Bambino's SEE and BE SEEN (oder, SEHEN und GESEHEN WERDEN) Berlin Version, Part I

Berlin reminded me so much of my home city. Huge pedestrian alleys and small cars in the road (so you can easily drive both directions without traffic, because all cars are small, not like the States' huge SUV’s) a really green city; trees are everywhere, small parks at almost every U-bahn station. And it was the prefect season to visit Berlin. Thankfully there was no rain during our entire trip, and it wasn’t cold, but chilly in the mornings and evenings. After being bombed during WW2 a lot of the new buildings built had some Soviet signatures to them. Here is an image from our balcony of a circular billboard, which is so Soviet. Personally it was a completely different art scene in Berlin, not like in NYC, probably because we know more people in NYC than in Berlin. We did know one artist having a show, though. Joyce Pensato at Capitain Petzel. Here she is with Ed and our friends from London, Jo and Gary, at her opening, and some images of Joyce's installation in the basement and the show:


But still, the art we saw in Berlin was very impressive. Here's me in the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which we thought was very powerful.
Here's another shot.

As Ed already mentioned yesterday we visited art fairs, museums, and private collection and art galleries. Here are some images from Artforum Berlin, a very professionally run art fair that had mostly European galleries exhibiting. We went there during the opening night on Wednesday and Saturday afternoon, and it was well attended, crowded. I don’t know how much business the galleries made during the art fair, but everyone seemed to have a lot of interest and people in their booths.
At the opening we met up with our friend Andrea Hinteregger from Zurich's Artrepco gallery, which is changing to Christinger De Mayo gallery in October.
For me the most impressive private collection was Sammlung Boros. Amazing building, and impressive art amazingly installed. You can see each piece also from above on higher floors. Here is an image of the outside of Sammlung Boros. You have to set up an appointment to see the collection in advance.
I highly recommend to everyone who visits Berlin, and has limited time, to take a boat ride. You can choose from 1-hour to 3-hours boat trips. Here are some images from our trip on a boat. Beer at noon (so German).


Preview Berlin had an amazing building, a former airport. But unfortunately they decided to not have walls at the last minute, and for me that seemed a little bit distracting. Almost every piece was competing with the other.
Although one of my favorite piece was white box including all necessary utilities pieces for the apartment (chairs, fridge, washer, dryer, iron board).

We also had a great time at the zoo, where the new star was the Polar Bear Knute's new girlfriend Giovanna (but we couldn't get a good photo of her because the professional TV cameramen kept pushing us out of the way). Here are some other animals, though:

I can’t write all at once about our trip, so I might come back sometimes later and share some other photos with you. But it was one of our favorite trips this year, and I can easily add Berlin to my favorite cities.

These bears are all over the city in Berlin...we decided to molest this one. :-)