Time Out in Israel

It has been almost two months since my post, so I'm officially a terrible blogger. But in my defense I have been in Israel since late December with very little internet access.
Before that I was in the Xmas crunch - working seven days a week and scrambling my post-grad applications together. The short break in Israel was much much needed after such a hectic few months.

My travels took me to the North, to Lake Kinneret, hikes and drives along the Lebanese and Syrian borders, then to Jerusalem where I experienced New Years Eve at the Western Wall, followed by New Years at a club called Leila.. From Jerusalem I headed South into the Negev desert where camel riding and a night in a Bedouin tent was followed by a hike through the Ein Gedi oasis and a float in the Dead Sea. Then onto Tel Aviv, hometown of my grandfather and barely recognizable from what it was back in his days, sightseeing in the now uber-hipster Jaffa, a bit of partying and shopping, then back to Jerusalem for a talk by the Prime Minister. Basically it was an insane couple of weeks full of questions and frustrations to do with politics and society, juxtaposed to incredible food, people, parties, and places. I have never had a strong stance for or against Israel, and I still struggle to define one, but experiencing the country and meeting with locals - both Jewish and Arab - has helped put a more human face on the country that is so often ripped apart in the news. I didn't feel any particular spiritual connection to the land that so many people feel when they visit Israel, but I couldn't help but think at every turn 'did Jesus walk here??' 'Did Moses see this??'.. So much history and importance packed into such a small country, it's hard to even skim the surface. The highlight of the trip was waking up at 5am to hike Mnt Mesada in order to catch the sunrise over the Dead Sea. What a treat.

It was an amazing break, and I came back to London completely refreshed and rearing to go! The weather has even been great. I have been able to bike with only one pair of gloves on and no hat - I must have looked like the most bundled up hobo ever before... My flat is so warm it doesn't need heating on for more than an hour a day, and my flatmate has a new girlfriend who has made him the giddiest guy I have ever seen - and also, lucky for me, a total neat freak in order to impress her. So things are going well and life is good and I might even be able to hold onto the slight tan I picked up in the desert for another few weeks. Here are some pics:

NLA

I recently discovered the New London Architecture gallery on Store street, just off Tottenham Court Road, or TCR as I so hiply call it. It is located in the Building Centre, a mecca for all things of the built environment. The NLA portion of the organization holds regular talks, exhibitions and conferences, and even has a publication entitled 'New London.' Their website also provides links to upcoming and ongoing architecture-related events, such as Open City's architecture tours. Check them out: www.newlondonarchitecture.org

Lunch Time Passtimes

Wallace Collection on Manchester Square. Photo from wiki commons

Last Friday I experienced what it will be like to be retired. It was called 'Lunch Hour Lectures' at the Wallace Collection. A friend and I had a free afternoon, so we met up at the small little hut known as the Wallace family home in the West End. Their place isn't that bad, nor is their collection of art, antiques, and furniture too shabby. As we entered, we were invited to a free 'Lunch Hour Lecture' in the temporary exhibition space currently holding 'Poussin to Seurat: French Drawings from the National Gallery of Scotland.' It was a small but beautiful show with carefully selected drawings from some of the finest artists of the 17th-19th century. The lecture taught us about the various uses of drawings by both Academy and non-Academy artists, including sketching from observation vs catalog, painting preparation, replications, etc. It was interesting to learn how drawing was used as a sort of photocopy technique. The talk only lasted about 30 minutes, just enough time to keep the audience of retirees and local art connoisseurs on their lunch break interested. What a wonderful way to pass an early afternoon! Coodos to the Wallace Collection, and to England's Art Council for making the remarkable decision to keep public museums free to the public despite major budget cuts. It ensures that everyone has an equal opportunity to visit the wonderful collections this country has to offer, and the art world can ease up on its elitism. Just a little.

There are two types of people in this world...

The helpful type, and the douche type.

Let me begin this story with a bit about myself: I hate public transportation. Especially the TFL. It is dirty, crowded, boiling, unreliable, and an all-around miserable time. I also happen to be one of those anti-car freaks, so the only solution in the city is to bike. I bought the ugliest purple mountain bike with butterflies on it (thinking nobody would EVER steal it) from the sketchy bike dealer in Brick Lane. They probably actually stole it..

Anyway, this evening I was supposed to bike from the gallery I work at in South London all the way West to a cousin's flat in Notting Hill for a relaxing dinner at the end of a long week. I had planned out the route, timed it, and was excited to explore some new bike lanes. But as fate would have it, the second I got on the bike, my back tyre popped. Nothing makes a girl feel fat like her bike's tyre popping under her weight. Weight which, btw, is actually quite light with all the biking I do!

I desperately tried filling the tyre with air at the gas station across the street, but seeing as I live up to every stereotype of a woman, I couldn't figure out how to pump a tyre. So a lovely trucker helped me out, but, like a doctor telling a mother her newborn baby has died, he told me the tyre was gone. Yes, it was really that dramatic.

In a panic I ran my bike over to the nearest tube, thinking I could just give in and make it to dinner on time without a fuss. In Berlin, tons of people brought their bikes onto the trains - in fact, there was an entire car devoted to them! Well, not so in London. I was told that the only mode of transport with a dying bike I could take was the overground train. After a few minutes of route planning, I decided the easiest thing to do would be to take my poor bike to London Bridge, where I knew an Evans Cycle would be open until 8.

To get to the train, I had to lug my bike up three flights of stairs, with some extremely helpful TFL workers standing around watching -possibly enjoying- me struggle.

Getting on the train and then off at Waterloo was no problem. Waterloo is one of few stations that is actually wheelchair accessible, so the elevator and ramps made it a breeze. Getting on the train at Waterloo was another story. The train was quite full already, but there was plenty of space for those of us waiting to get on. So I stood by the last car waiting for the doors to open so that I could haul my bike inside and be one stop away from freedom. As I stood there, a lovely British woman next to me said very audibly to her friend 'Oh she has got to be kidding.' If I wasn't so preoccupied with getting to London Bridge before Evans closed, I might have snapped back so hard she would have had a great story to tell all her boring friends in the suburbs she was heading to. Instead I shot her a death stare, tried to back my bike up into her just a enough to make her feel claustrophobic, and didn't hear another word out of her.

On the way out, a kind young man offered to carry the bike off the train, seeing as there is about an 80 foot gap between the door and the platform. I declined the offer but was overly grateful in thanking him - loudly enough for the British woman to hear.

The ordeal was not over yet. Leaving London Bridge station to get to Tooley street was a tad confusing for someone with a handicap - in my case being a bike. Signs pointed me in all directions to an elevator that really does not exist. Wheelchair signs led me to the underground station... The whole thing was thoroughly convoluted. So I went up to two, again, oh so helpful TFL workers who were having the chat of their lives and asked how to get out through an elevator or ramp. They gave me the same nonsensical, clearly false directions as the signs, and then one of them had the nerve as I was walking away to call out 'next time check the internet!' Ummmm is it just me, or would that have been a lawsuit waiting to happen if I was actually handicapped?! I have never empathized so much with those who cannot push and shove their way through a TFL station the way most Londoners do.

Three more flights of stairs later and I was at Evans, where their amazing staff saved me from a very long walk home. They even invited me for a free lesson on city biking. I was clearly looking frazzled and they possibly sympathized with the ugliness of my bike.

But there you have it - two types of people in the world. Those who offer a helping hand whether or not it was asked for, and those who live in their own bubbles and feel no need to contribute to the society or people that surround them. And by the way folks, you are welcome for me saving the air you live in every day by choosing not to drive a car, and you are welcome for me giving up a seat on the TFL, since I will never be using that again!

Berlin

Celeb sighting at Karaoke


The awkward U-Bahn ride to the Halloween party


Not a poster one would expect to see in Berlin


Saturday brunch

Second visits to cities are always the best. The first round is full of the must-do touristy stuff - first time in Paris, go to the Eiffel Tower. First time in Rome, go to St. Peter's... First time in Berlin, well, that was quite a challenge. The city is so packed with layers of history that it's almost as if you could get as much walking down a random street than you can walking down Unter der Linden. But on my second visit to the German capital, I had the pleasure of enjoying the relaxed atmosphere and late late late night party scene with good friends.

Before I go off on a Berlin rant (as I tend to do), allow me to explain. Part of my family comes from Germany. Actually, the Jewish part of my family. So you can see the conflict of interest falling in love with a German city. But alas, like all the best love affairs, it is a forbidden and complicated one. Berlin is a city that raises so many fascinating questions about society, art, architecture, politics, and especially national identity. In the past decade, flocks of artists (both of the real and hipster kinds) have invaded Berlin and turned it into an artistic Mecca. Yet well over a quarter of the population is unemployed and living off welfare the otherwise prosperous German state provides. So basically, to sum up, it was torn apart in multiple wars, rebuilt hastily in the 90s, and is now made up of incredibly cheap apartments occupied (or squatted in by) very creative individuals who feed off the city's history in order to build up a new chapter. Berlin is basically the place to be.

When I got back from London, I felt the stress of this city like never before. In Berlin, I kept feeling like I had something terribly wrong with me - something on my face, jacket inside out, could they tell I was foreign?! - because everybody I passed on the street stared right at me. Coming from a city where I could probably get arrested or at least questioned for making eye contact with a stranger, I was quite taken aback.

The whole pace of Berlin reminds me very much of my hometown of Montreal, where it is okay to walk down the street smoking a joint as if it's a cigarette (not that I'm endorsing it), or having a beer in a park, or joining a tam tam circle on a Sunday afternoon. Berlin takes the Sunday afternoon ritual a notch up though, I have to say. Au lieu de medieval fighting in a forest, Berliners take to the hill at Mauerpark for a giant Karaoke show. I was fortunate enough to witness an amazing surprise performance by Erlend Øye, of Whitest Boy Alive and Kings of Convenience, both based in Berlin.

And just to prove how up and coming Berlin is, Halloween is FINALLY catching on. About time. On Saturday night, my host was kind enough to have a Halloween party, followed by a brief excursion to a bar which was also hosting a party literally in their dungeon of a cellar with loud scary music. Leave it to Berliners... At about 2am we wandered over to a club in the South. The ex-pats could clearly be marked out in the crowd, as we were the only ones in costume. Give it another year and I swear Halloween will be a big deal! The sweetest thing though was sitting in a restaurant Sunday evening and watching the kids come in asking for food/drinks/whatever they expected to get in a restaurant. If I knew enough German, I would have explained to them that Halloween is not about going to bars and restaurants, but to residential doors that will then open up and hand out small loot bags. Instead, I watched these kids walk away with day-old croissants. But, like I said, give it a year.

One last interesting thing to note: a Hitler exhibition at the Deutsches Historisches Museum! First ever Hitler exhibition in Germany, so my friends and I felt a duty to attend. Unfortunately half of it was in German, and being a Canadian with a Brit, a Swede, and a Russian, we were pretty hopeless. But from what we could gather, the exhibition started off with a series of questions. To quote the curator, it "delves into teh interrelationship between Hitler's charismatic 'Fuhrer power' and the expectations and behaviour of the 'people.'" Well, I would have to describe it as 'Hitler-lite'. The exhibition skirted around making any major claims or actually placing any blame on the 'people' and instead repeated the history lessons we've all had explaining economic crises, political repercussions of WW1, etc etc. I was hoping for a bit more umph, but was impressed with the amount of Nazi propaganda they were able to display - from boardgames to toy soldiers to posters once hung around Berlin.

I could (and will) write a thesis on Berlin, but for tonight I'll spare you. I'm only 2 days into my 15 day work week (yes, I am officially back in London...) so excuse any more long delays in blogging!

Visiting Artists' Talks at Gasworks

Hu Yun's 'Thank you for your Time.' Photo Cred: ArtLinkArt
This evening I attended a talk at Gasworks given by the four new visiting artists. The gallery organizes international residencies and helps produce exhibitions and collaborations for these artists. This season's artists are a broad mix, from the academically-inclined Swede Ingela Johansson, to the Hungarian provocateur Csaba Nemes, to the emerging Pakistani Mehreen Murtaza, and finally to Shanghai's Hu Yun.

The audience was particularly intrigued by Hu Yun's performance piece 'Thank You For Your Time' in which he hangs by a noose on one side of a wall, while the audience sees a real-time video of him on the other side. The catch is that Hu can be 'saved' from being hanged if the audience members sit on the see-saw bench that he is precariously perched on, shifting the balance to their side. In the three hour performance, Hu humorously observed that while the first 30 minutes of confusion and hesitation were very difficult, the audience soon figured out that they had to sit on the bench because the video placed in front of it was real. After that, audience members refused to leave the bench until someone else came to replace them, fearful of being responsible for the artist's death.

London is Friezing

David Shrigley's 'Ostrich', 2009

Last night I was taken to the preview of Frieze Art Fair. A Frieze virgin, I was advised not to look at the art, but at the people. How is one to view the art anyway in such a frenzied atmosphere? Hundreds of posh, face-lifted women and colourfully dressed men fluttered around the huge tent currently set up in Regent's Park, delicately holding champagne flutes and barely noticing anything but their fellow party-goers. Listening to dealers from Berlin try to sell an extremely high heeled woman a horrible plastic lightbox (something about "the intensity of the light is very in this year") or spotting a man dressed oh so casually as a hooker-booted snail (complete with a butterfly tiara) made the evening totally worth it.

Of all the fab and not so fab art that I did manage to catch a glimpse of, the stand out for me was Galleri Nicolai Wallner's booth devoted to artist David Shrigley. Complete with his famous taxidermied animals and clever drawings, his self-awareness and love for mocking the pretentiousness of the people and galleries that support him was refreshing and much appreciated at this particular schmoozefest.

Sunday nights

Sunday nights usually involve a glass of red wine and some good tv reruns (currently addicted to Gilmore Girls). You're usually too exhausted from the night before, or too stressed about the week to come to do anything productive. So when my friends took me to The Haggerston this past Sunday, I fell in love. It is an incredibly relaxed, friendly pub in Dalston with great beer and surprisingly good-looking people. Best of all, Sunday nights a jazz band sets up at the front of the pub and plays a fantastic gig til about midnight. Jazz and a pint on a Sunday night - what could be better?

Tuesday afternoons

Following some business in Vauxhall this morning, I found myself with an entire afternoon with nothing to do (minus all the things I am avoiding doing...) So I wandered over to Pimlico, and into the Tate Britain, who just this August launched an exhibit on British Romantics. Nothing like a gray London afternoon to visit Constable, Turner and Blake. Also on display are Fiona Banner's decommissioned fighter planes, placed in fascinating juxtaposition to the Tate's classical grand hall.

I ran out of energy to see the Turner Prize winners, and wandered along the river into my favourite little park, The Victoria Tower Gardens, just behind the parliament buildings. The park offers gorgeous views down the Thames, and always seems to block out the busy noise of the capital.

Walking past Big Ben, then past Inigo Jones' wonderful Whitehall Palace, I found myself in Trafalgar Square, officially having taken a proper tourist route. Feeling back in my home territory (anything past Westminster bridge always feels foreign to me) I went to my old stomping grounds, Somerset House. I worked there while studying at UCL and the place brings back such happy memories, I couldn't resist. I rang a friend at the Courtauld and we met on the terrace overlooking the river.

What a perfect afternoon it turned out to be.

Anti-Design?

In response to the admittedly commercial London Design Festival, Neville Brody (of Research Studios and RCA) started the Anti Design Festival. The brochure describes the programme "in constant flux, as projects become more defined, or less, as the time approaches."

I love the idea of unfinished, ever-evolving work. I also love his challenge to the corporate world of design, which I agree in many cases is far too safe and repetitive. However, I'm not completely convinced (as I gathered many weren't) with his vision of anti design. Set up in a warehouse-like space on Redchurch, three rooms exhibited a variety of work by anonymous 'artists'. The 30 creations in 30 days piece was fantastic (best creation: chair consisting of beach balls in a net), as was the wall of manifestos. We really do need to bring the manifesto back..

But other aspects were so typically anti- the 'man' that I couldn't help role my eyes. For example, in one room installed like a bourgeois salon with its walls covered in works, I asked the gallery attendant for the name of one of the artists who's work I really admired. His response was "Oh, well, the point is to remain anonymous. You know, it's not about selling the work, so like, we didn't put names up." To which I replied, "But what if I like the work and want to see more of it?" So he ran off to his boss, got a list of names of exhibitors, and kindly gave me the chap's name. And then I rolled my eyes.

Love the idea of a shake up and wish I had had time to visit an evening programme (themes included "Painting on Music" and "Obsessive Classification Disorder"). Maybe next year!

ps: I would normally give credit to the works pictured above, but in the spirit of the ADF, I'll keep it anonymous.