June 3, 2008 Berlin to Mulhouse

Drive to Frankfurt to get a feel of the galleries, and then drive to Mulhouse, France. Listen to a techno radio station, perfect for driving the autobahn

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Can’t find the hotel. I thought Mulhouse would be a sleepy little town. They had a shipping dock with cranes. Rough neighborhoods with dock workers. About the size of Denver. I drive around for a while and at one point drive down a street that dead-ended at the police station. Two policemen were standing there so I asked for direction to the hotel. They say follow them. We pass another police car driving with lights and siren blaring. Then an ambulance parked with its lights on. The police car I was following pulls up behind the ambulance. I keep thinking that they are going to be needed for something more important than escorting me. They roll down their window to say follow us. We wind all over for 15 minutes. Finally arriving. Get there too late to check in, can’t even get in the building. Start to get ready to sleep in car.

I really need to pee so I drove to the train station. Pass the police car. I’m sure they wondered why I didn’t stay at the hotel. The train station was closed. Drove back to the hotel. Open my trunk and grab my contact case. A man is three stories above on the balcony and I am wondering how I was going to be able to pee in a water bottle. Two men walk past Lois Di Falco a gallery owner in Milan and one of his artists. Lois sensed something was wrong and I told him of my dilemma. He lets me into the hotel so I could use the lobby bathroom, he knew the code to the door. There isn’t a lobby bathroom. He’s suggesting I sleep in the lobby on the couch. Then another gallery owner and his entourage walk in. Lois tells him my dilemma. He walks over to a small safe and punches in the combination. Pulls out some envelopes and says Mr. Smith? Hands me an envelope with my name on it. My first thought is I came too late for the preview that I now have an invite to. Probably even better, it contained my room key. He had called the hotel earlier letting them know he would be late. So they had given him the code to the door and safe. Later I came down to get my suitcase. Locked outside in the same dilemma I had was Benito Padilla gallery owner of Imaginart and two coworkers from Barcelona. I let him in. he calls the hotel emergency number. They come down and pull his key from the safe.

June 2, 2008 Berlin

Do the walking tour of the wall, Holocaust memorial, checkpoint Charlie etc. Go to Potsdam and then northeast Berlin, where the American artists live.


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June 1, 2008 Berlin

Law closes all of the galleries and other non-essential businesses on Sundays. I cover the Charlottenburg and zoo areas. I go to an opening at the Georg-Kolbe Museum to meet an artist friend from artreview.com then search the zoo area for backup galleries. This neighborhood is the cleanest part of Berlin I've seen so far. Berlin has the worst graffiti problem I've seen anywhere. My opinion is that celebrating an artist like Banksy only encourages it.

May 31, 2008 Berlin

The free buffet in the morning was worth it though. It had everything you could even imagine for breakfast. Every kind of meat, fruit, cereal, yogurt, bakery, cheese, juice etc. The chef kept coming out to stock it. She was tall dressed all in white. Looking like across between a Kazak, nurse, Scandinavian, military commander. With a military kind of hat and boots. With a very serious attitude.  I ask about keeping my car there and taking the mass transit into Berlin. The hotel clerk warns me that in an hour there will be thousands of bikes showing up for some exhibition. That was why the rate was so high.  

Find the booked hotel/hostel Inn Berlin. The owner gives me the rundown on where the galleries are. I set out looking for Loop gallery that I talked to at the Miami and Chicago fairs.  Can’t find it so I go to the two gallery streets the hotel owner pointed out in the mitte (central) neighborhood.  The first gallery on the street is Galerie Leo.Coppi.  It looks like a perfect fit. The Coppi partner is in agreement that it is a good match.  The Leo partner was out of town until Monday. We agree that I will look at the other galleries just to be sure. I return before she closes to confirm that her gallery is the right one.

May 30, 2008 Amsterdam to Berlin

While writing this I realize that I fly out in an hour.  I had just woken up with plans to hit Buckingham Palace and Albemarle and other galleries.  So I head for the airport fully rested for the flight to Amsterdam then six hour drive to Berlin. By coincidence my car rental is for noon. My original arrival time.  I changed it to ensure getting to Berlin by 8:00 since the hotel reception closes then.  I would have had to get up at 4:00am and been very tired driving into Berlin which would be dangerous.  It was dangerous anyway.  The autobahn doesn’t really have a speed limit. Your choices are the right lane with the trucks, which freaks them out since they can’t pass you. The middle lane, with the cars from both other lanes weaving into your lane constantly. The left lane, which I got up to 200km then having to move out of the way of the “Audi division of NASCAR” suddenly showing up in your rearview mirror.

At Midnight I give up getting to the pre-booked hotel.  I am so tired I just get off the autobahn at the first bed logo highway sign. I knew I was close to Berlin. It turned out I was on the South West corner of Berlin. I see a sign stating hotel 11:00-14:00 euros I thought. I am so tired I think the driveway is at the sign. While turning in I hit the curb. It is on a walkway. I drive around the street corner to find the hotel. With a Burger King next door. Yuck! It turned out being 70 euros. The sign was times for an event. Hotel Grunewald is the name and I wonder if this is going to be a National Lampoon trip

Thursday May 29, 2008 London

Find Max Wigman’s gallery. It is upstairs and the only sign of it is a buzzer at a doorway. I get buzzed in thinking that maybe Max himself is there and I can see if he remembered me from Miami. I walk up the flight of stairs. Arriving to the first floor there is a gallery space with art on the walls. Nothing else. No desk or gallerinas or even an office or doorway to anywhere. If you had a question about the artwork or wanted to buy something, tuff. You would have to walk down to the buzzer and talk to the hidden gallerina there. Leaving the gallery space, the next floor up is roped off. Your only option is to go back down.

Go through Sotheby’s galleries. Meet a Russian? collector interested in art with weapons. Have high tea in their café. They use the café as an extension to their offices. They seemed to conduct more business there than in their offices. One man, who I’ve seen in the media, but don’t know who he is, kept looking at me like he wondered who I was. Or who let this “scrub” in. I’ll never know which. See a painting about 15 feet high by 20.

Highgate Fine Art will take me if they can work out their lease. They are up on the high part of London and have been open 35 years. I think hey have accumulated too many artists for the space he currently has though, so I doubt I'll do it. The new building owner is trying to raise his rent 56%.

Wednesday May 28, 2008 London

Stumbled into a temporary gallery opened and run by a dealer for a month just to pump up an artist’s CV.  Also a vanity gallery on Cork Street open for just one week by three artists for the rent of about $4000. There was also one I found in Berlin ran by eight artists open permanently. All three looked and functioned just like any other gallery.

Stop into Maddox Arts a newer gallery run by Edward Cutler. See Jack again at Timothy Taylor Gallery and send him the Miami email.  He was at either Miami or Chicago and a very nice guy.

All day galleries in west end of London.

Go to Alan’s opening at Medici.