Weekend

Last weekend it was weekend indeed, "Weekend" also being the name of the place I visited friday night. It's a club located in an office skyscraper at Alexanderplatz, on one of the top floors. Great location as the club offers a 270 degree view over the west, north and east of the city, which includes Alexanderplatz itself and the Television Tower. Short waiting line, got in without a problem. Paying and cloak room is on the ground floor, after which you take the elevator to the club itself - the elevators operated by club personnel. The grainy and blurry picture to the left shows Alexanderplatz from out of the club.

Besides the view, the club is very nice as well with a minimalist but powerful room-length LED light system, big bar in the middle and lots of places to sit. Dance floor was very small though, capacity of the club isn't that much. On warmer days there is a roof terrace as well, which must be very nice.
Music was all right, but the location of the club attracts lots of upperclass tourists - posh dancing-in-circles-taking-pictures-of-each-other people all over the place, although most of them were gone at about 5 o'clock. Expensive drinks, 3.5 for a beer after paying 12 euro to get in is pretty sore. Toilet lady with voluntary tip, bottles of deodorant at the washtables were a nice touch.

Met a Berliner there with a bad case of ostalgie, who regretted the gentrification which takes over so many of the city's interesting spots and replaces them with soulless highrises. Ironically though, he is a civil engineer and actually aids with city planning - and so with its modernisation. Funny contrast but one which seems to be at the core of the evolution of the city: most people want it to stay the way it is but there seems to be an unstoppable move towards progression and renewal.
Picture on the left isn't mine, I got it from this flickr stream. It was probably taken in Prenzlauer berg, which now seems to be taken over by rich people from outside Berlin. Protest sometimes gets violent with stone-throwing and setting-fire-to-cars by left extremists.
This blog post addresses the megaspree demonstration, of which the poster hangs on the kitchen door of my apartment in Berlin.

Did I advance the gentrification of Berlin with spending my cash there and thus injecting foreign money into its economy and by visiting the typical once-underground-but-now-touristic places? I guess so. Sorry mister anarchist.

That friday I also sold my bike which I had placed on craigslist the week before (about five people interested). Funny thing is he was a Belgian as well, which allowed me to speak Dutch to somebody for the first time in almost a month. Nice person, lived in Friedrichshain since the beginning of this year. He regretted the lack of decent jobs in Berlin, saying that some helpdesk work earned him 8 euro bruto per hour - where I get 8 euro netto per hour cleaning dishes in Belgium...

Earlier I had visited Tacheles again, this time checking out some of the art shops in the main buildings. Some interesting stuff, ranging from people making clothes and jewelry over a shop full of tourist-ready but cool postcards and t-shirts over a sculptor of vaginas to some older artists (this being one of them) selling very nice paintings - and having a much cleaner working space as well - on the top floor. Many of the artists didn't allow to take pictures - or charged you for it - lots of other tourists walking around as well.
The building is squatted but is well organised and seems to have a central office, the Witte artist told me you have to apply and get allowed for a place in Tacheles and pay rent, but that it is the best place in Berlin to sell art.
Picture to the left comes from the Website of Witte and is called "Insel".

Even before Tacheles, I had visited Kunst-Werke, which is a gallery close by Tacheles. 6 euro, whic of course wasn't announced anywhere. The gallery exhibited work of Ceal Floyer. Most of it wasn't very interesting or nice, but the main piece was quite something. Check out the picture on the left: lots of equal-height columns with loudspeakers on top, each of them randomly playing short, loud sounds. Nice to walk through. On the same floor there was a dark room with a short bursts of light projected on a wall. The adaption of your eyes to the darkness allowed you to gradually make out more "fireworks".


Interesting gallery, although quite pricey for what it was.