Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Berlinische Galerie
Alte Jakobstr. 124-128 • Wed-Mon 10am-6pm • €8, €4 on 1st Mon of the month; free audio guides in German only •
T
030 78 90 26 00,
W
berlinischegalerie.de • U-Hallesches Tor
Behind the Jüdisches Museum lie the vast airy halls of a former warehouse that have
been renovated to house the
Berlinische Galerie
. Some of Berlin's darkest and most
tortured pieces of art are displayed here as part of a permanent collection, mostly
dating from the twentieth century, when movements such as Secessionism, Dadaism
and the New Objectivity called Berlin home. All challenged the accepted art world and
the establishment, and reflected Europe's troubled times; consequently much of the
collection is unsettling. Pieces to look for include the beautifully crafted
Berlin Street
Scene
(1889) by Lesser Ury, which evokes a moody Prussian majesty in the driving
night rain. Disharmony is even more central to George Grosz's
Da um
(1920) which
depicts the clash between soft tradition and harsh modernity using his own union with
his (much younger) wife as the metaphor. Awkward contrasts are also the subject of
Otto Dix's
Kartenspieler
(Card Players,
1920). Traumatized by World War I, Dix used
dry-point technique to produce ghastly caricatures of mutilated war veterans playing
cards. His portrait of
Der Dichter Iwar von Lücken
(1920), showing a bedraggled poet
looking unsure and lost, is equally celebrated and often seen as a social comment on
the state of post-World War I Germany. A very different side to 1920s Berlin is
depicted in around twenty portraits by local photographers, in which androgynous
women puff on cigarettes, evoking the milieu from which Marlene Dietrich rose to
fame. Werner Heldt's
Parade of the Zeros
(1935) perhaps best sums up the 1930s.
Here an immense crowd of zeros are squeezed between the buildings of a big city,
threatening to become a destructive and unstoppable flood.
he Berlinische
collection also gives fleeting insights into postwar Berlin, though its
art becomes increasingly symbolic and impenetrable. he seven gigantic avant-garde
structures of Emilio Vedova's
Absurd Berlin Diary '64
recall something of West Berlin's
tensions, but by the time you've moved on to the vivid oil-paint-smeared canvases by
artists like Hartwig Ebersbach, the works' messages become unclear.
7
Checkpoint Charlie
Friedrichstr. 43-45 • U-Kochstrasse
One of the most famous names associated with the Wall and Cold War-era Berlin, the
Allied military post known as
Checkpoint Charlie
marked the border between East and
West Berlin and was the main gateway between the two Berlins for most non-Germans.
With its dramatic “YOU ARE NOW LEAVING THE AMERICAN SECTOR” signs
and unsmiling border guards, it became the archetypal movie-style Iron Curtain
crossing. In the Cold War years it was the scene of repeated border incidents, including
a standoff between American and Soviet forces in October 1961, which culminated in
tanks from both sides growling at each other for a few days.
he site of the border crossing itself is barely recognizable now. Removed in July
1990, the original border post is in the Allied Museum (see p.162), and a
replica
now
marks the original site. Around it modern o
ces and retail complexes have sprung up,
and the derelict plots of land that surrounded the site - peopled for years by hawkers of
GDR-era merchandise and souvenir bits of Wall - have been encircled by barriers,
awaiting construction projects. One barrier on Zimmerstrasse, diagonally across from
the Mauermuseum (see p.119), features an interesting exhibition on the Berlin Wall.
Mauermuseum
Friedrichstr. 43-45 • Daily 9am-10pm • €12.50 •
W
mauermuseum.de • U-Kochstrasse
For tangible evidence of the trauma of the Wall, head for the
Mauermuseum
(Wall
Museum). Here you can see photos of escape tunnels and some of the home-made
aircraft and converted cars by which people attempted, succeeded, and sometimes
tragically failed, to break through the border. Films document the stories of some of
