As the last days and nights (mostly nights) of 2012 rapidly slip through our sticky-sweet fingers, and since the world has not ended; a retrospection of shorts might be in order.
What happened in the last 12 months, where have we been and where are we headed? Inane as it is, the need to look back and evaluate every year around this time, is stronger than that sweet –sour smell of Glühwein...

So what happened in the Berlin art scene in 2012-  The year in bpigs posts.

JANUARY

#Curator Aaron Multon leaves town to be the director of the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art or maybe that was already the end of last year. *Javier Peres opens a show of his own paintings in Grimmuseum. #Giti Nourbakhsch announces she is closing her gallery via a YouTube video titled "THANKS!" where she is dancing to Udo Lindenberg's "Ich mache mein Ding" (This is something like Sinatra's "I do it my way" but then again not really) - Bpigs on the scoop of how the gallerist was left outside Art Basel... AGAIN read more

#Artists Iris Van Dongen and Martin Skauen (Strip it Down) open a shop with second hand designer label haute couture and catwalk brands with art editions and design furniture. Which is actually going very well... read interview here

#Schinkel Pavilion opens a year of very successful and spectacular shows with a solo by Isa Genzken. We are all there! view here
#The Bpigs team meet new collaborator Christian Müller of the Kantine

FEBRUARY

#Mädchenschule opens. With just about the right amount of queues, an invite that made the one of your wedding burst in jealous tears, free flowing white wine and, yes, the obligatory art, Mädchenschule opens in the former Jewish Shool for Girls,  home of one of the best (and very few) Berlin Biennale moments... see more
#Whitney Houston dies, almost at the same time the bigs team is drunkenly composing the Love - Post Love songs list, also featuring David Beckam's crotch which was, at this time, photoshopped all over town.

#Gerhard Richter celebrates his 80th birthday with a retrospective in the Neue National Gallerie. #Despina goes intern's crazy, setting out to build an army of unpaid, untrained Berlin New Comers, which soon enough blows up in her ambitious face of course. Read how

MARCH

#Guggenheim Lab vs Kreuzberg. Maybe one of the first in a year of conflicts for the growing scene of Berlin. (growing or shrinking? there has been a lot of discussions about that too). How does the "Kunstkacke" affect the rents, what can art do for society; the use of language in art and advertisement, communication & information routes and dead-ends. (What happened to this Lab anyway?) -read here
#Johann König announces he wants to open a gallery in the former St Agnes grounds in Kreuzberg. A few galleries will move there in the course of the summer.

APRIL

#Berlin/Art Hate-o-Meter. As a tribute to the (at this point still happily anticipated berlin biennale) Bpigs attempts a Berlin Art Hate-o-Meter highlighting some of the biggest scene conficts in the still young year. Kreuzberg vs Mitte, "Medientussis" vs Autonom crowd, some galleries vs some others, even Damien Hirst vs Monopol. The Bpigs team shares their personal hate scala here and we ask the readers to do the same.  Here is your feedback. # Later in the year we do a Like-o-Meter, things the Bpigs team absolutely enjoys in Berlin (top 1 being free drinks in every list) -but it was not that popular.

#Have You Met Joanna Warsza Maria Santos talks with the co-curator of the bb. Zmijewski does not grace us with an interview, which is just as well as we are all very much terrified of him. #Despina later gets over it and writes fudge fear on her personal and the public's reactions on bb.#We discover Maria blushes every time she says "political art". #Warsza will next curate the Georgian Pavillon for the Venice Biennale in June 2013.

#Art Cologne highlights and the beginning of our virtual collection. Which continues during abc in September-(my virtual collector's buy list). # "Is Cologne the new Berlin?" everybody is asking. (The answer is no). Why did we cancel Art Forum again? unhappy murmurs all over town. And of course-- What the Hell are we gonna do now?  Attempts for a revival or something new fail through. (for now?)

MAY

#There was apparently some slapping going on during Gallery Weekend ( again!) which we have totally missed of course. So no posts. No pictures.
#Christian Müller starts his column ÜBER; true to form he gives it up after a while. # The 3rd Speed Portfolio Viewing gets over 1.100 applications, and gives the chance to 20 participants to take part. Their feedback here

JUNE

#Documenta 13 cures our broken art hearts and allows us to dream again!!! see more

#Art Basel Highlights . There was apparently a reception one day, so exclusive, so "first choice VIP" that not even gallerists were allowed. In some mansion somewhere outside the city, apparently it was collectors only. Maybe there was even a reception for money only somewhere. Or credits cards only. The things you hear in Basel... read more
#Talk of the Gallery Mafia, the powerful 7 etc etc are swiftly swept under the carpet in a very typical German way; abc and Berlin leading institutions announce their collaboration under the PR umbrella : Berlin Art Week.

JULY

#The town is full with these equally appealing-annoying posters *everybody's eyes are turned to Greece for the elections * in the European Championship Germany triumphs over Greece, to get beaten to a pulp by Italy, who in their turn gets absolutely ridiculed by Spain in the final. *The much anticipated and much hated bb comes to a welcomed end. Gaby Horn writes in facebook wall in response to another negative comment ( in the lines of "Good Riddance")  It was a statement! better to have one than only to talk about- read more

AUGUST

#A trip to New York inspires Despina to embrace her feelings for Berlin's most hated visitors: Why I like Tourists. The post is an instand hit. Read here #Johann König celebrates St Agnes passage from a holy to an un-holy ground inviting artist Michaela Meise to sing for him (and us) a selection of Christian songs. The event inspires a retro- and introspective text about the rapid development of the berlin art scene. Say a Little Prayer

#The use of PR Language. How to speak art. Lesson 1 : Negation

SEPTEMBER

#Cyprian Gaillard does it AGAIN to our City #ABC  is nicknamed -" Anything But Collectors"; the neo- new format is a success, but, true to form, they change the curator.
#Berlin Art week highlights here. ABC Round table with the Niche Girls and Mary Scherpe from stilinberlin here. #Berlin goes in hibernation mode, Bigs travels to...

OCTOBER

#Rachel goes to Shangai for the biennale...#Despina moves to New York for a few months and gets obsessed with SIZE. What Size?

NOVEMBER

#Superstorm Sandy hits New York and a lot of the big ( and some smaller) Chelsea Galleries. On Eternity and Humanity, the value of art and artists and the market. No Sympathy for the Devil
#After a lot of badgering from the Projekt Raum Netzwerk - the Berliner Senat agrees to give 7 awards to exceptional Berlin Project spaces. The lucky ones to be chosen are: Art Laboratory Berlin, berlinerpool, General Public / DISK-Initiative Bild & Ton, Organ Kritischer Kunst, SAVVY CONTEMPORARY, Schinkel Pavillon and WestGermany. The rest has to wait for next year. 

DECEMBER

#ART BASEL MIAMI-  Highlights of the Miami art week, and maybe the most confused, illegible post on bpigs to this day. Our editor got blinded by the " No shame, no sophistication (oh no, none of this European nonsense), no bra! "  read more

so another year is over.. 
I hope you had fun!...

What were your highlights and absolutely low moments? Comment bellow!