_{The Godfather part III}

He is very big in Italy...
Is he, ha.. I thought it was just a friend of John’s..
He is huge in Italy... Here in Berlin he is a nobody.
That is what I love about berlin, you can be anybody anywhere, here we are all the same.
Yeah I don’t know about that...
I am big in Berlin..
Well you have to be big somewhere.

Am telling you You did not hear it from me!
What did you say?
I said you did not hear it from me.
Well yeah i know, but.. really I did not hear, from you or anyone- I literally did not hear, what did you say?
Whatever it is I said, you did not hear it from me.

Wie ist Ihr Namen?
eh..why? (shit, was there a guest list, which gallery is that again, argh I hate closed doors, i should have bought this press card even if it expired soon..maybe David can get me in...)
I have to announce you.
(WTF????)
......................
Despina Stocko!!!

I step into the empty gallery and onto an ant. (Yeah that was me, I am sorry). They told me later the ants were collected with the help of an ant expert from all around Berlin, Tiergarten, even Hamburger Bahnhof during the opening the night before. Later still I heard they were for sale, 40.000 each or 4.000 each I don’t remember. A brilliant work—(even if it was not meant as a comment for the berlin art scene situation right now.)
PIERRE HUYGHE on view until 22.10 in Esther Schipper www.estherschipper.com

Monopol Stand in Preview Berlin
Can my subscription start from the next issue?
No that is not possible.
Oh you know I have this issue, already...I am IN this issue...
If you just fill in this form please.

Sleek magazine stand abc
Ah look Sleek is out, sleek is out!!!
Oh that s the old issue
that is the current issue
it says summer..
You know my friend is going to be in the next issue...we are very excited...
Nice dress..
Oh thanks—do you feature well dressed artists..
I am not carrying it for you again
Well it s not free...or is it?
No.
look out for a studio visit with Hannes Gruber  in the next Sleek

Bar Babette 07.09
Why don’t you go talk to Martin Creed, he is sitting right there.
what should I tell him?
Say you are a fan, say thanks i don’t know...
Say hi hi hi hi hi hihihihihihihihihihihihihihihihihihi*
Say mate, really, I don’t know what you were thinking! **
Who is Martin Creed?
Don’t you know Martin Creed?
I hate it when people do that, and then you just go and repeat the whole name. I just asked who is Martin Creed, why would you assume I know who he is?
Didn’t you see him, he just passed us the guy with the grey afro.
Ah yeah nice shoes, he was in the same elevator when we went up, I remember looking at the blue shoes.
Do you think that’s his daughter or his lover?
I don’t think that s his band, I think they hired them here from Berlin.
Well it said Martin Creed and Band not Martin Creed and a Band.
If I was a big artist I would make them find a better venue for me.
What a lame ash place to play, the lights on and everybody siting 50 meters away from the stage, contemplating... what exactly..
The only thing this gig had in common with a real concert is the weird middle aged guy dancing alone in the beginning.
And no beer... If I were a big artist I would make them give people some beer.
Well he had one in his hand.
Maybe they were embarrassed that they only had berliner kindle...

a few examples of Creed’s music
*fuck off fuck off off off off off http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFsDjk3SfUU
**I was thinking/was not thinking http://www.martincreed.com/site/works/work-no-431
Martin Creed and Band live 7 September, 9pm, Haubrok Shows, Strausberger Platz 19

I was quite disappointed with the Autocenter show...
Fuck Autocenter..
Autocenter rocks..
I know that s why I was so disappointed..
Who cares..
Well you know how it is with charity auctions artists just hand in some dusty, archive work..

On ABC

I am always amazed by the amount of good stuff I see.
I am always impressed by the amount of crap I see.
There is no crap here, I don’t see any crap, I would say this is 80% crap free show. You see that s nice, that s nice too, turtle fucking shoe- h  i l a r i o u s, this room is actually awesome, I wonder if you pay more to be here?           
I don’t know man, if I go to an art fair I want to see something monumental, something very expensive, not something the gallerists can bring on foot from their gallery...
I like it, this is really nice! I didn’t expect the works would be so small...
Well it is a selling show.
Don’t say that, that sounds so silly- Verkaufsausstellung what does that even mean
I thought they did not care about selling...
Everybody cares about selling.
But they said nobody sells in Berlin!
You care about selling, even when you are not selling.
I think you especially care about selling if you are not selling...
If they cared about selling why didn’t the keep the art fair, it seems much more convenient format then having to balance your flyers on the damn heating- that was quite ridiculous..
That was actually the cutest thing, how uncomfortable gallerists were standing around.
Yeah I liked that, the focus was completely on the artworks, in art fairs sometimes you are even embarassed to walk into the booth, here the art prevails, the person standing next to it might be anyone.
So you have to pay 3.500 euro to bring one artist, you are not choosing, put him in a place you will not chose and stand around it for three days, do they chose what you wear to? I don’t know, I don’t see this format surviving...
That sounds a bit...totalitarian?
Elitarian...
What is it with organizations with acronyms for names...
Well it works, doesn’t it, you said it your self, 80% crap free.
There were artists who were chosen, but their galleries did not agree on the terms so they didn’t come..
Imagine you are chosen and your gallerist says no..
Imagine you are chosen and your gallerist dies..

In this very very long article, Kai Müller, (hopefully still) editor in Tagesspiegel, explains how the system with the so called “gallery mafia“ in Berlin works. Or rather he explains how many people explained to him how the system works but then asked him not to tell. It seems we are getting a bit of a scandalous twist in this old story line after all. At least the newspaper seems to think so: 
Ein Insider spricht. Lesen Sie weiter auf Seite 2.
Read the article here: http://www.tagesspiegel.de/zeitung/das-kartell-der-glorreichensieben/4619158.html

As for Emilie Trice, she declared Unfinished Business –finished, found a job at another gallery and will stay in Berlin. As a friend said: I would not worry about Emilie, I would worry about the next gallery she is working with...

Names

If you have not lived here that long you might not have realized that most of the big streets and squares in Berlin are named after places outside Berlin. For filthy, pee smelling Kottbusser Tor there is an equally unspectacular place called Kottbus. Danziger str- Danzig, Greifswalder str – Greifswald, Potsdamer str-Potsdam. Kind of  the same but different with the galleries, they are usually named after one or two persons inside of them, usually the person’s who run them. I am not saying you will meet Herr Eigen or Herr Art any time soon, Mr Partner is gone and you will probably see Miss September only in the newsstand. Other than that, especially on an opening day, if you yell the gallery name out loud, there is bound to be somebody turning their head.

Hey were are you?
am already in tagespiegel.
am in Giti Novach- they have caipirignas!!!
When are you going to learn to pronounce this name?
Naubach?
Yeah she just got married to Guido Baudach
She did?
We are in the gallery next to  Blen and Something, Judith Nolas?

BlainSouthern

I have to ask you to leave the beer here.
I just got it from outside.
Well this is practically a „baustelle“ . People are not allowed to enter normally, for safety reasons, but you can go if you leave your beer here. 
You mean the bridge might collapse and I will spill my beer?

Südblock
It’s funny we spend one hour running around like crazy trying to see as much as possible before they close, then spend five solid hours standing in the bar talking about something else because we missed everything.
Well nobody forces you to spent five hours rubbing elbows with that gallerist, what did you expect would happen – he chokes, falls down, you save his life – he gives you a show?
I enjoy proximity to men of power, plus drinks are for free and...you never know..
He might look into your eyes...fall in love... and then offer you a show...
I ll tell you the most probable thing that will happen, he looks into my eyes, smiles, then leans over and tells me to go piss on him in the toilet.

Introductions
Fuck I hate it when the work is so good! The Fucker fucker fucker..
Despina, I want to introduce you to the gallerist representing...

Despina is very influential figure in the berlin art scene..
Why are you influential? 
aaaaaaaaam not.

Love it! Every time I meet you, you have another cool idea.
I have a lot of cool ideas, I just save them to tell you one at a time.

Oh so you are an architect, that must be interesting.
Nah, it s boring.

I love your dress!
I love your hair!
I love your bag.
I love your coat.
I love you.
I love you.

I am not quite sure if I am doing them a favor or not, but the conversations featured here are in the most part inspired by real conversations with my friends Ignacio Uriarte, Sebastiaan Schlicher, Hannes Gruber, Marc Bijl and their freinds and their friends friends...