Artist Blog

Every week an artist whose single image was published by Der Greif is given a platform in which to blog about contemporary photography.

Hello! This is my guest blogging week for »Der Greif«. Thank you guys for this nice opportunity! As a Berlin based photographer, I would like to take you with me on a 6 day blogging-trip through my personal art metropolis. The so-called »Art Autumn (Kunstherbst)« with various exhibitions, events, talks, etc. is just lying behind me and I want to give you a little glimpse into what it could mean (what it means to me), being an artist and photographer somewhere out there in Berlin. So my first post is about a very positive thing that happened to me and in which I’m involved since the mid of November: the »Graphothek Berlin«. The Graphothek is a Berlin based art collection where you can borrow single art pieces or complete series of works. It was founded in 1968. Here an art-interested audience, private users as well as companies, offices, medical and law practises can lend pictures just by a personal subscription and small lending fee. The big holding encloses approx. 6.000 works of 1.850 German and international artists with the main focus on »classical modern age«. The collection primarily consists of printmaking artworks, as well as other artistic techniques such as watercolor, collage, gouache, drawing and photography. Together with famous artists like Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí, Fernand Léger, Joan Miró or Vassily Kandinsky works of Elvira Bach, A. R. Penck, Peter Foeller, Otmar Old, Klaus Fussmann, Horst Janssen or Kurt Mühlenhaupt are borrowed from the repertoire of the contemporary art. To my joy, the Graphothek Berlin has taken five edition-prints of my series »The Void« in their program. All new acquisitions of 2014 are currently presented in the Town Hall Gallery Berlin-Reinickendorf. If you happen to be around and want to come over, here are the facts and figures about the presentation: 'Neues aus der Graphothek Berlin / News from the Graphothek 2014' Opening: 11/13/14, 7:30 pm Exhibition: 11/14/14-02/28/15 Town Hall Gallery Reinickendorf Eichborndamm 215-239, 13437 Berlin In the catalogue of the Graphothek all pieces of art are documented and complemented with biographies of the artists. The online catalogue of the artists is updated after the annual new acquisitions and offers with it the possibility to win an overview about the supplies of the collection before visiting the Graphothek. Always, the selected works are framed and can be borrowed for max. one year. The images are packed in carry boxes and can be taken immediately. All information about the Graphothek Berlin can be found here. (The webpage is a little bit »old fashioned« but functional and the content, in this case, only in German. Sorry!) It is of astonishing manner the first opportunity that I myself have got into contact with a form of this kind of art collection. As a result I have found out that there is in Germany, and also internationally, an amount of such public art collections. For example, the collection of nbk Berlin, of the Arthothek Cologne or of Fotohof Salzburg, just to name a few. I think this is a fantastic idea: to borrow art for those who can not afford a big »Private Collection« or the original piece. I really believe, this is a very democratic way! Moreover, it is (also for me as an artist) a possibility to deal with a special work over a real long and intensive period of time, to soak up shape, color, texture and haptic and perhaps even to use that as inspiration for an own work.