is the starting point for Brendan Nash’s walking tour of the area around Nollendorfplatz in Schöneberg, one of Berlin’s oldest gay neighborhoods.

Isherwood, whose portrayal of Berlin between the late 1920s and early 1930s gave us the images many of us still associate with this period, lived here during his third visit to the city.

While still a student in Cambridge, Isherwood and his friend Upward created an imaginary world while taking a walk through the town. Turning into an alley, they came across a strange-looking old door in a high blank wall. They called it “the doorway into the Other Town” and imagined themselves passing through it into a secret realm, where they became tourists in another world.

This is the feeling you get as you walk with Nash from U-Nollendorfplatz down Maaßenstraße. following a roughly quadrangular route across Nollendorfstraße, Motzstraße, and Kleiststraße. You turn a corner and discover a secret realm.

Every so often, Nash pulls aside the curtain on a familiar street and reveals to you the city of Isherwood’s Berlin Stories or the 1970s movie version of the hit musical Cabaret. Remember Liza Minelli in the role of Sally Bowles?

That character was based on Jean Ross, the young British actress/singer whom Isherwood met in 1930, when he moved into a boarding house at Nollendorfstraße 17, owned by Fräulein Thurau. The apricot-colored house is one of the tour’s first stops. Nash’s well-researched narrative is peppered with anecdotes, quotes, historical and architectural sidebars, often shot through with dry humor. Here, for example, he tells us of the depressing, rainy late afternoon when Ross said to Isherwood, “… a pity we can’t make love, there’s nothing else to do …” to which Isherwood replied that it was and there wasn’t.

Other highlights of the tour include the building that was once the famous Eldorado nightclub and the Kleist Casino. The Eldorado, on the corner of Motzstraße and Kalckreuthstraße, was one of the most popular clubs for night-time cabarets, and performers included celebrities like Marlene Dietrich.

In a bizarre twist of fate, Nazi forces raided and shut down the premises in the 1930s, then converted it into their own local headquarters. The building is now a Bio supermarket, but Nash’s narrative continues on inside the building, where black and white photographs of the nightclub in its heyday help recreate its flamboyant Art Deco-style interior.

The Kleist Casino, between Nollendorfplatz and Wittenbergplatz, just a stone’s throw away from Isherwood’s lodgings, was perhaps the oldest gay bar in Europe, and was in operation till 2002. The Eldorado and Kleist Casino were only two of many gay establishments featured in a slew of guidebooks with seductive titles such as Berlin: Was Nicht im Baedeker Steht (“Berlin: What’s Not Included in Baedeker”).

The Eldorado today

Already the gay capital of Europe by the late 1920s, Berlin had at least 160 flourishing gay bars and clubs. Although they were illegal, sheer economic necessity encouraged people to flout the law.

And the uncertainty of the future, at a historical moment suspended between the hedonism of the waning Weimar era and the ominous long shadow of Nazism, created a kind of carpe diem atmosphere. It was, Nash says, quoting Isherwood, “an extraordinary place in an extraordinary time.”

Nash clearly loves his subject and, unlike the usual “Highlights of Berlin” tours, this walk has many personal touches. “I’ve lived in this neighborhood,” he says, “so I know it well. Like Isherwood, I came for just a brief visit, fell in love with Berlin, and decided I was here to stay.”

He spent years researching the gay scene in Berlin during the 20s and 30s, Isherwood’s life, and the urban history of the neighborhood. “Isherwood’s letters, diaries and memoirs aren’t always accurate,” he says, “so my research also included Berlin Noir fiction, such as the detective novels of Philip Kerr.”

Nash’s neighborhood walking tour costs 10 euros and lasts 60 minutes. It begins and ends at the U-Bahn Nollendorfplatz. You can join one of the regular tours or arrange your own by calling Brendan or following him on Twitter. All details can be found at his blog Cabaret Berlin. To read more about Isherwood’s Berlin Stories, click here.

About the Author

Lily Philipose has contributed to the Guardian Weekly, the Chronicle of Higher Education and University World News. Her blog Berlin Culture Crawl was featured on the website of NPR Berlin and the Scene in Berlin column of Deutsche Welle. She lives in Friedenau.

Christopher Isherwood

“For Christopher, Berlin meant boys,” goes a memorable line in Christopher Isherwood’s memoir. It is the starting point for Brendan Nash’s walking tour of the area around Nollendorfplatz in Schöneberg, one of Berlin’s oldest gay neighborhoods.

Isherwood, whose portrayal of Berlin between the late 1920s and early 1930s gave us the images many of us still associate with this period, lived here during his third visit to the city.

While still a student in Cambridge, Isherwood and his friend Upward created an imaginary world while taking a walk through the town. Turning into an alley, they came across a strange-looking old door in a high blank wall. They called it “the doorway into the Other Town” and imagined themselves passing through it into a secret realm, where they became tourists in another world.

This is the feeling you get as you walk with Nash from U-Nollendorfplatz down Maaßenstraße. following a roughly quadrangular route across Nollendorfstraße, Motzstraße, and Kleiststraße. You turn a corner and discover a secret realm.

Every so often, Nash pulls aside the curtain on a familiar street and reveals to you the city of Isherwood’s Berlin Stories or the 1970s movie version of the hit musical Cabaret. Remember Liza Minelli in the role of Sally Bowles?

That character was based on Jean Ross, the young British actress/singer whom Isherwood met in 1930, when he moved into a boarding house at Nollendorfstraße 17, owned by Fräulein Thurau. The apricot-colored house is one of the tour’s first stops. Nash’s well-researched narrative is peppered with anecdotes, quotes, historical and architectural sidebars, often shot through with dry humor. Here, for example, he tells us of the depressing, rainy late afternoon when Ross said to Isherwood, “… a pity we can’t make love, there’s nothing else to do …” to which Isherwood replied that it was and there wasn’t.

Other highlights of the tour include the building that was once the famous Eldorado nightclub and the Kleist Casino. The Eldorado, on the corner of Motzstraße and Kalckreuthstraße, was one of the most popular clubs for night-time cabarets, and performers included celebrities like Marlene Dietrich.

In a bizarre twist of fate, Nazi forces raided and shut down the premises in the 1930s, then converted it into their own local headquarters. The building is now a Bio supermarket, but Nash’s narrative continues on inside the building, where black and white photographs of the nightclub in its heyday help recreate its flamboyant Art Deco-style interior.

The Kleist Casino, between Nollendorfplatz and Wittenbergplatz, just a stone’s throw away from Isherwood’s lodgings, was perhaps the oldest gay bar in Europe, and was in operation till 2002. The Eldorado and Kleist Casino were only two of many gay establishments featured in a slew of guidebooks with seductive titles such as Berlin: Was Nicht im Baedeker Steht (“Berlin: What’s Not Included in Baedeker”).

The Eldorado today

Already the gay capital of Europe by the late 1920s, Berlin had at least 160 flourishing gay bars and clubs. Although they were illegal, sheer economic necessity encouraged people to flout the law.

And the uncertainty of the future, at a historical moment suspended between the hedonism of the waning Weimar era and the ominous long shadow of Nazism, created a kind of carpe diem atmosphere. It was, Nash says, quoting Isherwood, “an extraordinary place in an extraordinary time.”

Nash clearly loves his subject and, unlike the usual “Highlights of Berlin” tours, this walk has many personal touches. “I’ve lived in this neighborhood,” he says, “so I know it well. Like Isherwood, I came for just a brief visit, fell in love with Berlin, and decided I was here to stay.”

He spent years researching the gay scene in Berlin during the 20s and 30s, Isherwood’s life, and the urban history of the neighborhood. “Isherwood’s letters, diaries and memoirs aren’t always accurate,” he says, “so my research also included Berlin Noir fiction, such as the detective novels of Philip Kerr.”

Nash’s neighborhood walking tour costs 10 euros and lasts 60 minutes. It begins and ends at the U-Bahn Nollendorfplatz. You can join one of the regular tours or arrange your own by calling Brendan or following him on Twitter. All details can be found at his blog Cabaret Berlin. To read more about Isherwood’s Berlin Stories, click here.

About the Author

Lily Philipose has contributed to the Guardian Weekly, the Chronicle of Higher Education and University World News. Her blog Berlin Culture Crawl was featured on the website of NPR Berlin and the Scene in Berlin column of Deutsche Welle. She lives in Friedenau.

Image courtesy of Five Elephant

I walk through the door of Five Elephant exactly one year after it opened – but there appears to be no time for birthday celebrations.

Out front, customers mill about or sit absorbed in laptop land. Just beyond them, a roasting machine is working its magic, surrounded by a crew of human assistants overseen by co-owner Kris.

In the background, Kris’ partner Sophie prepares a generous batch of cakes for the weekend rush. Despite these bustling scenes of activity in what is essentially quite a small space, the first impression is overwhelmingly olfactory, a hit of coffee delivered directly to the nose like a gentle punch.

The roaster, Kris explains, was imported from Idaho in his native US, where by a stroke of luck he was trained one-on-one by the CEO of the famous supplier, Dietrich. This incredibly complicated process required painstaking attention to detail: each bean has its own idiosyncrasies and there is no set formula to follow.

Perfection lies somewhere between art and science, graft and graphs. But the end result is coffee that is by far the best in the neighbourhood and has become the talk of the town. And while the machine plays no small part in Five Elephant’s success (Berlin has scandalously few in-house roasters) the true stars of the story, as always, are the people and their passions.

Sophie, co-founder, is responsible, almost single handedly, for the baked goods on offer in this simple but dedicated cafe.

Having tasted the cheesecake, I can relate to the depth of emotion it sparks; Sophie has received requests for hugs from strangers and even marriage proposals on the basis of her patisserie skills.

Speaking of nuptials, perhaps the most unique aspect of the Five Elephant enterprise is its sincere commitment to remarrying product and consumer. As a cartophile I was captivated by the giant wall maps depicting Africa, South and Central America, and Indonesia, thinking them a wonderfully fitting design decision.

But the maps are more than that: they’re a nod to ethics as well as aesthetics, part of a conscious effort to put the journey of this precious commodity into perspective. The owners strive to know exactly where each and every batch of coffee comes from even though this is a frustrating impossibility for a business of their size.

As connoisseurs may know, prices of coffee spiked in December 2010, a cause of both stock market speculation and a warming climate forcing growers further uphill, exacerbating the situation for farmers and all those committed to transparency and fair trade across the supply chain.

The good news is that Kris and Sophie have recently contracted their first micro-lot of direct trade coffee from a sustainable farming project in Brazil. They plan to release details about the farmers and openly account for every penny.

Image courtesy of Five Elephant

There is even talk, thanks to technological advances in grower countries, of introducing customers and farmers via Skype during after-hours events.

While you can’t taste abstract concepts like humanity or humility, these ingredients are as essential as all the others in the popularity and importance of this place.

True, some complain about its location in a lesser-known pocket of east Kreuzberg; but this was actually a canny move, and not just because I happen to live next door, since the area – increasingly desirable but still affordable – is on the cusp of a new phase and Five Elephant represents a new kind of gentrification that promotes sustainability and provides an opportunity for the community to consume quality products ethically.

Like the roasting of the beans, the formula of Five Elephant’s popularity is a fine balance of people and product, passion and action, where the key to continued success is trial and error with a healthy dose of perseverance.  Fortunately for us quality caffeine addicts, Kris and Sophie are modest masters of this abstract algebra.

Five Elephant
Reichenberger Strasse 101
10999 Berlin
T 030 960 815 27
Open: Mon-Fri 8:30 – 19, Sat-Sun 10 – 19

Natalie Holmes drops in to her neighbourhood cafe to find out what all the fuss is about…

Image courtesy of Five Elephant

I walk through the door of Five Elephant exactly one year after it opened – but there appears to be no time for birthday celebrations.

Out front, customers mill about or sit absorbed in laptop land. Just beyond them, a roasting machine is working its magic, surrounded by a crew of human assistants overseen by co-owner Kris.

In the background, Kris’ partner Sophie prepares a generous batch of cakes for the weekend rush. Despite these bustling scenes of activity in what is essentially quite a small space, the first impression is overwhelmingly olfactory, a hit of coffee delivered directly to the nose like a gentle punch.

The roaster, Kris explains, was imported from Idaho in his native US, where by a stroke of luck he was trained one-on-one by the CEO of the famous supplier, Dietrich. This incredibly complicated process required painstaking attention to detail: each bean has its own idiosyncrasies and there is no set formula to follow.

Perfection lies somewhere between art and science, graft and graphs. But the end result is coffee that is by far the best in the neighbourhood and has become the talk of the town. And while the machine plays no small part in Five Elephant’s success (Berlin has scandalously few in-house roasters) the true stars of the story, as always, are the people and their passions.

Sophie, co-founder, is responsible, almost single handedly, for the baked goods on offer in this simple but dedicated cafe.

Having tasted the cheesecake, I can relate to the depth of emotion it sparks; Sophie has received requests for hugs from strangers and even marriage proposals on the basis of her patisserie skills.

Speaking of nuptials, perhaps the most unique aspect of the Five Elephant enterprise is its sincere commitment to remarrying product and consumer. As a cartophile I was captivated by the giant wall maps depicting Africa, South and Central America, and Indonesia, thinking them a wonderfully fitting design decision.

But the maps are more than that: they’re a nod to ethics as well as aesthetics, part of a conscious effort to put