Next concert...

Ok, our next concert... (and yes, we also have a logo now!)... :)

Concert: Saturday, 28. July 2007, 21.00PM
emiter
Polish electronic music
Emiter presents his new album "sinus" in Galerie ZERO
and later...
emiter vs. The Curators
The Curators - Patrick Classen (guitar), Anna Krenz (pink e-guitar) and Jacek Slaski (keyboards, e-violin, theremin, vocal)
Entrance: 3 Euro
More about Emiter at ZERO

More about The Curators
Concert at Galerie ZERO

Our debut!

Yes, The Curators had theit debut concert! On 20.07.07 we played in Yorck Records in Yorckstrasse 71 Berlin Kreuzberg. First another band played, Los Waldos - Oli and Ralf. Actually it was Oli who found our CD cool and invited us to play with them. for Los Waldos it was also a debut. Yorck Records is one of the oldest records shop in Berlin. In July 2007 they celebrate their 30th anniversary. The shop looks like it didn't change for the last 30 years. The atmosphere was amazing. All these records, CDs, papers, beer bottles lying around... amazing! As we arrived I was terrified to see some of the people we know, some real professional musicians like Wolfgang Seidel (first drummer of Ton Steine Scherben) or Floating di Morel (my idols). Oh, I thought it will be such a shame to play in front of them... however I was not nervous. Jacek and Patrick were really nervous. We had some beers, watched Los Walods play and we chilled, waiting for our turn. I had some vodka shots (from the bottle od Żołądkowa, which I brought in my bag) and all was fine. Then... we set our equipment up - keybords, guitars, e-violin and theremin. and then we did it! We played. And they didn't throw us out, they didn't hush us or threw tomatoes. They liked it! Oh, that was amazing! And the most important thing was that WE liked it. We like to play. After the concert some people came to us and said that it was great. oh, I really didn;t expect that. Guenther, the owner of Yorck Records, said that he had heard everything, a lot of shit, but he liked our music. That means we will continue. Ha! It was really fun. Unfortunately we don't have any photos... shit! I forgot!
I have only photos of Los Waldos, I put some so you can at least have some impression about the place.

After the show we went to th eopening of Planet Prozess - StreetArt exhibition in Cuvrystrasse, but I was already so drunk, that I don't remember anything. Anyway, it was a lovely evening!

The Visitation

Our exhibitions in Gallery ZERO are different. As much as we change the shows the public usually is similar. Until... Until th eopening of the exhibition of Arek Ruchomski. It was on June 30th. At 6pm a bus arrived with 45 people - residents of Janowiec, a small town somewhere in Poland (I have no idea where is Janowiec). The tour was organised by Arek's mother. They all left Janowiec at 2am, arrived in Berlin at 11am and took a sight-seeing tour till 6pm. As this big bus stopped in front of our gallery I thought this is not happening. But since the opening of the exhibition was at 8pm, we didn't know what to do. We told them to take a tour and come back at 8pm, but they were tired (older people and children were in majority) so they waited till 9pm till we thouhgh, ok, let them in. Arek's mom brought self-baked cakes. We put it on our beautiful plate (stolen in Polish embassy once) with golden Polish Eagle symbol (special pottery made only for embassies). We were a bit ashamed to serve wine in plastic cups, but hey, this is Berlin! In the beginning I made a short speach and then the lady from cultural centre in Janowiec took over.

After her there was a speach and congratulations from a man from the townhall in Janowiec (in official suit and obligatory red tie).

Then, as the exhibition was officially open, everybody was drinking. Not really looking at Arek's art, most of people didn't like it, but that was not the point. The point was that they came all the way down to support their artist, they were really proud. Arek was born in Janowiec, now he lives in Zielona Góra. at some point everybody gathered inside the gallery (my God, 45 people on 20 square meters!) for a memory photo. Then... the song began... they all sang "Happy Birthday" to Arek. and then another song, and another... and another. Polish people love to sing. Yes, me too, I admit.

Around 9pm they all went to the bus and left back to Janowiec. All in all it was an amazing evening. I have never experienced something like that. Gallery ZERO either, Berlin either. Those of you who weren't there - you missed something really wild!

Push Up in Volksbuehne

On June 21st I took part in „1. Internationale Push-Art Berlin“ (IPAB) in Volksbuehne. It was a one night event, an exhibition of various artists. Each artist was chosen by a "pate" - a person from theatre or literature scene. My patron was Tanja Dückers. Funny event. We all exhibited in a big constructed theatre stage. And almost the Curators had a show in Roter Salon, almost. It was just too late when I asked... anyway!

Poetry

I was invited to show my movies at the Poesiefestival in Kulturbraeueri. The whole evening was organised by Alexander Gumz and was called: "Polish Husbands and Wifes – Lyrik aus dem polnischen Berlin" (ha!). I was supposed to show some videos. Earlier on I realised that I don't have too many videos which could fit in. So I did 2 new videos.

"Unterwegs"/"On the road" is a short video taken as one shot as we drove with Centrala Rybna (Karpiu and Śledziu) around Berlin. This dialog is extremely showing german-polish relations. Funny.


The other movie is called "Dornroeschen" = "Sleeping Beauty". The story is based on Brother Grimms' fairytale. However the images come from this brothel which we visited some years ago, in Schlesissche Strasse. Yes, yes, there used to ba a ... Club Inflagranti... hard core. We visited it just before the whole house was refurbished. It was amazing! Everything was just left there, like people would run away instantly. Old cigarettes, full ashtrays, dried out drinks, rotten sandwiches... We found also 2 boxes full of (full) beer, which was already 1 year expired. That means this place was abandoned ca. 2 years ago... Whatever. The only thing I regret is that we didn't take these beautiful air-brush paintings of some porno scenes... too late. It all happened in 2003 anyway.


The polish poetry evening itself was really nice, I met Krzysztof Niewrzeda who writes cool poems. I am not the biggest fan of poetry, but I like his works. In the end we all got drunk with cheap wine. That is what I call poetry.

Memories...

Since I was soooo busy recently I didn't have energy and time, somehow, to continue writing in my blog. A blog requires really a bit of consequent work. There we go! I make some update now... looking back... What was there? I shall start with our Anniversary. Ok, it was long time ago, but I have some funny photos. 4th Anniversary of Gallery ZERO. We celebrated on May 5th 2007. Of course we had a group show in ZERO with all works which we have in our collection. It was also nice to see some friends - actually that is important for us, I mean when we see that someone cares, that someone is interested in what we do, that is really a lot. Sometimes I think, why do we have the gallery? Who cares? Nobody. Nobody ever said, that it's cool that we do it, that we persevere, that through our gallery many projects happened, people meet, do things together. For me it is really important - that people meet here and take something with. But as I said, it is so rarely that someone says: cool, keep going, you do a great job. Very rarely. Of course maybe the reason is that artists... well, artists with "A" = Artists, alyways/often think only about their art. They talk about it all th etime and do not really listen to others. Of course not everybody is like that, but in my career as a gallery owner, I have noticed that. Again, not every artist is like that! I am not generalising! So that's why our anniversary was so nice, because it was a celebration of our place mostly so we coul dget (at least) some feedback. And my parents suddenly came from Poland to celebrate with us, girls from BWA Galleries from Wroclaw were there, Centrala Rybna as well!
On that night we had also some events:
A reading by Johanna Rubinroth: “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend”:


"Poetry Spam" reading by me, Anna Krenz & Anna Noonan (my Second Life avatar):


And a concert by Izumi Ose


Ah, and here some impressions... late night impressions...


My parents, Jacek and me!


My late night solo pink guitar show...


Centrala Rybna singing Happy Birthday for Gallery ZERO!

Of course the question is, if we continue to run the gallery. I guess surely one more year. And then we will see what happens.