Hon­est to God I know noth­ing about art, so I won’t give you shit about that. But I do know a couple of things about Ber­lin, so I decided to do some­thing rel­ev­ant to my edu­ca­tion and visit the often men­tioned exhib­i­tion by Icelandic nat­ive Olafur Eli­asson. His work at the Martin-Gropius-Bau called “Innen Stadt Außen” is his own inter­pret­a­tion of Berlin.

I won’t give away too much of it; one thing I can say is it was one of the best exhib­i­tions I’ve ever been to, if not the best (that said, I really haven’t been to many, so take whatever you want from that). Every piece of art­work, whether it be an install­a­tion or an inter­act­ive game with the vis­itor, was care­fully thought-through and indeed, if not on first sight, had some­thing to with Ber­lin (or life in Ber­lin). What got me the most was not, in fact, the art­ful per­spect­ive on urban life. Yes, there was some stun­ning archi­tec­ture and fant­astic visu­als, but what really struck a chord was how there was no art unless someone was there. A vis­itor. A per­son. Any­one. The people who went to the exhib­i­tion did not just wit­ness the out­put of an artist, they were needed for its com­ple­tion.

Maybe this is too far fetched, but for me, this is exactly what makes Ber­lin: a city stun­ning in its own, but worth noth­ing without the people who live here and who keep it alive. They com­ple­ment what is already there. The build­ings would be neg­lect­able without the graf­fiti, the side­walks would be clean without the life on it, the parks would be empty without the karaoke.

Today is the last day of Eli­assons exhib­i­tion. If you can rack up the time: go and visit. It’s def­in­itely worth the money. Unfor­tu­nately, I couldn’t take many pic­tures (and those I took where from the hip) because it’s not allowed, but there would be noth­ing much to dis­play any­way– it’s an incred­ible experience.