Showing posts with label Berlin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Berlin. Show all posts

Monday, March 27, 2017

One-million-dollar coin stolen from Berlin museum

Photo Credit: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Mettelsiefen
Deutsche Welle
Through a spectacular heist, a precious and extremely heavy coin has been stolen from Berlin's Bode Museum. A unique coin was stolen from the Bode Museum in Berlin early Monday morning, at around 3:30 a.m., as stated in a tweet by Berlin's police:

The face value of the coin is one million dollars, but its market value is estimated at four million dollars. Called the "Big Maple Leaf," the piece weighs 100 kilograms (220 pounds). Issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007, like all Canadian coins, it features the portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. It has a diameter of 53 centimeters (21 inches) and is three centimeters thick. The piece has also entered the Guinness Book of Records for its unsurpassed purity of 999.99/1000 gold. On show at the Bode Museum since 2010, it is part of the Münzkabinett collection, Berlin's most important archive of coinage, which includes more than 540,000 objects altogether. The thieves are believed to have broken into the building located on Berlin's famous Museum Island by setting up a ladder from the adjacent tram tracks. The rail service was interrupted when the ladder was found. Investigators have not revealed how the burglars managed to avoid setting off alarms and leave the museum unnoticed while carrying the heavy piece. eg/kbm (dpa, AFP) DW

Sunday, May 22, 2016

Isa Genzken

Isa Genzken: Nofretete, 2014
Photo Credit: happyfamousartists.com 
        
at Martin-Gropius-Bau Photo Madame

Isa Genzken: Make Yourself Pretty!

Isa Genzken is one of Germany’s most remarkable artists. Her work has its roots in the medium of sculpture and is characterized by a constantly evolving visual language and the casual use of media. The retrospective offers a framework for Genzken’s unorthodox vision of the world that surrounds us. The exhibition covers topics such as modernity, the human body, portraiture, urban culture and architecture.

“I always wanted to have the courage to do totally crazy, impossible and off-key things.” Isa Genzken, 1994

Isa Genzken (*1948) is one of the most remarkable and radical artists of our time. She has earned international renown with her profound work. Her diverse works represent one of the most important contemporary stances of our time. Her oeuvres are now comprehensively on show in Berlin for the first time. The exhibition presents the broad spectrum of Genzken’s work, from her early films, drawings, ellipsoids and concrete sculptures to complex narrative collages and everyday items integrated into montages. The presentation highlights topics such as modernity, the human body, portraits, city culture and architecture.

As an artist, Isa Genzken is prepared to risk it all in her quest for artistic regeneration. In her radical manner she develops diverse works, which are concerned with the topic of beauty in the sense of the essential and absolute.

Based on the category of sculpture, her work distinguishes itself through constantly further developing imagery and unlimited use of media and materials. In the 1970s, she produced sculptures designed on the computer, and thereby referred back to American minimalism and conceptual art. In the long, elegantly slender wooden sculptures, so-called ellipsoids and hyperbolos, one radical step followed another: sculptures made from bare plaster or concrete, collage books, complex narrative assemblages of industrially produced materials and everyday items, various film formats, photography, paintings, architectural models and outdoor sculptures.

Her art is playful and sometimes brightly-coloured but anything other than superficial. With her feel for materials and their arrangements she creates pieces that make you think. Her power of innovation and her ideas are rich in autobiographical elements and subtle comments on society, and they serve as a point of reference and source of inspiration for generations of artists.

She describes her way of working with two quotes: “I like to put things together that were previously unconnected. This connection is like a handshake between people.” And: “I love being daring.”

Co-organiser
The exhibition was developed in cooperation with the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and has been curated by Beatrix Ruf and Martijn van Nieuwenhuyzen. 
Martin-Gropius-Bau
Niederkirchner Straße 7
10963 Berlin
Germany