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WEEKEND Gallery

 

WEEKEND Gallery 
Schloßstr. 62
14059 Berlin - Charlottenburg
Tel. 0049 (0) 30 3410482

 A visit together with Jad Salman to the WEEKEND gallery and to see an old friend, Jacques Naoum 
                                                                           17th of November 2011



The gallery is located on Schloßstraße. It can be found when walking past that famous 'Kastanienkneipe' (where I discovered in 1976 Ernst Bloch thanks to a book of his about Arabic philosophers which had been left behind by someone - Bloch always said the Arabic philosophers rescued the Greek light and changed it) on the other side of this broad avenue. To get there one has to cross the middle section which forms a park like strip in the road. The road is quite breath taking and runs directly towards the castle.

The gallery itself exists lime many in Berlin in the backyard. Entry is through the office since the gallery is in the basement.

The space available in the WEEKEND gallery invites both artist exhibiting and visitors into a 'twist and turn' route at the end of which they find almost like a secret place the bar. It gives especially artists with imagination incredible spaces for all kinds of exhibitions. 



One warning should be made: it is not so much run down, as extremely derelict. Alone the office is a kind of chaotic composition of countless empty glasses left standing around to remind of a previous exhibition opening. Jacques Naoum apologizes. His volunteers do not seem to work that hard. Due to the cold, he has some old heating on, but it makes hardly a difference. To enter the gallery space through the office, one has to lift a kind of curtain carpet hung from a rod and then go down a few steps to enter the first room.


 
Jacques Naoum runs the Weekend Gallery. He comes from Lebanon where he was born in 1938 to study at first Theatre and Romanistic. Of course he speaks Arabic but due to the colonial history of Lebanon therefore as well fluently French. Naturally he knows as well English while perfecting constantly his German. He has studied as well something similar to Science of Religion, only Islam. He did so at a time when both studies were housed in the same Tillich Building of the Free University with Prof. Klaus Heinrich for Science of Religion attracting a diversity of students from all the other faculties. He satisfied simply that need to think across borders of disciplines. 



Most telling is when reading Jacques Naoum's article is to see this influence of the categories this course of studies unearthes when making analysis of the various political fractions and streams of opposition to the regime. This becomes most evident, equally important when the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt gains in public recognition as power changes have gotten under way in the Arabic speaking world ever since first Tunesia and Egypt toppled their masters, if only to be followed in a much more bloody way in Libya and still unresolved in Syria.  
Jacques Naom is a keen observer of what happens in the Middle East, right now his main focus is naturally on Syria. Even though he dislikes the Internet and its form of abstract communication, he does keep abreast with all kinds of Journals and newspapers, including the Herald Tribune.

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As to the art works, well, the WEEKEND gallery proves to be something like an ink well in which one can  dip in to stay authentic, one does not need to be necessarily an artist to appreciate this source of inspiration to be consistent and true over time. 
Insofar as the WEEKEND LETTER was the first publication about art for which I wrote, and felt excited by having made my first publication, that place remains to be a strong referential point when reviewing the new art galleries.   

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Incredible is the fact that this gallery still exists thirty years on. The WEEKEND gallery celebrated its existence from 1981 until 2011 with an opening of an exhibition on 25th of November 2011, and which remained open until 4.12.2011.



 

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