exhibitions, school and stuff in general

I went to see two exhibitions last week, Taryn Simon at Neue Nationalgalerie and then the Prize for young artists from the Nationalgallery at Hamburger Bahnhof, a prize of 50 000 Euros..which I think, is a rather good prize sum to get..They were preparing for the prize cermony when we were there and now it made me happy to read that French artist Cyprien Gaillard had won it from the four nominees, I could have watched his film "Artefacts" filmed in Iraq over and over again for quite some time, with it's slow movements, colors, scenaries and the music set to it it had a kind of hypnotic feeling that at least worked very well on me. The film will be on until 8th of January so if in Berlin don't miss out on it. For samples of his other work have a look here or here for information about the exhibition. One of the number of the interview magazin mono kultur was also about him recently so have a look at that. I guess he is everywhere right now, good on him, the film is great!
Then the Taryn Simon exhibition, so beautifully presented, perfected and designed that one almost wish someone would draw on the boxes with charcoal or spraypaint them golden or something because it is perfection almost at the limit, a friend called it "An American Blockbuster of an exhibition". So be it but the topic, the immense amount of research, the travels, the questions raised through this exhibition are all very interesting and well, very professionally presented and actually breathtaking. I also really enjoyed her work at the Venice Biennale and think her combination of art, politics and documentary are bringing shadowy topics into light in a way that maybe is best done through such clear, objective presentation and texts. I missed her talk in Berlin on Thursday, which is a shame but instead I went to Leipzig to see the Meisterschüler presentations of students at the HGB Leipzig where I am studying for my Meistershüler too, I kind off wanted to see what I could expect of this procedure where the students prepare an exhibition, hang it and stand infront of their work talking/defending it for a group of professors and fellow students since I will be doing just that next year at this time if all goes well. I really liked the work of Sebastian Speckmann, image above, have a little look here for his stunning linocuts, I must admit that my knowledge about linocuts is about zero but what he creates with his dimly lit interiors and shady greys I think is pretty amazing.
Now Im back in Berlin and have a week of work infront of me which feels very good, but first it's sunday night and doing nothing time.