Aleksandra Luxburg in interview with Beate Wedekind
Part I
BW: Aleksandra, I know you co-created the Bermel von Luxburg Gallery in Berlin, but first, I would like to ask you to provide a few personal details about you, how you came to be involved in art?
AL: My mother's best friend was a ceramist and painter, and we spent a lot of time with her. I was allowed to get closer to her creative process and participate in it as a child in her studio at the University of Arts in Wroclaw. Later, when we moved, a young sculptor rented a room in the attic of the house where we lived. I don't remember how it happened that I started visiting him; I couldn't have been more than 11 or 12 years old. All I wanted to do in my free time after school was to be in this fascinating place, and I can still remember when my mom was worried whether I was disturbing him.
But I initially focused my academic studies on English and American literature; I received a Bachelor of Arts with a postgraduate diploma in legal translations (Polish-English) at Wroclaw University. Afterwards, I've spent more years at the University of Economics in Wroclaw, graduating with a Master of Science in Business Administration and Finances. My last post before I came to Berlin was Deputy Head of Marketing at a large company in Warsaw. Art accompanied me as a leisure passion. After the unplanned but fateful move to Berlin, I met several people from the art world, including the Russian artist Nikolai Makarov. He asked me if I would like to support his Museum of Stillness as a fundraiser and manager, and so I was able to combine my work experience with passion. Through Nikolai I got to know other artists, such as Peter Herrmann and Arnd Kaestner, who became friends over time. This friendship resulted in publishing the book “Peter’s Table,” in 2021, in which I turned artists' discussions I audio-recorded previously, into short stories.
BW: Did you sense that you wanted to expand your horizons, through art, through culture, through the boundaries you felt?
AL: The art collector Bernd Schulz once said - “my life has been expanded in a wonderful way through art” and here I would also like to quote Arnd Kaestner: “I think that good art raises questions that you deal with or perhaps have dealt with before. It makes you more thoughtful. I think that when you deal with literature, music or art, so-called truths and what feels important are put into perspective a bit. Through a different look.”
BW: Aleksandra, you were born in Wroclaw - where else have you lived? How did your Poland/Germany axis come about?
AL: I was born in Breslau, lived in the south of France and Barcelona for a while in my twenties, then in Warsaw for a few years. There came a time when I didn't want to be in Warsaw anymore and my job didn't feel right either... I had a good friend in Berlin for years and she invited me over. It was May, I was supposed to stay for two weeks and that has now turned into ten years. Some would say, a pretty typical “Berlin” story.
JAPAN
BW: How important is your axis Berlin - Japan?
AL: Japan touches me on a spiritual and aesthetic level. I went there for the first time alone, as I was in Singapore for a conference and Japan was so close. An Austrian photographer, Roland Hagenberg met me on my first day in Tokyo to give his recommendations, and drew me a fascinating impromptu "map" of what to see. Though still heavily jet lagged I almost did not close an eye those 5 days, wanting to see and experience as much as possible. I went to Japan since then a few more times, and I am already planning the next journey there.
The opportunity to work with Peter Janssen Collection at the Samurai Museum as a freelance curator for contemporary art and events is an honor and great pleasure that came about through co-founding the Bermel von Luxburg Gallery. Something special has been achieved in the museum - the impressive collection of artefacts - the traditional - is mixed with state-of the-art digital solutions, it is a unique place.
CULINARY UNIVERSE
BW: You have also been spending a lot of time traveling for restaurants, even very remote ones - how did that come about and what is that passion rooted in?
AL: I have been asked that question quite recently by a friend and I needed a moment to think about it - because I have only for a long time given myself to the passion, without asking why and where from. I believe it has to do first of all with the fact, that I grew up in a communist country, personally with a limited access to a variety of cuisines, so when that universe opened up to me along with traveling in my late teens, it captured my heart and palate. For a while in my twenties I have even written a restaurant reviews blog. I stayed curious and committed, putting my resources to discover more and more, sometimes further and further away. I find dining can be a life-enhancing, spirit-lifting event. Good food is according to Escoffier the basis to true happiness, and I have absolutely felt that on several occasions.
BW: What are the most remote restaurants you have visited so far?
AL: I would have to say the most memorable and commitment-requiring was KOKS**, in the Faroe Islands in 2021 and then their pop-up in Greenland in 2023. To visit them in Greenland you have to take a plane to Copenhagen, from there another flight either to Iceland, or to a small airport in Kangerlussuaq in Greenland, then a propeller plane to Ilulissat, and sail onboard a vessel among Icebergs to Ilimanaq. And I would do it times over again.
