self-portrait with mirrors © Lilly Schwartz 2011

It makes for an interesting change of pace when you decide to take pictures every day. It means that you have to get out into the world a little more. You see new places, do new things just to get close to an opportunity for a decent picture. Yesterday this relatively new project got me to do something I almost never do: I went to an exhibition alone! Ezequiel is not in Berlin at the moment and I have to admit that lately I stay away from people to concentrate more on my work (well, it doesn’t really help, but that’s a whole other story). This also means that if I want to do things and go places to take pictures I have to do it alone. The exhibition I saw was a photography exhibition with pictures of André Kertész, a hungarian photographer who lived in Paris and New York. He took beautiful melancholic photos which looked at things in a new and exciting way. He also seemed to be fascinated by reflections, so strange mirrors and reflections on windows make an appearance in his photos too. I definitely liked his style and already ordered a book about him.

The exhibition was in the Martin-Gropius-Bau, a building in the Italian Renaissance style that was erected between 1877 and 1881 by the architects Martin Gropius and Heino Schmieden. It’s a beautiful building with lots of sculptures and it’s worth a visit in its own right. Martin Gropius was the great-uncle of Walter Gropius by the way who was the founder of the Bauhaus school. I visited the Bauhaus archive about a week ago (read about it here) so it’s one of these moments where I realise that everything is connected.

Today’s photo I took on the first floor of the Martin-Gropius-Bau where there are two long mirrors on opposing walls. One of the mirrors says “West” and the other “Ost” (German for east). I found this to be the perfect scene for a self-portrait since I have a confusing relationship with west and east Germany too. Can you figure out at which mirror I was pointing my camera?