Leaving Berlin I bump into Daniel F heading to the art fairs. We briefly exchange identities (to keep the number of Jews in Berlin constant) and part ways...

Unfinished Chandelier for "Pandemonium Germanicum"

this image won;t be used by Mercedes advertising anytime soon. From the library-like topography of Terrors memorial of the former Gestapo headquarters.

Old plane for "fire Practice" at Tempelhoff Airport.

Designed by Albert Speer, Tempelhoff Airport is one of the largest buildings in the world. The three story basement is full of undetonated explosives left by the Nazis and flooded with water by the Soviets. Active till 2008!

Tempelhoff: this is what fascist architecture looks like.

Tempelhoff: built on old site of the Knights of Templar headquarters in Berlin. Site of the American and Allied Anti Societ Airlift to West Berlin.

Me and Elan at the monument to the airlift.

Theater

Most of the Andco crew for LENZ.

Alex Karschnia as a good young pioneer- which he is!

Most powerful memorial I've seen.

small wall

Me and Cora in front of the Berlin Wall

Otto Dix!

At the Neue National Gallery, installation by Dutch artist Willem De Rooij where he paired up a bunch of 17th C bird paintings by the same artist with 19th C Hawaiian bird feather masks and objects. Amazing to perceive a pre Any Warhol effect when the dut

Shooting a rubber band at a Fascist statue.

Jan took us to see some glass paintings from Eastern Europe 1890's.

artist Jan Brokof, Noah Fischer, Brenda Loya.

Jan Brokof studio near to Treptower park. All kinds of faces, architecture, an artist compelled by some strange force to draw!

Found the door where the little people go in an S-Bahn station.

Valeska Gert: early performance artist from 1920's on. Jewesss who escaped the Nazis, lived in New York and founded the "Beggar's Bar" Really crazy and compelling you can see her in some Fellini films

Amazing Nauman wall piece of printed dead animals in red paint on paper ---of many species. Not sure how he got them, but they include Kangaroos.

Brenda with some gooood art from the Hamburger Banhoff show. (Forgot artist)

At the center of Bruce Nauman's early 1970's mind vortex at the Hamburger Banhoff. Masking tape could still be in earnest then.

Nikki as acid aristocrat

Shouldn't this abject-chic art be over by now? But it's like a pox taking over the world it seems. A kind of class-specific aesthetic pseudo-sophistication- the emperor has no clothes methinks.

Lone Punk

GANG ZUM PATENTAMT

Mechanical Symphony at the HAU from a Swiss group
GANG ZUM PATENTAMT

Showing the various delineations of a Kreuzberg street: for bikes and pedestrians and ghosts.

Me, Cora, and a mourning Soviet soldier.

Brenda!

Amazingly emotional and historically problematic (but what isn't?) Soviet memorial at Treptower park.

Shopping wirh Sebastian and Brenda at the flu-market. Full of tasty overpriced GDR relics mmmm...junk.

Our laboratory where various magical objects for "Pandemonium Germanicum" are in magical development.

Bending metal for the giant chandelier!

Strange play about the workers at Volkswagon, supported by Volkswagon. Very very bad play.

Sebastian making the giant feather out of feathers.

Costume store

Here a housing project where everyone agreed to adorn their sattelite dishes with colorful art. Thumbs up- that's the world I want to live in ;)

Special tools available in the Bauhaus!

Sebastian sounds the horn! Expensive antiquated brass boating accessories are sold at the Bauhaus aka Home Depot (how much did they have to pay for the name Bauhaus?)

Buddhas for sale in the Bauhaus aka Home Depot.

The dungeon-like workshop under the HAU theater from whence where I will bring forth my Frankenstein...

China of the 18th C mind at Sans Souci in Potsdam, outside of Berlin. A real earlt-almost pre-colonial Folly.

"Chinese Palace" at Sans Souci

Chinese in the 18th C European mind!

Sans Souci

This sign on the door or a tourist place says that this is a safe haven for Neo-Nazi attacks!

Statue of some Greek boy which apparently was like a gay flag flown by Frederick. He said "I won;t make a good husband as I have no use for women." Nobles could be frank with their sexuality.

San Souci: Without a Care! Prussian Garden Palace of Frederick "the Great."

Synagogue on Fraenkelhufer where I went for Yom Kippur.

entrance to squat I have been passing everyday.

anti-socialist propoganda in Alexanderplatz. The winner really does get to write history- and make no mistake- they write it!

A photo of the "roundtable" where they met for the unification of Germany. You can see how the problem started there, again.

From display in Alexanderplatz about the fall of the wall. This machine was used to print "freedom pamphlets" in the last year or two of the GDR.

You can't have Berlin without this phallic thing. Actually one of the most impressive sights to be seen in any city I've been- the way it looms over you.

What does Mid Century German art look like? Are we ready to look? Seems so.

So indiscreet! I'm not in Kansas anymore!

12th century Muslims used this computer to track the stars.

This and the following compose a gallery of Ancient Babylonian Humanoid Rogues, seen in the Pergamon museum of Berlin.

They stole the great Lion Gates of Babylon!

This is the "Apollo of Williamsburg."

Inside the "devils throne": the Pergamon Museum in Berlin where, like in New York, they stole a temple (it was "bought" apparently, but so was Manhattan, so were slaves, and who is counting). Anyway, here we see an exhibit on how ancie

Where they publicly burned books--now a underground memorial.

Very scary indeed: this is a candidate from (according to the Andcos) more of less a Nazi Party. It's a sticker! It's a movement! Seem familiar? And the slogan is...change!

Alex Karschnia in front of a RECONSTRUCTION of a Prussion era building. That is what's going on now. To hell with imagination! Long live the King!

good fucking question!

Bikes put to civic use (and not just police!) (I think its civic, it is YELLOW)

Unidentified thing in a shop window. Somehow ghastly. Somebody's invention no doubt. How wonderful!

It seemed that sin was creeping in...even in Berlin.

We went to a very special very German art store.

This advertising campaign just doesn't work on Americans. Or does what the fuck??? sell???

Violence: something happened nearby: a demonstrator was killed by police. It happened in German.

You've got to fight those damn Nazis! That impulse that won't go away. Just don't turn into a thug doing so.

Berlin is...silver spray paint graffitti text everywhere, New York 1985.

First view of Berlin, near Fraenkenhufer in Kreuzberg. Berlin seems like a GOOD PLACE TO BE.

Flying over the wind farms of Denmark. Ancient windmills of Europe, new again. (will they save us?)

The sky is strange, very strange, and holy. A strange place to be. Will we live there some day?

and we reach the clouds!

Leaving the state --of mind--of New Jersey--that is actually beautiful, in a way, from above.

Boy picking up bottles on his styro raft.

With Viraj Singh in Bombay.

The haunting Banganga tank in Bombay. It's a satellite body of the Ganges.

Deity in Bombay.

At the little elephant temple.

Elisa on Karnataka coast.

I found my balance on a cliff of somewhere on the Karnataka coast. I'm not saying where since I'd like to keep coming back to these little paradise beaches over my lifetime, and hope they don't turn into Varkalas.

A theater artist named John Vekkan invited me for dinner. he's an important figure in Malayalam theater. His son is studying art at the college.

As (one of my) birthday gifts, I get a dragon painted on my arm by Sm

Communist Kerala

With Shivaji Pannikar- controversial art critic, we had great conversations.

Nandakumar

talking to Shiek who is indeed a very erudite man.

Eminent artists and art historians Gulam Muhammed Sheik and Nandakumar are giving lectures at the Seminar on "Intervisualities"

Elisa's new friend Teenu.

Nidu is an arti student and made this installation about the seasons.

"The happy family"

A student's artwork on the theme of water.

with traditional dancers who teach at the college, following their performance.

post fire-dance

post fire-dance

One evening the students invite us to a tribal firedance. The energy is out of control.

the finished "randals' before they are hung and the space cleaned.

Anil's friend Abdul Azad is a local photographer living in Kochi.

With the musicians who played classical Carnatic music for the happening.

With another Anil- he was the student leader of the powerful student group

With more students

With students amid good feeling after our Happening.

Me and Anil following tour big "Happening"

One day working on the project the students brought in many coconut leaves and we wove them together for the roofs of the lanterns.

Zizke is speaking in Ernakulum closeby and we go to see him call for a new Communist beginning, and to shed light on the extent of Capitalist ideology that permeated life.

Convergent with my being at the college is a seminar called Transtrends. Students made this sculpture over the school's gate for it.

we spent a few days shopping for the project: hardware stores, electrical stores, fabric, lighting, bamboo, nicknacks.

This is a traditional Kerala house- shady and low-lying with an elegant shingled roof.

Foraging for materials for the project, we meet this guy who grows Bonzai trees.

As soon as I get there, I realize there is some politics going on in the institution concerning my presence there. Forms must be signed, strategies are taken. Here is Anil and me with the hard-won signed form that allowed us to start on Random Randal.

A store that sells things salvaged from ships.

The college is in Tripunithura which was once the seat of the royal family of Cochin. This art school was originally built by the royals to train their court musicians. A year ago they got this fancy new building.

We arrive at RLV college, and finally I meet Anil Dayanand, my penpal for the last 4 years and the artist who invited me to do a project in Kerala.

Fort Kochi's Chinese fishing nets.

little picture shop where you pick up your alter-images: Kirshna, Shiva, Ganesh, Gandhi and all the rest. The man had been running this shop since 1964 and it looked as if he was selling some of his original merchandise.

Anti drug sign in Malayalam: (a palindrome)

a shop

I found the workers relaxing in the shade under the red flag.

a little trash area- one of the most common sites in India. But you won;t find useful junk here like on New York streets.

Christmas stars at an old Portuguese church in Fort Kochi. These paper stars were everywhere in Kerala (all Keralites give a now to Christmas) and amazingly, each one we saw was different.

View out of a stainless steel shop at an Ambassador car- the classic Indian automotives that are everywhere (taxis are white in this part of Kerala. Its a Colonial sheik- but definitely looks good.

Kerala is a Communist State (more on that later...) We see this little monuments everywhere.

Cover of my dad's latest book matching the sheets.

Leavng Bangalore, we voyage to Varkala which is a coast town in Kerala. Little did we know we were heading into the domain of a multi headed hydra called "developing resort city" It was built up along the cliff- you can see it as a bright strip

Third class train compartment. Look closely at the detals: you can charge your laptop and there is a place to put water bottles. Indian train design is rough but highly functional and the train system seems to function with mindboggling order despite an o

The second floor of that building is 1 Shanthi Road- an art utopia run by Suresh Jayaram who is working in his own project to map out Bangalore. I've been through this place twice- both times encountered a small alluring tribe of artists in residency.

with Elisa and Smriti in Bangalore.

Meandering about town, we found the Koli fishermen an ancient village in the middle of Bombay.

First Sunset in Bombay

Merry Kwastmas! We notice these dummies all over- always with a bottle of liquor in the pocket.

The arrival in Bombay train station- the largest in Asia- India Railways is the second largest employer in the world, India's stations are places of sublime grandeur with a patina.

Just a moment to glimpse the finery of First Class- here we see Euros in full splendor.

The Tin Eagle lies in waiting; skies above speak in strange oaths.

Riding in Airtrain to Newark where we will embark.

Walking around ie circuambulating Mt Arunachal is a prescribed activity here in Tiruvanamalai. Indeed, you "get walked" around the mountain more than go for a walk...go see for yourself! Right after this picture we got hit by a short but heavy r

The holy elephant living in the big temple of Tiruvanamalai (in Southern India, Tamil Nadu) blesses anyone who puts a coin in its trunk.

This is post-mushing, and the best I could do to clean up the banana leaf. It's not easy with one hand, rice and sauce! But some Indians I watched got it squeaky clean: a very refined style that would take years of practice and require a somewhat fresh u

There is the simple meal. The next thing is to get the right hand in there and start mushing it around.

Serving food at the Ramana Maharshi Ashram. On banana leaves, and you eat with your hands- a wonderfully physical experience! I'd like to keep it up here in the US but it just wouldn't fly.

On the ascent to the little cave monastery where Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi sat for years and towards the mountain peak, we pass this mix of souls and styles, seemingly typical of "spiritual centers" in India.

Here is the oily peak of Mt. Arunachala: the OM center point of the universe!!!

The shiny polymorphic balls in the lobby of the condo where we are staying in downtown Miami. These balls reflect the world around them: Miami is an odd out-of place place.

Gregoire has taken photography up more and more seriously from what I can tell. Here he is in the lobby, barefoot, trying to photograph the mirrored balls. You can see his photos from this trip on facebook by clicking [url=http://www.facebook.com/people

Evening swim at the 11th floor pool, decorated with this sculptural pair. The forms remind me of man and woman...about to fuck. They are so hard to photograph but I am determined to keep trying.

I meet up with my relatives who live in Miami: cousin LLoyd the dentist.

Lloyd takes us to the golf club where he serves as president. I tell him I cannot leave Florida without seeing a gator, so we go driving on the golf course to find some... Gregoire is driving the back cart. This is a big thrill for him since he doesn't h

We do see crocs. Here you see one behind me and Greg on hole eleven.

Lloyd points out some egrets. He likes to point things out. Actually he is an serious fisherman in the everglades and really does have a keen eye for things in the landscape. My eyes however are highly tuned for being the first to spot a Q train coming.

at the club

Morning view looking down the side of our condo. Water in Biscane bay must be full of oil on account of the docks.

Back to WORK. This night me and Gregoire had to guard the installation from vandals and thieves, so we had to sleep in the tent, which is pretty much like camping outside in the ghetto (not such a bad one but still...)

Showing the makeshift bed in the polar bear tent. I slept fitfully and was concerned about rats.

Thanksgiving in Miami. This was a workday for us. We stopped for an hour to get food at the only place open: Wendy's: and only the drive through was open.

I had to stand in line with the cars. Finally I got to the window and they told me "no walk-ins," but someone let me claim their car as an ally, so I got my double hamburger thanksgiving meal.

The majestic sculptural pairing by the pool...so hard to photograph.

Our install team was much smaller than in Europe but just as effective. Here is Ian, Eddie, and Gregoire.

placing the polar bear tongue.

Ian Rubinstein vacant lot/ cellphone study...

What can I say, Ian could sell water to a drowning man

First part of the install: placing the polar bear tent

Bringing art into the tent has appealingly PT Barnum vibe

lo-tech

We followed a Fruit truck

Can you see the iguana here?

We were driving along the highway, past many many large iguanas. I caught this one running- looks like a dinosaur.

In the first few days before the shipment came, there was little to do besides go to the beach. They pack the sand down on South Beach and it feels like the moon.

We had escaped the cold, we had made it.

Miami is...nightpool

strange hallway of our condo. Easy to imagine high-level crime in this building- it's such an impersonal luxury.

We are in Miami. Walking in a supermarket I saw this guy here.

Ian and Erin in the tent where Pop Ark will be shown. Erin is the son of David who is managing technical aspects of the project here. Erin doesn't speak, but can communicate through signs.

tensile space

The gallery is calling this "The Green Project" All the art inside and outside the tent (there are 5 artists total: Stephanie Lempert, Xavier Cortada, Janet Biggs, Patrick Mimran and me.

front of the Pop Ark hangar

View of the Biscane Bay water from our 41st floor condo.

Standing up here is a peculiar feeling. The air is perfect, the view is of water and condo towers with tennis courts and pools- like architectural models.

Gregoire "the little Parisian boy" finally made it to Miami.

Driving through Miami, we pass this creative building with these Easter Island-style caryatids.

We also notice these colorful expressions.

Warm skies of Miami- from the open road.

Ian and Gregoire made it to Miami

The light quality is so different down here: that bright Carribean white. You can see why so many New Yorkers have made their way to Florida. In NY in the winter, everyone is dressed in black.

Flying over a civilization that consists of many expansive, boxy-low flat roofed buildings....

The guy in front of me has a nice sculpture on is shoulders.

Steely flight

Closing the ASA down to get these apocalyptic shots. Looks like the work of Marc Handelman

leavng the density of New York where we live among many millions

Flying Back home over the dry land of Spain

The drum of the Gorebot, 7 kilobytes of information can be stored on it, as it slowly rolls along its program...

Found time to take a few snapshots of the installation as I was leaving.

Popark was more compact/condensed at the Festival Center of the Steirischer Herbst.

Feeling special with Doris and Mara from the festival. Too bad I didn't find time to take photos with Kira, Roland, Florian, Veronica, and all the other nice people in Graz.

Me and Gregoire got invited for an afternoon at the castle of the Eybesfelds, an aristocratic art collecting family who knew Gregoire when he was young.

The Romantically landscaped part of the grounds. More recently they are making an effort to add aesthetically challenging terrain.

Bertrand Eyebesfeld explains a newish architectural project on his land to Gregoire. Over time, the Wysteria vines will grown into a green wall.

The Polar Bear tent, modified to fit Austrian fire codes so now I can walk in the snout, standing up.

Next door to Pop Ark was an exhibition curated by Reinhard Braun. Here is the wall piece by Lily Van der Stokker which I liked a lot.

Opening of the Steirischer Herbst Festival featured a social sculpture where men and women were divided by this meter wide waterway. The well dressed guests had to get over it (and I forgot to add: food was on one side, wine on the other) by rope swing.

Can you imagine the expose if such an event was state funded in the US? I love Europe.

Vibe of the opening.

Veronica Kaup-Hassler, director of the festival, speaks at the opening.

Front of the festival center, where the Berlin architects from Raumlaborberlin had transformed the facade.

With Avi, and Dov whom I met while attending Rosh Hashanah services at the synagogue in Graz. I was there in 2007 too, so felt close to the community this time. Some members came to see Pop Ark.

Glass dome of the synagogue.

dealing with all the wires of Pop Ark: under the carpet!

Gregoire Paultre helped me supervise the installation. He's a patient guy! Working on the rainbow laptop is Mario who was an excellent technician.

Raumlaborberlin's explosion, again. Has a nice time talking with Jan Liesgang from the architectural collective.

Front desk at the festival center. Made up of parts of found furniture.

A green Austrian of yesteryear.

The Schlossberg: a little mountain in the center of Graz with a Medieval castle on top, a giant Clocktower on the slope and a Nazi cave inside.

Looking down at Gregoire and Jan as we descend from the Schlossberg.

The famous Kunsthaus in Graz, which becomes a big amorphous animated screen at night.

Walking up through the Nazi cave.

The wild Mur river.

At our home this time in Graz: the Pensione Traude which greeted us with this warm welcome sign every morning and night.

back to the installation....

Roland up on the ladder.

About to enter the metalic eagle to fly off to Graz, Austria.

Italian restaurant after a pretty long day. A lot of Italians came to Frankfurt for the economic miracle in the 1950's, 60's, 70s'. But not Til here, he's from Berlin, actually native of the east; the GDR. Here about to eat his arugula salad.

Sascha discusses aural concepts with part of the sound crew at the Mousonturn

Alex strutting his stuff in the dressing room. Alex, NIki, Sascha, and Vettka just got back from a 2 week trip to the Soviet Union. I think that during that time, Alex was inspired by the example of Putin and was practicing Judo.

Painting by Bini

Bini herself, acting like herself

Serjoscha warming up, which means treating all of us to the ebb and flow of his brain waves at the moment that they turn electrical signal into language. Well maybe all that minues the brain wave part.

Vettka at her station, back in commanding position. She knows that that color of green compliments her naturally red hair.

Space Balls

The set pretty much set up with Sascha and Anne Schultz in the foreground.

Fixing the chocolate grinder, kind of like fixing a car.

Sascha Sulimma- andco musician, etc.

All of our lo tech instruments

Box of German screws

Big tech team made the install easy

Me and Sascha

view of Frankfurt from the window of the artist residence.

Here is one of the artist apartments at the Mousonturn theatre where we are playing and staying.

Til, Anne, Sascha, and Me go out to eat some real German food on the first night in Frankfurt.

Funny thing on the train ride to Frankfurt. Sitting in my compartment was this guy who I thought might be a Neo Nazi because of the way he was dressed and the shaved head. He had with him a big bag and a wooden box which I thought might have bombs in it.

He was bringing these wabbits from a farm somewhere else in Germany to his hometown somewhere else. When these wabbis got very big, he would eat them for food, which seems reasonable if you eat meat, which I do.

The wabbits gave me an opportunity to take a picture of this guy that I thought was a Neo Nazi. But he seemed in the end to be a nice fellow who really liked animals. Besides the wabbits, he had an anaconda, a tarantula, and anther animal that he could

rain, airplane

enbarking upon Easyjet to the next destination. Funny thing: during this trip I have not noticed a single other American and this flight was somehow especially eurocentric.

Dutch Master exhibition in Schipol airport. Very well done, creating a strange moment of tradition/contemplation in the "liminal" space of Schipol.