Berlin is (almost) a city in Asia

Both cash and time being tight, Hisae and I have decided not to make a last-minute rush to Kassel to see Documenta 12 (which closes on Sunday). Nobody we've met who's seen it has been terribly impressed; perhaps the most positive take is Roger McDonald's slideshow, which sees D12's in-jokes and homemade feel as a reproach to the slick, accessible and formulaic nature of other biennials. It's interesting that you can "visit" something like Documenta virtually via a slideshow or the coverage on Vernissage TV, too, and save carbon. (We'll definitely see the Venice biennale, though.)



Another reason not to leave Berlin this week is the continuing -- and vast -- Asia Pacific Weeks event. The Japan Now part of it, at the Theaterhaus Mitte, has been a great place to meet Berlin's hidden Japanese community. Last week I saw presentations by Daisuke Ishida, who gave a slideshow about the Mobius bus used by the Shobo Shobo crew on their Shobus bus tour of Japan in 2005, and a label presentation by Kazuhito Habu, who worked for my Japanese label, Nippon Columbia, in the 90s but now lives in Berlin and runs a label called Onpa.

Last night, in the company of Roddy Schrock, we saw the OM-2 dance company doing a piece which started strongly (like a cross between Dumb Type and a Paul McCarthy video) but degenerated into formless, improvised screams and angst. Over the next couple of days we'll see the New York: usAsia show at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (very much my New York is (almost) a city in Asia theme) and the Designcluster Asia show.

The image above (click it for a bigger spread) shows the inflatable plastic installation by young Berlin-based Japanese artist Yukihiro Taguchi, who's made a polythene tent that spills out of a room at the Japan Now site and into the courtyard. Yukihiro is there every day, wearing his trademark flat cap and serving his visitors tea.