BERLINARTS

hilgemann galerie

2008-02-27T06:22:00.000-08:00

best of the bunch, below drawings by Lina Jabbour:

galerie hilgemann
lina jabbour

sean dawson @ buchmann galerie

2008-02-26T05:49:00.000-08:00

buchmann galerie

sean dawson

doctor's office...or gallery?

2008-02-25T05:56:00.000-08:00

Some berlin galleries love name plaques. I found a bunch in the Kochstrasse district where two main mazelike buildings of galleries mingle with medical and architectural businesses. It is all very formal yet another funny example of how art and everyday life mix in this city!

paper 8 @ upstairs berlin

2008-02-25T05:19:00.000-08:00

upstairs berlin

butt johnson, Controllers (above) Et in Arcadia ego (below)

anna genger, The aberration of the heart

simon schubert, O.T. -these are really hard to capture in a photo but they are architectural space perspectives (staircases and halls) done by only folding the paper - so lines you see are actually creases!

pablo alonso, Ancestors (above) Primitives (below)

julien collieux @ galerie 5213

2008-02-25T05:09:00.000-08:00

From the ominous, back entrance exterior, galerie 5213's location reminds me a lot of a nicer version of the detroit russell complex. The large building is similar to other gallery homes in berlin - a sprawling brick building hosting a range of ground floor businesses, galleries, workshops and apartments, usually the upper floors. The galleries of this nature feel somewhere in between "do-it-yourself" artist run spots to respectable, up-and-coming trend setting contemporary galleries - again it is that mix of edgy grit and smart know-how; a thing berlin does really well.

This playful, UDK graduate artist, Julien Collieux (french born, works/lives in berlin) arranged a whimsical performance using 63 "extras" as his string pulling puppets. Laid out on each chair was a diagram for when the string puller would yank their card up to expose the white wall and and help reveal the black and white defined geometric shapes.
Collieux would call out the alphabet and the gridded ink spot patterns would reveal. The exercise in itself was a site to see as some people were slow to understand the timing causing for slight delays and audience laughter to brew. Collieux would call out "let's try it one more time" and then after a few rounds the string pullers would get it right. The process became more interesting than the simple forms that appeared on the wall and an amazing analysis of human response and group teamwork. The dichotomy and need of both, simple product/complicated process, is something to be considered for some time.
Collieux is like the "mad art scientist" who uses viewers as lab rats to make his experiments come to life.

Collieux reads from the scroll of directions in the background, as his subjects pay close attention to the task at hand.

The rest of the gallery displayed other works of Collieux ranging from drawings to his performance sculpture.

These are some amazingly detailed diagrams for the ECRAN performance.

***

here's some more pics of the backroom space.

galerie 5213
julien collieux (check it out, good stuff to see)

deutsche guggenheim

2008-02-24T05:36:00.000-08:00

The deutsche guggenheim might be smaller than expected (only 5500sq/ft gallery) consisting of two medium sized main rooms and a small gift shop, but the exhibitions are concise, tightly curated and a refreshingly easy to digest. The museum sits in the bottom floor of Deutsche Bank, a major arts supporter and collection company (boasts over 50,000 works in its collection). Most big-time museums go with the motto "bigger is better" but this museum extension in germany carefully considers its shows, which are more in line with a regular gallery's format of single artists and themed exhibitions, to better make use of the space.

For better pictures and info on the current show, True North, go here.

****

Oh, and then there's the gift shop, which you can also access online. I got this very handy, funny shopper bag for only 5 euro and have already scored compliments from some very fashionable germans! This could be my new favorite, cheap find!

contemporary fine arts berlin - CFA

2008-02-19T06:52:00.000-08:00

jonathan meese 23 Januar 1970 and georg baselitz 23 Janar 1938

The new space (but not new gallery) in berlin's mitte district, just next to museum island, opened only last year! This central location is rebuilding and becoming the hub of arts, history and culture. Just north are tons of contemporary galleries and around the corner are the big modern art and history museums.

As big as jonathan meese is in the contemporary art market, this show was not a let down. First off the space is great - expansive, light-filled, contemporary...you know, chelsea-new york-like. I have seen meese's works in person in the mix of international shows like art basel, but seeing his works in berlin, large scale, in series, alone in one big room, was quite impressive - even for an art pessimist like me. I remember when an art friend said, "hey have you checked out jonathan meese's portraits...they're great...". So I looked online that night to find pictures like this:
I didn't know whether to be scared and think they were by the devil or worship them! I ended up the same week making them my "screen savers" at my work, thus I think sending a strange message to my adult co-workers.
Living in berlin really does add to the experience...and apparently I wasn't alone. This show has captured the eyes of collectors because even on an off day seeing the show, there still were couples scouting the works. Coming from a sleepy collecting town of detroit, this was an encouraging site to see!

The show, a birthday celebration theme, also celebrated works by georg baselitz - a great balance to see one floor up. The mostly recent works by baselitz were also huge and figurative like meese's. While the titles didn't imply, I saw them as hitler-like, break dancing men - very intentionally simplistic, a little funny, and morbid; a nice dichotomy with meese and a perfect show with "same birthdays". This was a high level, big name show, with a good premise, that could have instantly gone too gimmicky but prevailed with strong, comparatively curated works!

Akos Birkás @ Eigen + Art

2008-02-18T07:06:00.000-08:00

There was a great build up in my head prior to visiting the internationally known german gallery. Eigen+art is a gallery I associated as hosting a very particular style of new german art that I had grown to love and hate- usually pertaining to a lifeless, simplified melancholy, yet ultimately respected.
A little bit of history now. The gallery's founder and director, Gerd Harry Lybke, established the gallery in 1983 in its first location Leipzig. He gathered the growing movement of Leipzig schooled painters and began his marketing plan to draw attention to his new gallery of german artists. In 2003 he won the hearts of the well known collectors, the Rubells', who took home a hefty number of works from his gallery - enough to draw international attention and raise the prices/demand for german schooled artists. (Here's when I visited the Rubell collection)

I had discovered the gallery for myself, a few years back in a round about way of seeing one of the represented artists, martin eder, in a big ny show. It was horrible - giant puffy white kitties with young naked girls, or at least that was my first impression of disgust. I ended up leaving the gallery in ny, confused but changed. The paintings were everything that I hated in a painting - the overtlypainterly style to the grotesque, cutsy subject matter. But why do I love them now? The short, simple answer is that I look at art much differently now.

So one can see why I would be excited to visit the the gallery that I researched from Detroit. I might have been the luck of the draw but I was very disappointed. If there is one category that leaves me uninterested, it has to be a photo-realist, snap-shot show! Oh, well maybe next time....

Salomé @ Galerie Deschler

2008-02-14T07:07:00.000-08:00

link to show

Don't Worry Be Curious @ NGBK

2008-02-13T04:18:00.000-08:00

gallery/show info here
"...photographs, videos, and installations by 20 artists from the countries bordering the Baltic Sea, works that address the problems and fears resulting from upheavals in present-day society..." NGBK

The New Society for Fine Arts/Die Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst (NGBK) is a collective or team-run gallery in the back of a popular Kreuzberg bookstore. Out of three of the shows I have seen at the gallery, so far all have explored political, global and euro-specific cultural themes. Most shows also have been video and photography based, which feels expected given the gallery's location.

Sometimes an exhibition that's foremost goal is to "teach" or "expose" becomes trapped in a lethargic, two-dimensional world. Pictures tell a literal story and videos document a direct subject. Can't there be the best of both worlds? That an informative show can still be visually engaging and challenging? This show teeteers on the edge but overall has loose curation and more direct words and pictures without room for viewer interpretation and interaction. Though the strong video presence included a projection that traversed around a small sectioned off room showing a rehearsed choir tragically singing grand songs about taxes, road repairs, economics and political statements mixed in with other silly verses like the trials of buying new underwear - all in a very public setting. Despite the luke-warm show, I respect the space's focus and intent as an educating/awareness gallery and can't really judge it for more than what it is supposed to be...after all, it is funded in part by the german government and other countries' embassies, so I can probably expect more socio-political commentary to come.

sitcomes at Ikea: Ben-Ner

2008-02-11T05:56:00.000-08:00

Check out this artist who has dazzled jerry saltz - (Israeli born, works in ny) Guy Ben-Ner. His current video work or *sitcom*, Stealing Beauty, is staged throughout an active/open Ikea store and he even casted his family. It's really quite brilliant - I believe it is open for interpretation beyond saltz's point of view. Check out the trailer:

SOX - berlin

2008-02-10T05:00:00.000-08:00

Although many berliners like to take their beer on the streets this isn't another casual get together but an art opening......held completely outside on the sidewalk. The gallery, SOX, is one window and one window only. No inside entrance - just a viewing window that changes once a month. More specifics here.

This month is artist Stef Heidhues with Churchill Downs.

look back- berlin fashion week

2008-02-08T04:03:00.000-08:00

Berlin Fashion week is over now but the city has already culturally rebounded again with the Berlinale (berlin film fest...and yes we did catch a glimpse of the Rolling Stones and Martin Scorsese on the red carpet).
But back to fashion week. I have never been to ny's fashion week and only once to la's but I get the feeling that berlin falls somewhere in between in scale and prominence. Berlin has great street style and a city where the avantgarde becomes the norm. Fashion inspiration spreads from the artists and fashion risk takers here and trickels up instead of down like in other cities. You definitely don't see a lot of designer bags or glitzy pronounced labels on the general berliner. Thrift store shopping and local designer wear, infiltrates the streets. This is also a city that I don't think totally left the 80's in some ways demonstrated by its bright neon colors (new wave and graffiti inspired ) and baggy, acidwashed denim and fade haircuts - a big hit with the turkish population. This is city where sweatpants are cool and not in a ironic-mocking way - they just are! On the subway it is often hard to tell if it is just another fashion hipster or a miss-matched german with large out-of-date but now "in again" glasses. Berlin's past and present history presents its self with eastern european flair intergraded into a new expressive youth.

Here's some of the events from last week:

Beck's Fashion Experience

***

Marcel Ostertag

***

Sinemus

***

***

Ideal Fashion Show (better pics here)

zak posen @ berlin fashion week

2008-02-05T06:09:00.000-08:00

roman singer @ hamburger bahnhof

2008-02-04T06:20:00.000-08:00

The Hamburger Bahnhof museum is a superb example of berlin's efforts to reshape, rebuild and reclaim the city after wwII. Coming from a city (detroit) that didn't host a world war in its own backyard, the similarities between landscapes are staggering yet berlin has found a way out of its empty lots and abandoned spaces. Even just another example (which I will talk about later) is berlin fashion week's sponsorship of empty public strip-mall-like, window spaces that they give out to fashion designers to use for a set-up period prior to fashion week and then jury the best designer to keep the space rent free for a year.....yeah, looks like detroit could learn a little! And then there are the organized squats...but for now I am getting off track.

After being severley damaged in the war, the former central train station was sparingly used until 1989 when it received a face lift for the new contemporary museum which opened its doors in 1996.

expansive main contemporary galleries of museum

the big Judd room

The gigantic and amazing solo show of swiss artist Roman Singer (b. 1938), featuring a whole basement of video performances and upstairs of more videos and the equipment used in the often humorous and art-sarcastic experiments. Even for a sometimes hard to impress art lover, this was an amusing, simplistically experimental, smart and even chuckle out loud brilliant show...I went twice, which is also rare for me!

"Roman Signer has always seen himself as a sculptor. He even refers to actions that only last for short moments as sculpture. In these 'event or time sculptures' is always concerned with problems, actions and time sequences in space." - hausler contemporary

Hamburger Bahnhof web

high math @ pool gallery berlin

2008-02-01T06:25:00.001-08:00

It was Berlin Fashion Week last week and a variety of venues hosted offset parties and creative events spinning from the runway shows. Pool Gallery is an artist run space in the heart of berlin's trendy mitte district. The group show was a collection of works on paper.

shepard fairey

josh petherick - Hexed Life Triptych

richard colman - untitled

peter beste - Furze, Sandvika, Norway

killpixie - above and below

andrew schoultz - Horse Under Fire (with and without hand embellishments)

parra - 1 Harp Music

perks - Double Ganger (above), Space Noodles (below)

This reminded me of a current new-art-rave version of this. I would have loved to go home with it....or the happy rainbows!

read my lips @ peres projects berlin

2008-02-01T06:22:00.000-08:00

Peres Projects has two locations: la and berlin. The gallery first caught my attention a while back upon reading an interview about the 27 year old gallery owner. My interest has only grown, being that berlin is where I am living now and la is the place I will be living in a couple months.
Peres Projects separates from the rest of the berlin galleries with its location along the Spree river's edge, in a mostly young, hip, working artist area in kreuzberg. The openings, if judging souly on this well attended event, are a collection of the cities best artistic youth. I have always thought that artists are always effortlessly the best and most creatively dressed, and berlin certainly sets the example: art mimics fashion and vice versa. I think I spent half the time just people watching!

here's more info from website

The title "Read My Lips", clever and intriguing, especially in this political climate. But the art was passed the point and some felt elementary on concept. To blatant. OK, I get it...sex in your face...trying to be uncomfortable and "raise awareness". Yet, this is another case of hip gallery with cool kids = better show. I still connected with a few pieces and felt the "light show" in the annex space was environmentally fun.

berlin-art-fashion

No, this wasn't part of the exhibit but I made it into my piece: ladies fur coat and the male version resting on the next heater. I call it "opening"! I think it was their first date and not going very well.

This was the annex space next door, in a giant factory-style building. upon entering you were handed cardboard sunglasses to shield your eyes from the intense, bright light display on the center wall. This was a situation where the context of the space, light and funny glasses made the viewers engage in the space, thus making the white light less about the light itself and more about the relationships and effect.

All in all, OK show...one where I respect the gallery enough to look into the work and explore beyond the initial reaction....like a good friend that challenges your likes and dislikes. See you soon Peres Projects la - can't wait!

Brunnenstraße gallery openings: 11 jan

2008-01-29T11:47:00.000-08:00

if you are under 40 and living berlin my guess is you are an artist. I am new to the scene but I do know that there are a few good gallery districts/areas to view art and meet other artsy types and this (brunnenstraße) might be the best when it comes to popping in and out and making the rounds. I always enjoy a mild walk, no in and out car/subway transport and a plethora of good shops, restaurants and bars all mixed in. although this street still holds some invading yuppie charm, it is a good place to see a wide variety of works and people - just think of taking one street of chelsea, ny in comparison. the berlin art scene is on the up-and-up and one can definitely feel the energy and lack of pretentiousness or snobbery.

goff & rosenthal - ted riederer

***

galerie gilian morris - jenny michel
no, these kids weren't part of the exhibit but they should be!

all dust/lint samples that are carefully documented!

***

pitrowski gallery - veronika rettich

I truly enjoy seeing berlin gallerists explain art to americans. speaking of english, I believe I heard more english than german in most of the galleries. everyone here seems to be transplanted from somewhere else. the openings are filled with many, many artists - this city is an artists' haven!

***

birgit ostermeier - roman lipski

***

foto-shop berlin

***

nice & fit/one picture gallery - alexander buhler
what is everyone huddeled around?... just one piece?... in the whole gallery?

yup.

and what a snide, delightfully mocking piece to walk across the gallery to view.

***

nice & fit - Angela Mewes

this opening really reminded me of art back in detroit, specifically cranbrook and ccs students' works of florescent colors, geometric planes, sculptural fabric that divided space. gotta give a holla for the leaning canvas - haven't seen this since back home! maybe berlin isn't so different.

this piece of string holding up one of the corners of the fabric tension sculpture was the best part of the show. sure, it tied all the bright, fragmented paintings together and made the space feel as one complete installation but the room divide was even more dynamic. during the crowded opening, viewers had to dart underneath the string to get around the gallery and it was wonderful when it made for awkward, split conversation. I want to have a show with just a single string dividing the room in two!
***

parrotta contemporary art - Claus Larsen

***

jan winkelmann - dennis loesch

***

artnews projects - 2041 curated by birgit ostermeier

much, much more to come...roman singer...peres projects...berlin fashion week....
(ps - for berliners who would like to check out my old blog — and the detroit art scene c. 2005-7 — see http://www.detroitartsblog.com)

hallo!

2008-01-26T07:45:00.000-08:00

despite the word on the street, berlin really doesn't suck.

welcome to a look into the berlin arts scene, with the main focus being on visual/fine arts. berlin is a city of youth and culture where just about everyone you run into is an artist, musican, dancer, designer or writer. it shares similarities to the city I come from, detroit (high unemployment, missing buildings, graffiti, an underdog trying to beat its reputation) but mixed with a metropolitan coolness like ny, but without the snootiness. over the next month or so I will be covering the scene as I see it...and look forward to the new adventure!