Fudagraphy Blogography

Kotbusser Tor, Berlin, Germany

Kotbusser Tor, Berlin, Germany

Building, Berlin, Germany

Kyo Hashimoto, Berlin, Germany

Gallery Worker, Berlin, Germany

Chagwon Lee, Negatives Made with Paint!

Piper and Joe, Berlin, Germany

"Canada Kills?"

A maraton of people in tights

Joel working on an installation for artist (Insert name Here)

Joel Thompson at work

Joel Thompson at work

Alexander Platz, Berlin, Germany

Grave of Bertolt Brecht and the pair of panties behind it, Berlin, Germany

Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin, Germany

My Neighborhood, Berlin, Germany

Joel Thompson (we RAN into him randomly), Berlin, Germany

Gravestone, Berlin, Germany

Firekid, Berlin, Germany

Photos By Joe, Layout and story by Piper

Photos By Joe, Layout and story by Piper

Joe And Piper in the Window, Berlin, Germany

Joel Gibb (Singer of The Hidden Cameras), Berlin, Germany

I will forever find it interesting what the world defines as "work". My father definitely thinks that if you aren’t being paid for it - then it isn't work. (Even though he is the first to complain that cutting the grass and doing the landscaping is SOoooo much work). I was recently watching the show Madmen and one of the characters who has the job of customer relations is told by his cognac holding father "How is what you do a job, you go out for Lunch, go to parties and show people around town - how is that work?!" I am in Berlin at the moment, and working. I have a few paid commissions, but mostly I see it my quest to explore local publications, newspapers and art galleries to see what the Berlin art scene is all about (mostly the photography coming out of here). My beloved Toronto is usually a good year (that is being generous) behind New York, which is probably 6 months behind Berlin - and the conclusion I have come to is thus far, there isn't much going on that is very radical - no one is re-inventing the photo.

Joel Gibb (Singer of The Hidden Cameras), Berlin, Germany

Sure, there are lots of photographers taking photos of naked women (Female nudity is HUGE in German editorial fashion which is liberating but not exactly forward thinking) in fields with the golden morning light coming down on them with low contrast and low saturated colors, gritty Vice Magazine type photos of celebrities with crappy lighting, smoking cigarettes or standing on their heads in bathrooms. Often it seems to come down to the same old thing as Susan Sontag said over thirty years ago

Joel Gibb (Singer of The Hidden Cameras), Berlin, Germany

"Photography, like pop art, reassures viewers that art isn't hard; it seems to be more about subjects than about art". Digital photography has turned everyone into photographers and for the first time in a long time people are starting to defend photography as an art again. How can something just about anyone can do be art; shouldn't it be exclusive to those crazy haired, awkward conversation having, moody as hell groups known as artists? The raw, unplanned Terri Richardson photo shoot is still as stubbornly popular as ever. Art is reactionary and photographers who have sought to rebel against the over photo shopped glossy Maxim women are turning the tide in favor simplicity, low production, and even a camp sensibility that is popular at the moment.

Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin, Germany

Polaroids (which are officially dead but really just flirting with extinction) are going out with a sudden explosion of photographers who have rediscovered them as the daguerreotypes of the modern era. They are photos as objects, without production and true spontaneous art.

Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin, Germany

What I find even more interesting is the deconstructionist aspect to photos which is popping up more and more. Photos are being shown with graphic design elements already applied to them, as if they are separate from the world of "The Golden Ratio" photos. What this means of course is that photographers who wish to be seen as eclectic and not present a single coherent photographic esthetic basically show editors and publications the photos in a context which is easy for them to understand.

DJ Chopstick (baalsaal), Berlin, Germany

As always, as with EVERY photographer since the creation of photography has stated - where do I fit in. I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like the Henri Cartier Bresson composing elegant landscapes where you wait for the subject to act out the scene. At other times I wish I was Avedon with chained elephants and glorious models being glamorous in the most absurd of situations.

DJ Chopstick (baalsaal), Berlin, Germany

Basically, when editors and fashion agents and people ask me about what "Type of Photography" I do, it really depends on the day. I shoot for the subject - and Berlin being the glorious city of contradictions, Urban but with Trees, gritty but safe, experimental but within boundaries, it’s kind of liberating to do whatever the hell I want to. Is that work? Who cares.

Piper and Nyssa (Singer of The Modern Superstitions) both wearing Evan Biddell, Toronto, Canada

Drinking on the roof (Not Me - some other dorks), Berlin, Germany

Rain Sucks, Berlin, Germany

Every travel guide or website on Berlin usually starts with the famous quote “Berlin is sexy, but poor” – it is the advertising slogan for the city. If you come to this wonderful city you are greeted with a sprawling city complete with graffiti, row upon row of prefab communist apartment complexes, and beautiful green space. The city itself is literally an open canvas with every surface sprayed with paint, signed with marker or scratched with a knife. Nearly 1/3 of Berlin is green space with every single street lined with trees. The contrast between the two images is of course very confusing and you are left with something other than a city. I suppose if suburbia city planning actually worked as a city layout it would look something like Berlin – wide open spaces, safe streets where you can walk or bike freely at night, and the sense of calm that the many canals and open water seem to give people that live around them. Do I need to explain why water is calming? No.

Living under Capitalism, Berlin, Germany

I don’t understand how it works really – but in a world where we all seem to be trying to pick up the pieces Berlin has had a head start on everyone. This is of course the world as seen through a privileged, middle class white boy so anyone who has been to a third world country or actually knows how the world works are welcome to slap some sense into me. Or just slap me around a little – I was reading about dominatrix clubs and Berlin and that sounds kind of fun – as long as they use Nerf whips.

Letter Museum, Berlin, Germany

Why the hell is this city the supposed center of the art scene in the world right now? I have NO answer – though I have some guesses. People in this city socialize like they have more important things than work in the morning where you check Face book between e-mails. There is little work, but lots of recreation for those who need a distraction. Can you imagine a city where being unemployed does not necessarily mean you are a loser? It is this chill which I propose leads to the type of art I am seeing come out of this city. Nobody expects anything out of Berlin; it’s a city where you need no monuments or memorials (though there are plenty) to know its role in recent history. You are left with a climate where experimentation is welcomed, where style isn’t so much a uniform or a statement of your character, but mood. Berlin is reclaiming its role as a city that is welcoming to artists, to experimentation to work and play.

Letter Museum, Berlin, Germany

I ran into a rather portly gentleman wearing blue overalls, and I asked him who there are so many people who wear blue overalls in this city and he told me “We are the working class”. Then we lifted up his finished pint with a smile, “We are working class heroes”. I am not suggesting that misery and pain don’t ever surface or that Berlin is some sort of a Utopia – but it is a city where it is very easy to be human and socialize. The more I live in Toronto, the more autistic I feel; meaning I seem to lose the ability to communicate. The hive mentality to resist being a number or conformist to the population breeds its own art, but apparently so does a society where living life does not necessarily mean hating it.

Museum of things, Berlin, Germany

Or maybe it is the fact that you can still smoke in bars. What is an artist without a fag hanging out of their lips as they stare down their fifth pint in a grungy bar? Also booze is cheap – about half the price of most places that I have visited in Europe. By the way Absinth tastes like licorice, is cheap in Berlin and sadly doesn’t make you hallucinate. I looked it up and Absinth probably used to make people hallucinate because it was cheap and likely full of chemicals from manufacturers who figured their clients wouldn’t live long enough to file a complaint.

Rain, Berlin, Germany

I came here as a sort of artists retreat – to find some direction and see how the city that breeds artists does it. This quest is very cliché with people flocking to this city in numbers where it’s getting hard to find people in this city who are FROM this city. I have had no revelations, just reaffirmations that it is important to meet new people, see what other people are doing and be active in a community you wish to be noticed and to thrive in. Also, I feel like I want to start throwing something at something else and hanging it on a wall.

No Idea, Berlin, Germany

A few museums which I found very interesting were the “Museum of letters” or the Museum of Things”. These are two very unconventional museums; the first being a collection of storefront signs thrown about in a storage space, the second being a very organized, collection of anything that you can call a thing in a type of cabinet categorizing which would make any scientist jump out a window. Basically, if you are a crap collector like me it gives you hope that someday someone will think all of your random garbage is worthy of a museum and charge admission to it. I can’t wait for my “Pez pavilion” or “Room of Severed Gumby Heads” to mentioned in a guidebook – because frankly I feel like my parents don’t appreciate the useless crap I have piled up in boxes in their place.

I don't know his name but I suspect he calls himself Raven, Berlin, Germany

Red, Berlin, Germany

Museum of Things, Dublin, Ireland

Museum of Things, Berlin, Germany

Museum of Things, Berlin, Germany

Museum of Things, Berlin, Germany

Museum of Things, Berlin, Germany

Museum of Things, Berlin, Germany

Museum of Things, Berlin, Germany

Nazi NickNacks, Museum of Things, Berlin, Germany

"Good Ol fashion Racism" Museum of Things, Berlin, Germany

"Gerbal on Wheels", Museum of Things, Berlin, Germany

Gum stuck to Berlin Wall, Berlin, Germany

Cemetary, Berlin, Germany

Damaged Headstones in Cemetary, Berlin, Germany

Outside the Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin, Germany

Statue in Cemetary, Berlin, Germany

Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin, Germany

Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin, Germany

Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin, Germany

Piper and Joe?, Berlin, Germany

Joe by Piper, Berlin, Germany

Tourists and the Wall, Berlin, Germany

Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, Germany

The Brothers Grimm, Berlin, Germany

Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, Germany

Drug Deal / Old couple walking, Berlin, Germany

Piper at a bar, Berlin, Germany

Statues in Cemetary, Berlin, Germany

Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin, Germany

Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin, Germany

Piper in Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin, Germany

Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin, Germany

Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin, Germany

Artist in Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin, Germany

Hitler died in this parking lot, Berlin, Germany

Hitler is now that tree, Germany

Potsdamer Platz, Germany

Building? Duh, Berlin Germany

Statue is Cemetary, Berlin Germany

Dude in a truck, Berlin, Germany

People on the Bus, Berlin Germany

Reading in a truck, Berlin, Germany