Goodbye Berlin

Last week, I returned to Berlin for the first time in two years—a city that has always felt like a home away from home. As ever, the city’s vibrancy and restless energy were a joy to experience. I wandered through familiar streets, discovered new places, attended a powerful concert of modern classical music at the Berlin Philharmonic Hall, and even found myself, unexpectedly, dancing in an underground nightclub where the bass was so powerful it made my clothes shake.

Yet, amidst the thrill of rediscovery, I felt an undeniable sadness. It wasn’t due to anything that happened while I was there but rather a growing awareness of time’s passage and the impossibility of returning to an earlier version of the city, and of myself. The Berlin I knew 10 to 15 years ago, when friends lived in Prenzlauer Berg before its transformation into a haven for well-heeled hipster families, is no longer the Berlin that stands today. The cafés we once frequented have vanished, my friends have moved on and, with them, so too has a piece of my own history.

What was I mourning? The inevitability of time? The loss of youth? Or was it the realisation that I had never truly lived in those moments as fully as I could have; that I was too often distracted by the past or preoccupied with the future to appreciate the present?

I don't know. But I felt it most acutely standing on the platform at Alexanderplatz station, watching the sunset paint the city in fading light. A cliché, perhaps, but standing there, I understood how definitively one can become cut off from their own past. A lyric from U2’s Zoo Station, from Achtung Baby—their love letter to Berlin and to themes of loss, isolation and regret—came to mind: Time is a train / Makes the future the past / Leaves you standing in the station / Your face pressed up against the glass.

A highlight of my trip was a visit to the Museum of Photography (Museum für Fotografie), where I encountered the work of Helmut Newton in a gallery setting for the first time. His images were once so ubiquitous that they seemed almost inescapable, yet seeing them in person gave them a fresh immediacy.

Newton’s work is often accused of objectifying women or even veering into a form of pornography, but I have never believed that. I also firmly believe that art should stand on its own, without requiring explanation or justification. If it needs accompanying notes, something is amiss. Similarly, I find discussions of “meaning” in art largely unnecessary; its significance shifts with each generation, and all that truly matters is what it conveys to the individual in the moment of viewing. What Las Meninas meant to a 17th-century Spaniard and what it means to us today are entirely different things, and both interpretations are valid.

Yes, Newton’s photographs contain unexpected nudity, often in contexts that might surprise. But to be offended by that would be to miss the point entirely. His images are not records of daily life; they are dialogues between reality and the imagined, much like classical paintings that incorporated nudity as a means of elevating their subjects beyond the everyday. That his photographs are works of art is undeniable, whether one likes them or not. If they titillate, that is in the eye of the beholder.

Returning to the original question of objectification, the reason I do not see Newton’s women as objectified is that they are never passive. These are not submissive figures; they are powerful, dominant, and intensely present. Looking at his portraits can feel almost confrontational: the women hold your gaze, daring you to meet their eyes. They are statuesque, superior, looking at the viewer rather than merely being looked at. One magazine on display at the museum described Newton as a “little man worshipping Womanhood.” There is something to that—his images seem to revel in female power, even as they maintain an air of cool detachment.

Another exhibit on display at the Museum of Photography was FOTOGAGA: Max Ernst and Photography, a collection of works exploring the Surrealist master's engagement with the medium. While I was familiar with Ernst’s name, I had never truly engaged with his work until now.

Ernst struck me as a wanderer, moving seamlessly between drawing, painting, etching, collage and innovative photographic printing techniques. His work plays with form and function, exploring nature, the human condition and existence itself, always through a Surrealist lens and often with a mischievous sense of humour. It would be easy to dismiss his art as lighthearted, but that would be a mistake. Beneath the playfulness lies a depth of meaning that invites contemplation rather than demanding it.

He also had an evident fondness for being photographed; an unusual trait for an artist, perhaps. At first, it might seem frivolous, but I suspect it was another extension of his artistic practice, an exploration of representation and identity. Artists are still expected to be serious, remote figures, yet here was Ernst, at ease, smiling and fully aware of the power of his own image.

The exhibition also included works by Ernst’s contemporaries and artists influenced by him, packing a remarkable depth of material into a relatively small space. What struck me most was how influential he had been, despite not always being recognised in the broader public consciousness. The art world can be capricious—some artists are celebrated, while others, equally talented, remain in the shadows due to nothing more than the quirks of history. Ernst’s relative obscurity compared to his Surrealist peers feels like an accident of fate rather than a reflection of his talent.

Travel often brings with it an element of nostalgia, but this trip to Berlin felt different. Perhaps it was the city itself—ever-changing, never still—or perhaps it was simply that I was more aware of the ways in which we become untethered from our pasts. Art, whether in Newton’s confrontational photography or Ernst’s playful Surrealism, provides a way of anchoring ourselves in the present, of seeing the world as it is rather than as we wish it were.

And yet, as I stood on that platform at Alexanderplatz, watching the trains come and go, I could not shake the feeling that I was standing at a threshold; not just between past and present, but between the person I was and the person I am still becoming.