Köpenick

Sitting at the relatively new library in Köpenick, an otherwise old town east of Berlin. It is a nice, brick box, with somewhat randomly arranged openings, although they must be somewhat calculated, right, because it is a Library. The front door here seems like the back door, and gives you both the feeling that you are entering a sort of forbidden door, into a place of forbidden fruit. Or that you are completely welcome and a full part of it, that you enter the same door as all the deliveries, all the staff. It is beautiful volume mostly consisting of air and light. Up on the third floor I ask, in English, for where the English books are. The librarian in response brings me over to the large space in the middle, the "vertically interconnected space", and points down to some shelves on the second floor.

Most of the books here in fact are somewhat forbidding, if not forbidden. But I am cruising along with Arabic again, so the German-ness here fades away in the background. You could say that I roam around on the periphery of Berlin, a city whose centre is perhaps known best for the vibes that emanate from it; or divided, for its east and its west.

Current thoughts are back to Vancouver, in the form of Jeff Wall. I have probably heard of this guy more outside of Vancity than within, and he will have an exhibition in Dresden soon. I am looking forward to seeing Vancouver again. But before that, the other omnipotent artist that has something seemingly everywhere is Olafur Oliasson, who has a current show at the Martin Gropius Bau.