All posts filed under: Mosaics around the world

Mosaic Discovery in Berlin

Last year on a beautiful blue sky summer day I walked from Berlin Hauptbahnhof to Spittelmarkt – always along the Spree and later the Spree Kanal. It’s a wonderful walk that I could recommend every visitor of this vibrant city. I was stepping through a lot of history of this city and my own life. Without intentionally looking for them I saw several mosaics on the way. On Bertold-Brecht- Platz stands a typical Berlin late 1900 multi story building which houses the famous restaurant “Ganymed” . Above the entrance door with the restaurants name (also a mosaic) you find in an imaginary niche another small beautiful mosaic. The mosaic was installed in 1892/93 to attract visitors to the theater “Berliner Ensemble” . Only in 1997 it was discovered again. The workshop “ wandwerk” restored this mosaic to its full beauty. Walking on along the Spree Canal my glance gets attracted by a huge mural on the Friedrichsgracht 58. It’s the mural “ Man, measure of all things” by Walter Womacka, who has designed this epic …

Labyrinth by Kate Kerrigan

This mosaic shows very well how mosaic is a medium between sculpture and painting. Here its more sculpture because the artist worked with just one color -white – using different heights to make certain lines more visible.I also admire her use of the classical technique – using merely square and trapezoids to show the flow of the paths in this labyrinth mosaic.  

Caught by Joanne Dashel, 2020

Today’s choice of mosaic from the MAI exhibition goes to the mosaic “caught” from Joanne Dashel. I am impressed with her use of andamento to make the movement of the fish Schwarm visible. It is a distinctive feature of mosaic that one can use the direction of how to place the material plus the lines that are forming in between the mosaic pieces to give the section of an image a strong movement. She has chosen this motive in fascination of the sardines moving and mastered it excellent to depict this movement. I also like the use of the spaces in between the mosaic pieces to draw the fishing net. Using these spaces for making the design has always been intriguing for me in mosaic. Really well done here.