Berlin

(February 18th, 2010)

The building was made up of filthy gray brick. Giant colorful graffiti murals covered its eastern facade, where chunks of brick missing from the wall showed evidence of WWII shelling. Nearby stood a trailer park, slippery patches of blackened snow, and scaffolding along its front. It was Kunsthaus Tacheles.

As we crossed Oranienburger Strasse in the Berlin-Mitte quarter, our eyes were drawn to a dark gaping hole in the front of this building, where graffiti covered every inch of surface. Inside, a cold cement staircase led up into the realms of some black abyss from which rock 'n roll music was drafting.

Like a medusa, the graffiti snaking up the walls lured us to climb the chilled staircase, apprehensions aside. Two flights up and already we felt like we were in a vertigo trance of color and words. The rock 'n roll got louder as we continued to climb.

What at first warned us to avoid the place--the layers of graffiti--then intrigued us to find the end of its painted madness. But it did not end. As we rounded the final staircase, a blast of music and color hit us square in the face from the single open doorway. This was no run-down building for drug addicts, or homeless refuge. This was a gallery with the work of abstract Belarusian artist Alex Rodin.

And it was some of the most beautiful work I've ever seen. 10-foot-high canvases of hundreds of colors imagining a sort of cosmic existence--a hand or an eye with fifty little scenes incorporated into the big picture--this type of work was exactly the reward I needed for braving the disconcerting entrance to the Kunsthaus Gallery. I bought a print after spending time reveling in the beauty of art paired with music.
This was Berlin.