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dancing_moonToday we had a guest lecturer talking about the visibility of Muslim communities in Western Europe. Interesting, if a bit too much show-and-tell and too little theoretical focus.
Afterwards, I was planning to visit Berlin's LGBT museum, Schwules Museum, although I got somewhat delayed by a truly spiffing grilled tuna with teriyaki sauce. As I have come to realize, the building where the Marginalized Identities seminars take place, are located in a really swank area. Hugo Boss stores, small galleries and hip (?) Asian restaurants. Luckily, a Friday lunch isn't anywhere near my wallet-death level, and since I'd heard internetly rumours about one of Berlin's better ramen restaurants in the area, I decided to investigate. The ramen part, alas, is only open in the evenings, but judging from how tasty (and packed) their lunch room was, I will have to visit.
Anyway, after that it was off to Meringhdamm and the museum. I did not have all too grand expectations, having read a review (ten years ago, gawd how time flies) that stated that while the exhibited material was interesting, the presentation was somewhat lacking. Aaaand that's still true. It's a smallish museum - though with an entrance fee of 3€ for students, one definitely gets value for the money - with mostly paintings, photographs and copies of various documents hanging on the walls next to little informative signs. Unfortunately, in several cases, the "little" takes precedence over "informative". One of the current exhibitions is called Zuschauer und Akteure. Akteurinnen und Zuschauerinnen and shows portraits from four hundred years of gay* history. While that is nice, I was not quite certain what to take from many of the portraits, which often only contained the barest biographic dates (subject, year, geographic origin, artist when known) and did not make greater attemps to put in a context. That is not to say that there weren't thought-provoking or beautiful pieces. The ones I specially noticed were a daguerreotype of older gay men and soldiers in a park in Berlin, the landscape portrait of a man in a suit entitled "gay Nazi" (which was accompanied by informational text), a friendship painting of two handsome men and a pencil drawing of two naughtily smiling young women. But for many of the portraits, I don't quite feel as if I have any context and, unfortunately, I'm not really artistic enough to be able to pull that much from them on my own.
Oh well. The permanent exhibition, 200 years of LGBT history in Germany and Berlin, was more interesting to me, since I tend to prefer history over art.
Interesting if one can read German, that is; don't think I saw one single sign in English in the entire museum.
* it's not a coincidence that the German name translates to "Gay Museum". While there are exhibition pieces relating to lesbians and trans* persons, they are in minority
Afterwards, I was planning to visit Berlin's LGBT museum, Schwules Museum, although I got somewhat delayed by a truly spiffing grilled tuna with teriyaki sauce. As I have come to realize, the building where the Marginalized Identities seminars take place, are located in a really swank area. Hugo Boss stores, small galleries and hip (?) Asian restaurants. Luckily, a Friday lunch isn't anywhere near my wallet-death level, and since I'd heard internetly rumours about one of Berlin's better ramen restaurants in the area, I decided to investigate. The ramen part, alas, is only open in the evenings, but judging from how tasty (and packed) their lunch room was, I will have to visit.
Anyway, after that it was off to Meringhdamm and the museum. I did not have all too grand expectations, having read a review (ten years ago, gawd how time flies) that stated that while the exhibited material was interesting, the presentation was somewhat lacking. Aaaand that's still true. It's a smallish museum - though with an entrance fee of 3€ for students, one definitely gets value for the money - with mostly paintings, photographs and copies of various documents hanging on the walls next to little informative signs. Unfortunately, in several cases, the "little" takes precedence over "informative". One of the current exhibitions is called Zuschauer und Akteure. Akteurinnen und Zuschauerinnen and shows portraits from four hundred years of gay* history. While that is nice, I was not quite certain what to take from many of the portraits, which often only contained the barest biographic dates (subject, year, geographic origin, artist when known) and did not make greater attemps to put in a context. That is not to say that there weren't thought-provoking or beautiful pieces. The ones I specially noticed were a daguerreotype of older gay men and soldiers in a park in Berlin, the landscape portrait of a man in a suit entitled "gay Nazi" (which was accompanied by informational text), a friendship painting of two handsome men and a pencil drawing of two naughtily smiling young women. But for many of the portraits, I don't quite feel as if I have any context and, unfortunately, I'm not really artistic enough to be able to pull that much from them on my own.
Oh well. The permanent exhibition, 200 years of LGBT history in Germany and Berlin, was more interesting to me, since I tend to prefer history over art.
Interesting if one can read German, that is; don't think I saw one single sign in English in the entire museum.
* it's not a coincidence that the German name translates to "Gay Museum". While there are exhibition pieces relating to lesbians and trans* persons, they are in minority
