That outsized village of artists, Berlin

[imomus]

The current edition of style magazine Composite advises its Japanese readers to move to Berlin. Which is nice, because there still aren't enough Japanese people here in Berlin, especially young, pretty, arty ones. We need a recruitment drive, with all the attendant hype and promo! Never mind if the 'creative hub' stuff is true now; it'll become a self-fulfilling prophecy when all the creative people move here seeking all the other creative people. But actually, it is all true. This is a fabulous place to be based if you're an artist of some sort.



'The German capital has become one of the hottest places to be again these days,' Composite says. 'An immensely creative environment with surprisingly low rents, post-wall Berlin is characterized by a healthy contest between old and new design and architecture, and an unparalleled blend of capitalist consumerism and socialist modesty. Another aspect that makes Berlin such a pleasant city is its inhabitants' friendliness and mildness. Creative people from all parts of Germany and other countries increasingly choose the city as their new home - an environment for life and work beyond material issues. As a result, the city continually produces new hints at the Berlin way to balance private life and professional activity. On the following pages we hope to offer an essence of that outsized village of artists: Berlin.'



The nice thing about the Composite feature is that they run pictures of 'creatives' in their live-work spaces. They also tell you exactly how much rent they pay, and put most of their content, translated into English, free on their website in the form of a pdf. And so we learn that geisha-turned-artist Hanayo has moved from East Berlin (where the housing is still administered by public bodies, and where she had to lug coal to her flat to heat it!) to the western part of the city, where she pays 900 euros for 110m2. Carsten Nicolai shares a 120m2 atelier in Mitte with Robert Lippok (of the excellent Tarwater), for which he pays 600 euros a month. Composite reports that 'while most of their works see the light of day here, they are mostly presented to audiences outside Berlin. "That's because as a sad matter of fact there aren't enough collectors and gallerists here for artists to survive. There's no buying power in the city, but that again is certainly one reason why everything is so cheap and laid-back in Berlin. It's an easy place to be, and that's why artists keep coming. As a base you won't find a better place than Berlin," remarks Carsten. "There's no such thing as rivalry, which seems to make people open, also in terms of exchange with individuals from other fields and professions."'



Some lucky girl called Yuka Oyama is paying only 180 euros for her 70m2 space. 'Oyama finds that, compared to New York or Tokyo, Berlin is a relatively uncommercial city, and therefore it’s easy to be oneself without caring about others. [Wow, not very collectivist there, Yuka!] She moved into a building in which many friends of hers live, and renovated the apartment all by herself. From her ultra-cheap homebase she keeps crisscrossing the world in order to get herself together – a true artist’s position.' Well, nice work if you can get it. In Berlin you actually can't get much work, but you can live. Graphic designer Walter Schonauer has the following explanation for the high concentration of creative people in Berlin: “People without money are more creative and active. Life here is so cheap that nobody is forced to do jobs only for the money, so everybody can do what they like.” He further emphasizes that every other city he knows gets humdrum sooner or later, but there wasn’t a single boring moment in the four years he’s now living in Berlin." Stylist Annet Bourquin concurs: "In Hamburg everybody’s only talking about money. In Berlin it’s easier to do interesting things, even if they don’t really pay. And the city offers so much to discover!"

Today in Berlin the sun is shining and there's a thin layer of snow on the ground. I'm hyping myself up to write a 2000 word article boosting the city for a travel magazine. It's not really that hard to do. Although I'll be using a pseudonym, I won't actually be telling any lies. It is a pretty great city. (Momus, Berlin resident for two years. Rent 617 euros, space 64 m2.)

Comments

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I came here from Paris. I got a whole apartment here for about what I was paying in Paris for a single room in a shared apartment. Most of Berlin feels a lot more safe and 'dead' than Paris, you might miss the multi-ethnic vitality of Paris in Berlin (except for Kreuzberg, which has it). And it might take you a while to find the interesting stuff going on here -- it's not at all evident, you have to be guided by friends to discover the good places. The winter also gets pretty cold here. That said, it's so cheap, and there are so many cool things happening all the time, culturally, that I think it's well worth being based here. People are very anti-money here, which means you can see a film or a gig in some ex-squat art place for 3 euros or something. People seem to do things for other motives than money -- to create community, to play, to make the world better. The political atmosphere is left-liberal. The population seems to consist of very young people (creative types, students, international, English-speaking) and very old people and not much in between. Nature surrounds the city in the form of forests and lakes. The air quality is good. Trees are everywhere. It's relaxed, the public transport is good and a lot of the time you can ride it free. Bicycles are well-catered for, you can ride them around safely on sidewalks and in dedicated lanes. Beer is excellent, at around 60 euro cents for a bottle of hefe weiss. It's a great town for hearing new music and seeing new art, theatre, dance. There are now cheap air deals to most other places in Europe, so you can fly to Venice, for instance, for less than 100 euros. Getting to Asia or America is more complicated, though, because Berlin still doesn't have a major international airport.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I should mention the biggest contrast between Berlin and Paris: Paris is a finished city. They could throw a glass roof over it and charge admission. It's basically not going to change much, and so the main duty of its citizens is just to 'be Parisian' and the main duty of its visitors is to 'pay homage to Paris'. Paris knows who and what it is, and doesn't need input from anyone. Berlin, on the other hand, is very much an unfinished city. 'Berlin is a city that never is, but it is always in the process of becoming.' Karl Scheffler said that in 1910, but it's still true today. Cranes still dominate its skyline. An area that is now a field of mud (say the area round the new central train station) will be unrecognisable in two years, a whole new district. This fluidity means that people coming to Berlin now can help define its identity. You really feel needed here. It's unfinished, it wants your input. That's a very exciting feeling. The city is not dead, and the city is not full, and the city is not finished. It's like a half-finished canvas that you start looking at and thinking 'It's promising, but it needs this colour here.' And 'this colour' might be a ramen bar or a record store that you might decide to open. And because of the low rents, you can.

city in progress

[(Anonymous)]

Rotterdam in the Netherlands is also unfinished (cause of WW2 where the whole inner city was bombed) so the description sounds very much like the city I lived now for 10 years. Still new architectural wonders are popping up now and then. the rent is cheap compared to other Dutch cities. There is a very large multi-etnic population. My neighborhood consists 95 % of people from Turkey, Morroco, the Antilles. The other 5 are students and artists.

That said there used to be new artists-run-spaces opening every month. But due the more right-wing attitude of the municipal its a dificult time for art-spaces I guess. There not so much galleries and places like in Amsterdam. There are some very strong artists-run-studios that exists for more than 10 years now.

So coming from Rotterdam to Berlin last year I almost entered the same building-site with workers demolishing old stuff and building up something new.

the city as a work in progress.


erik