Museum Row

The Brohan Museum

Posted by Griffin.Yesterday we went to Museum Row in Berlin. Museum Row is one block that houses 5 of Berlin's top museums. Unlike Museum Island, coming in a later post, which houses 5 extremely large museums, the museums on Museum Row are small specialty museums. As we set out to leave yesterday Leo got, what I shall call, museum stomach. This mysterious illness only strikes when we are heading to art museums and causes severe stomach cramping and overly dramatic nausea. So after a drawn out battle, Leo remained at home. From the outset Elizabeth was adamant that she could only handle 2 out of the 5 museums, however the museums were so amazing that she managed three in one day!

The Berggruen Museum

The first museum  was the Brohan Museum (pictured above). The Brohan Museum is a specialty museum which only features the finest works of the Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements. The exhibits in this museum presented a delightful collection of lighthearted decorative arts from around the turn of the 20th century. One of the finest works, in my opinion, from this museum was the peacock vase (pictured below) done by Hans Christiansen. Overall the Brohan Museum was an easy visit, the exhibits were aesthetically pleasing and the clean white walls juxtaposed with the vibrant colors of the exhibits provided a very calming atmosphere to enjoy this amazing art. The Brohan Museum is most assuredly a must for any art lover visiting Berlin.

The Peacock Vase by Hans Christiansen

 
 The second museum was the Berggruen Museum. This was a themed museum focusing on "Picasso and His Time". The museum featured many works by Picasso, as well as works that had an influence on him, such as the works of Braque and traditional African art. While the permanent collection was amazing the travelling exhibition entitled "SIDEWAYS: Alexander Calder- Paul Klee" was breathtaking. The exhibition featured mobiles by Calder which seem to defy all sensibility. They remove the viewer from a world governed by logic and transport them into a world of the impossible. Watching these sculptures I couldn't help but become transfixed as the pieces slowly moved with the slightest breeze.  In this exhibit the sculptures don't stand alone but but interact with the paintings of Klee. While the travelling exhibit was one of the best I have seen the permanent exhibition didn't stand out from the crowd of Picasso museums across Europe like the one in Paris which I loved. Overall the museum could be missed if not for the Calder and Klee exhibition.

Homage a Goya by Odilon Redon

Untitled (Dancing Stars) by Alexander Calder

The third and final museum of the day was the Scharf-Gerstenberg. This museum was another specialty museum which focused on Surrealist Art. Before entering this museum Beth had to take her leave, for unnamed reasons but museum stomach seems to be the prime suspect. So now only Elizabeth remained to accompany me through Museum Row. The works in this museum were markedly different from the works in the previous two. Instead of creating calm they brought about a primal fear of being stranded. Recurring motifs were dead babies, tentacles that appeared to be strangling people, and desolate landscapes. The work above, Homage a Goya, was one of the more pleasant works, mainly because it didn't make me afraid for my life. Quite unfortunately we were not able to experience the full effect of this terror due to 2nd and 3rd floors being closed for renovation. Overall this museum would be great for people who love psychedelic horror movies and enjoy looking at what quite possibly could be a dead toddler warped in tissue paper. 

The Scharff-Gersenberg Museum