—–> July 1st – August 29th, 2013 (ongoing)
**will be on view during opening hours through August 29th**
This Red “Don’t Drink Alone” Coaster System
by Cathy Lebowitz & Stephanie Gonzalez-Turner
This Red Door invited me, and I invited Steph. We decided to respond to Berlin once we’d arrived. I wanted to see what was available, surplus, what was different than the cast-offs in New York. We both had experience with fabric in our own work and in our collective Work Circles, where we were making a quilt from clothes everyone brought. This shared experience became important once we were in Berlin.
We responded to the space of Reh Kunst and the physical objects This Red Door had collected.
Steph wanted to research the history of German crafts and decorative arts.
I was interested in looking at the gardens and playgrounds.
We had coffee in the cafe and researched. Steph showed me architectural plans for housing estates in Berlin, and we looked for examples of the buildings when we biked to Kreuzberg. The angle of the blocks of houses to the road seemed precisely off the grid, and recalled Russian Constructivism, El Llitizsky. We researched do it yourself rugs, and found images of coiled pots.
We went to outdoor markets.
We biked over the bridge to Pankow and found blocks and blocks of Schreiber gardens. Tidy plots with elaborate sheds large enough to live in.
One day Steph went to museums and I went to gardens.
Kippenberger, Temphelhof, Prinzessin
On Monday and Tuesday we made the coaster system.
Cheap clothes from Mauerpark fluhmarket,
Gray and red thread from Turkish market,
Yard of batting from fabric store near Alexanderplatz
The red, gray and white fabric sculpture softens the angles of the RaumErweiterungsHalle, or Hall Extension in english, with its slanted walls and peaked roof. Like This Red Door, a sociable spot that wants to facilitate conversation, it says feel comfortable, come around, here’s a gathering point.
Photos from event:
