Bottle disposal

Went to M’s (that’s M no. 3) opening at Autocenter. The gallery is above a Lidl in Friedrichshain and for what I have come to expect from a non commercial space, it’s huge. M said that one of the guys who runs it also runs a local bar and he puts all his profits into running the gallery.

The large corridor and balcony outside the exhibition area were good for hanging around. There were two guys serving beer from a deli style counter, complete with glass front. One of them, a skinny thirty something, had a thin moustache and a short curly mullet.
“Thank you”, I said when he handed me two bottles of beer.
“Your welcome”, he laughed.
On reflection he was probably laughing because I had paid him the required €5 for the two bottles of beer. They were Becks beers.

Becks beer is the most popular beer at openings in Berlin. It is a brand of the brewery Brauerei Beck & Co which is based in the north German city of Bremen. Becks are former sponsors of Becks Futures, the Contemporary Art Prize organised by the ICA which ran from 2000 until 2006 in the UK. Before Beck’s Futures, Beck's had sponsored several exhibitions of contemporary art in Britain by providing free beer.

Some openings start and end much later than the usual UK gallery schedule. This often cuts out an en-masse trip to the local bar or pub. It also means the gallery has to have a duel function on opening night, as both as exhibition space and party room. I find that the lighting conditions are not often conducive to both.

The following night I met M(no.4) at the opening of a group show he was in at 'The Forgotten Bar Project' in Kreuzberg. This show was the last in a series of one day exhibitions that had been running at the bar since July. The space was long thin corridor made up of two parts, these being divided by three steps up to the second half at the back. The bar took up one half of the front space. Being a bar, there was a broad selection of bottled beers for €2.50 each. Everyone sat outside and the majority of the clientele were the artists in the show and their friends. The bar owner looked exhausted.

Bier Halle on Gordon Street in Glasgow’s city centre is a Pizza restaurant. The direct translation of Bier Halle from German to English is Beer Hall. On the one occasion I was there, Bier Halle had run out of most of the beers listed on it's extensive drinks menu. The pizza was very popular and that night they were offering two pizza’s for the price of one. I was dining alone. The Bier Halle’s manager, an irregularly pierced, bald Glaswegian man, and I argued. This was because I attempted to give my second pizza to a complete stranger who had just sat down across from me in the restaurant.

I met a Greek Artist who said he could not sleep the night before as he had been so inspired by the sight of M’s show at Autocenter. When I told him I was doing a residency in Berlin he said:
“At the Bethanien?”. This is a common question.

The Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, runs an established International Studio Programme from it’s premises in Kreuzberg. Funding for the residencies is provided by a number of International organisations who support artists from Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Canada, Spain, Hungary and Belgium. There are currently no British or Irish based organisations working with the Bethanien.