Sexy Back

Left: Collector Axel Haubrock with dealer and Gallery Weekend manager Michael Neff. Right: Curator Daniela Palazzoli, Isabella Bortolozzi, and artist Danh Vo. (All photos: Saskia Draxler)

Berlin’s mayor, Klaus Wowereit, has described his city as “poor but sexy.” Cheap, safe, and social, Berlin offers haven to all kinds of creative freelancers. Although it may be laid-back, however, it is not particularly cosmopolitan. Thus the annual Berlin Gallery Weekend, initiated in 2005 by a number of established Berlin galleries as an attempt to glamorize and internationalize the local art world, has in the past seemed more hopeful than realistic.

This year’s edition opened last Thursday with a VIP tour of the private homes of select dealers. Collectors and journalists were driven through Berlin’s thin traffic in black Audi limousines. What we saw, basically, was a variety of interior-decorating styles. Guido Baudach’s place, for example, had a vintage, flea-market look, while Markus Lüttgen and Thomas Flessenkemper’s apartment high up in one of the Soviet-style towers at Straussberger Platz—where a new showroom for Axel and Barbara Haubrock’s collection and the new Texte Zur Kunst office have recently opened—had a slicker aesthetic. The latter’s interiors were designed by architect Etienne Descloux, who has been hired by many dealers (to design both their homes and galleries), including Giti Nourbakhsch, Isabella Bortolozzi, and Jörg Johnen. Lüttgen pointed out his living-room window to the opposite tower, where David Adjaye is renovating collectors Gaby and Wilhelm Schürmann’s apartment and where Adamski Gallery is located. Straussberger Platz, it seems, is shaping up as something of a hot spot. Many of the hosts seemed a bit reserved (some might say “German”), except for Baudach, whose house has a natural openness and has probably seen many jovial get-togethers.

In the evening, the caravan moved on to the new five-star Hotel de Rome for Gallery Weekend’s opening reception, sponsored by Axa Art. The atmosphere was professional yet stylish. Lively conversations went on between collectors—among them the Haubrocks, Kasia and Pawel Prokesz, and August von Joest—and dealers. “Independent collectors” were also present, an Internet-based organization formed by Wilhelm Schürmann and others who think that not only artists but also collectors have to group together to strengthen their position vis-à-vis the multiheaded monster called the art market.

Left: Artist Carroll Dunham. Right: Collectors Kasia and Pawel Prokesz with dealer Giti Nourbakhsch.

Many of us reconvened at 1 PM the next day for a Felliniesque event: the laying of the cornerstone for an avant-garde condo building at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, designed by architect Roger Bundschuh in cooperation with artist Cosima von Bonin, that will be inhabited mostly by art-world players like Munich collector Peter Wiese and Chinese artist Zhao Gang. Sunglasses were needed, perhaps because, in the bright sunlight, the guests’ morning-after faces looked just a bit too real.

Some of the openings that night were sparsely attended, leading us to wonder whether the whole event was a bit overambitious, given the actual size of the local audience. Bortolozzi had her hip, youngish crowd, while the “serious” people went to David Claerbout’s brilliant show at Galerie Johnen. Carlier Gebauer was exhibiting many Erik Schmidt paintings in their giant new gallery in Markgrafenstrasse. It seemed, however, to be just a regular night of openings—except, of course, for the black limos. Eigen + Art, which was opening a Carsten Nicolai exhibition, was full as usual, as was Contemporary Fine Arts, exhibiting work by Tal R. Both galleries held their dinners, which were somewhat rowdy affairs, at Clärchens Ballhaus, an old GDR dancehall that has been turned into a kind of touristy pizza place. Everybody was there: Gerd Harry Lybke’s male artists (Martin Eder, Jörg Herold, et al.) made a powerful impression, while August von Joest told anecdotes about his first Neo Rauch purchases and about the neighborhood complaints regarding the penthouse swimming pool he shares with Corinna Hoffman.

Left: Artist Erik Schmidt. Right: Artist Kirsten Ortwed with dealer Aurel Scheibler.

Saturday had two events titled “The Opening” by British artist Merlin Carpenter, who is represented by my partner, Christian Nagel. The first took place at the Mercedes headquarters—the largest auto showroom in the world—where Carpenter made guests wait about an hour until he finally drove by in his own polished 1980s Mercedes. Leaning out the open window, he painted four white hanging canvases with a comically oversize brush, leaving only a few hasty marks. A similar performance took place two hours later at the Cornershop, a clothing store in Mitte. Both were attended by what Diedrich Diederichsen once called “hipster intellectuals”—some Texte zur Kunst writers, Volksbühne music booker Christoph Gurk, curator and Frieze editor Jörg Heiser, Diederichsen himself, and artists Michael Beutler, Sarah Staton, and Josephine Pryde, all of whom mixed amicably with Gallery Weekend VIPs like Jeane Freifrau von Oppenheim and her friend Ingeborg Baronin von Maltzahn. Cay Sophie Rabinowitz, who had just left her position as Art Basel codirector, made a surprise appearance.

The weekend’s main event was meant to be Saturday’s grand gala dinner at the Berlin Convention Center. Following Thursday’s luxurious kickoff at the Hotel du Rome, however, the gathering seemed anticlimactic. The party just never took off. Gregorio Napoleone was dying for a hamburger and begged his gorgeous wife, Valeria, a ravenous art collector, to leave early. Freda and Izak Uziyel, opting for kindness, made no comment. Christian Boros seemed still to be riding high on the opening of his collection’s showroom during the Berlin Biennial. Still, everybody tried to be as cheerful and entertaining as possible, toasting to Berlin’s great future—a future that we have been anticipating for more than a decade. But if you really want “sexy,” better drinks and cozier spaces would do the trick.

—Saskia Draxler

From Bank to Five-Star Hotel - The History of Rocco Forte's Hotel de Rome

Rocco Forte's Hotel de Rome is inextricably rooted in the history and culture of Berlin and from the walls to the name, a great effort has been made to secure the future of this luxurious property's past.

The name "Hotel de Rome" or "Hotel Stadt Rom" can be traced back to 1775, when Number 10, Unter den Linden was one of the city's finest guest houses. At the end of the 1850s, Adolf Mühling acquired the building, refurbishing and extending it to create a luxurious five-storey, 200 bedroom hotel including a ballroom and elegant restaurant. Hotel de Rome was one of Berlin's most famous hotels and played host to events such as the "Berlin Press Ball". Mühling was also a purveyor to the court and it is known that he delivered a bathtub from the hotel to the Emperor to complete his as yet unfinished palace bathroom!

Then, as today, Hotel de Rome was equipped with the latest technical innovations. In 1867 for example, the hotel installed the first hydraulic lift, technology that had only just been presented to a select group of people at the World Exhibition in Paris. Guests were also able to view their invoice with the help of a so called "Preiskurant" that worked with the help of telegraphs, speaking tubes and a letter shoot. Due to Mühling's insecure financial arrangements, the hotel was torn down in February 1910.

The building itself was constructed from 1884 to 1889 by architect Ludwig Heim to house the Dresdner Bank's headquarters, where they remained until 1945. Until the unification the building was home to the Central Bank of the German Democratic Republic, after which it became an exhibition and events space. Structural modifications were made up till 1910, for example the spacious, elegant two-storey cashier's hall that now forms the 276m² ballroom complete with its original stucco ceiling and mosaic floor. In the corners of the ballroom one can find the four city names of the main head offices of the Dresdner Bank: Frankfurt, Bremen, London and Berlin.

Thankfully, the two gorgeous 19th century staircases have been almost completely preserved. One is designed in granite with decorated tiles and wrought-iron handrails, whilst the second staircase is designed mainly in marble with a wide steel stairway.

The first and second floors were previously home to the Dresdner Bank Directors' offices and their impressive high, coffered ceilings, complete with original wood panelling, as well as generous stucco and figurative decoration, have been stunningly converted into spacious and elegant suites.

However, in their zeal to preserve the building's history, the designers have not kept only the beautiful. The grenade smithereens embedded in the walls date back to World War II have been left as historical witness in the wood panelling. A truly historical home away from home!

On the lower ground floor of the building, the old vault that safe-guarded the jewels and valuables of the Dresdner Bank clientele has been imaginatively converted into the hotel's swimming pool and Spa de Rome, with glistening, golden Bisazza mosaic recalling the room's previous contents!

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Floortex @ Lietzenburgerstrasse