Exhibition: Pascal Böhme - Babylon • Hamburgers N'Heroin

Looking for something to do this weekend in Berlin ?

Check out a cool little bar on Pannierstraße called ÆTHER:bar.

I cannot recommend this place enough, the cocktails are unreal and probably some of the best ones I have ever had in my life.. The staff are cool guys and absolute experts in making sure you are adequately liquored up all night long.

I’ve met a lot of characters while playing the “bar-fly” at this place, Never a dull night and if you do end up here I highly recommend the New York Flip cocktail.. its not on the menu but ask for it.

One of the interesting characters I met is the very talented Berlin based Photographer Pascal Böhme and this weekend ÆTHER:bar is hosting his exhibition entitled “Babylon”.

For more information on whats sure to be a great evening check out the Facebook event and read the introduction below.

While your at it take a look at some of his work below or visit his Flickr profile

The exhibition takes place from the 16th December at 9pm and runs until the 28th December 2016… Don’t miss it !!!

Subway serenade

words by: Joe James Boyle

Look at these photos of people in Berlin. Who do they think they are?

That’s not a joke: it’s Pascal’s primary concern out here in Berlin.

In this exhibition we see the three same characters: the camera, the subject and Berlin. Pascal himself is hardly there. He was there, just now by Warschauerstr.

There was that fleeting moment of flash. He saw us (maybe we saw him), he took the photograph and now we see it on the wall.

But what do we see? Childish innocence? Undercover courage? Predictable narcissism?

Of our concerns, Pascal cares and he also doesn’t care, he is empathetic and remorseless.

Yes, he admires the aesthetics of our masks, of the personas we provide, of the admittedly desperate service we give of ourselves to him – but as a playwright would with characters in a play, he ultimately leaves us alone with our roles – he too is passive amidst all the confusion over our desired identities, and must now move on.

In-transit

He’s down the Neukolln sidestreets, or perhaps lost in Mitte, where real things are supposedly happening.

The masses can evidently be seen, and they somehow manage to convince us of their perpetual state of revolt and harmony. Some are lined up in protest, others reside blissfully in the grey Berlin sun, in Gorlitzer Park.

Yet even in Pascal’s flashes of reality, there’s a strange show going on, whether it is of the person’s choice or not. Clearly, this is not just about photography. This is about us, and our roles in this show out here in Berlin, 2016.

The anonymous are given centre-stage, and it is obvious that while they may not be posing for the camera, they are posing for something, and quite committedly playing their role in Berlin as best as they can.

In between photographs we can hear even Pascal ask himself: what’s actually going on in this city?

Zombie express

This exhibition is called Babylon, the ‘Gate of God’ – but we are in Berlin, 2016, Gate of Self.

We can see this by just looking at these four walls. Since 2015, this city has been Pascal’s arena of choice. He is relatively new to this field: time was spent in Rome and India, and their respective spiritual and cultural traits can be glimpsed in the works here, somehow managing to leave an almost religious, contemplative tone to that most ephemeral of cities, Berlin.

Look around. Look at these people.

Alles was ihr seht ist nicht alles was ich bin – All you see is not everything I am

Look past some of their dirty glamour, their admirable squalor, their deliberate or misguided loneliness and their pleasant camaraderie and misunderstood love, and see that perhaps the starring role in this dialogue actually belongs to the city itself.

Pascal intends to sit back, to observe and then flash – flash.