Renger-Patzsch

Renger-Patzsch is a restaurant in Schöneberg. Renger-Patzsche is also a photographer (first name, Albert) who made "objective" pictures of the natural world and the world that we, as human beings, have made of it. After our return from Hannover last night, Judy and I dined at Renger-Patzsch, where she had the mushroom "flame cake" and I had the ox cheeks.

We had travelled to attend the opening of Brian Jungen's exhibition at the Hannover Kunstverein. The following day, Brian, Judy and I walked the city's streets, explored its main Rathaus and marvelled at the contents of its Sprengel Museum, which featured excellent exhibitions of Robert Michel and Ella Bergmann-Michel, Boris Mikhailov and Meret Oppenheim, in addition to an impressive (early) modern collection that included rooms by El Lissitzky (Kabinett der Abstraktion, 1927) and the locally-born Kurt Schwitters (MERZbau, 1933), as well as some attractive paintings by the Expressionist Emil Nolde (1867-1956).

With respect to Brian's exhibition, it coincides with what is now the completion of eight years work since the touring "mini-retrospective" generated by the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2005, which in turn was comprised of artworks made since 1997. The difference between these first and latest eight years will be the subject of my upcoming review for Canadian Art. But in the meantime let me say that while the last eight years have not produced anything as spectacular as Prototypes for New Understanding (1999) or the subsequent "whale series", the artist has accomplished what many of his sharpest supporters have hoped for, and that is a move beyond the propositions that had Nike trainers turned into masks and plastic chairs into skeletal forms (Shapeshifter, 2000) for explorations that begin, in this instance, with more primary sources (the hides of elk) and "end" with an even wider range of outcomes, from an earlier (pre-war) form of abstract sculpture (Sound Space, 2010) to a series of process-orientated articulated prints (Five Year Universe, 2011).

While our 24 hours in Hannover accounted for much of our dinner conversation, we did allow ourselves to focus on the virtues of our food and wine while inside what is, for the most part, a large rectangular room decorated with prints by a photographer who, according to Met curator Maria Morris Hambourg, is more interested in reality's "texture" and the "essence" of its objects than what is, at times, wearily referred to as art.

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Colours of the Market State

When travelling, news from home has a different sheen. What is big news sometimes appears small, depending on where one is looking. Conversely, what is small can sometimes find its parallel in a local variant, making the world smaller, more engaged. But again, depending on where one is looking.

When I heard the news that the Vancouver Art Gallery won City approval to fundraise for a move to Larwill Park I was enjoying the unsecured server of a cafe whose walls are filled with art. Not the art I see at the Vancouver Art Gallery, but that which its patrons gave it in exchange for meals.

The Vancouver Art Gallery has served up a number of thoughtful meals over the years, sometimes to my liking, sometimes because they are good for me, sometimes for those whose interests are so different from mine as to mistake art for fashion, conflict for affirmation, criticism for hype. But all in all I appreciate the VAG, and am among the first to recognize that in its attempt to be all things it can only skimp at times on what I want and what is good for me.

Although I am not in town to share the VAG's news, I imagine many are happy to hear it, particularly those who feel the most important part of the VAG is not its building or its location but its collection, which many of us hope to see displayed on a permanent basis, where the (symbolic) stories of our city and our moment can be discussed, debated, supplemented and synthesized.

Of course not everyone will be happy to hear about the VAG's move. Some will complain that taxpayers will be expected to bear the brunt of it, while others will say the collection is not worth a hill of beans, while others still will say that giving up the centre of the city as a site of ambiguity will only make Vancouver more certain, less mutable, the market state one step closer.

One person who will be unhappy about the VAG's move is real estate agent/artist collector Bob Rennie, who has proven over the years that his problem is not with the VAG but with its director, Kathleen Bartels, a problem he contracted from dealer/art consultant Patrick Painter, who once advised Rennie to acquire works by artists whose relevance has risen dramatically over the years and whose ongoing complaint that Bartels would not buy from him provided the starter for Rennie's sourdough.

Evidence of Rennie's unhappiness can be found in his recent de-accessioning of the work of an artist most active in the campaign for a larger, art-friendly VAG: Roy Arden. Further evidence can be found in another de-accessioned work, this time by an artist not active in the campaign but whose boyfriend is: me.

Is it a stretch to suggest that my girlfriend's work has been sent to auction (along with Arden's) because I have supported the VAG and, perhaps especially, because I have questioned Rennie's behaviour as a human being? I don't think so. In fact, I have evidence to suggest that Rennie's motivation is exactly that. But rather than divulge my sources, I would prefer instead to ask those of you who do business with Rennie to ask yourself what it is you are exchanging. Unless of course that exchange is, as they say, just business. In which case that is very big news, no matter where I am in the world.

Schöneberg Sunrise

Jet-lag has opened my eyes to some great sunrises. One of the more memorable came in the fall of 2003, when I was invited to Paris to take part in a conference called America, whose mission it was to revitalize Franco-American relations, post 9/11. Whatever. The event had more to do with diplomacy than literature, and the participants took it out on each other, embarrassed perhaps that we might fall for such a thing, that whoever says yes to such initiatives can only say so for escape, not engagement. Rick Moody was the best at this, taking aggressive indifference to new levels, though the writer I found most annoying was a North Carolinian by the name of Alan Gurganus, who, in his own with-me-or-against-me way, was merely a pinker version of a president (GWB) he did not like.

So it was on the first morning after my arrival that I awoke to a sky no lighter than the one I fell asleep under. But as I was awake, wide awake, I knew there was no point in turning over the pillow and starting again, so I leapt from my bed, put on my clothes and, as if called, made my way from the hotel in Vincennes to the Seine.

If you know the streets that lead to the Seine you will know that many of them are old and winding, often narrow and unlit. The night sky was still dark, though darker still because you would expect more from those who ran businesses along these streets. If their businesses were closed for the day, then so too were their exterior lights. I am sensitive to stuff like this, particularly in advance of my panel talk, concerned as it was with the colours of the market state after the 1980s deregulation policies (and rationalizations) of U.K. prime minister Margaret Thatcher and U.S. president Ronald Reagan. So I noted this too.

Eventually I settled on a view of the Pont Neuf Bridge, where I watched not the sunrise but the light slowly bleed from the bridge's spandrels and cornices. That's all I really have to say about what I saw of the sun that morning -- that which comes from within.

Kurfürstendamm

A warm Berlin morning as I set out for Cafe Sur, already caffeinated but happy to connect with my favourite outdoor patio, if only to remind myself that I am here, in Berlin, and not dreaming.

Purchased some postcards along the way, as well as some pencil crayons and a few sheets of 4"x 6" paper, in the event that I might make my own.

In the afternoon Judy and I rode to Kurfürstendamm, to the KaDeWe, but also to Galerie Buchholz, where we saw a nicely managed "Early Works" exhibition of Isa Genzken, which included vitrines of contextual material, serial and permutating pieces, as well as those indicative of her means over ends tendency.

Such an intriguing artist, Isa Genzken. People still talk fondly of her installation at the German Pavillon for the 2007 Venice Biennale.

As we were leaving I noticed a small square mirror set waist-high in the middle of the downstairs gallery door. Instinctively I reached into my pocket and handed the mirror the exhibition's folded-over press release.

20 Innsbruckerstrasse

Yesterday's British Airways flight to Berlin (via Heathrow) was one of my better Atlantic crossings. From now on I want to fly to Europe only in the evenings.

Arrived at 20 Innsbruckerstrasse at approximately 7:30PM, following a short bus and S-Bahn trip from Tegel. Some wine and cheese on the balcony with Judy, then another S-Bahn trip, this time to Oranienburg, where we dined with Juan Gaitán and the staff of the 2014 Berlin Biennale at their KW headquarters in Mitte.

Among those gathered on this balmy first night of spring was the artist Shahryar Nashat, a most generous conversationalist whose studio I will visit next week.

Trains Collide at Prince George

Fallen revenues have resulted in a number of newspapers turning to the medium responsible for their decline. The Prince George Free Press is no different. Here, writers like Bill Phillips also serve as online "TV reporters", approximating a style that feels closer to the news I watched as a child in the 1960s than the high-octane delivery we get on TV today.