Berlin
posted by Rodney LaTourelle - January 31st, 2008.
There is an elaborate network of galleries, project spaces, institutions, and clubs, as well as improvised exhibitions, apartment galleries and other venues for art in Berlin. While many publications attempt to serve as guides, they are all vastly incomplete as the sheer number of spaces and variety of locations make it impossible to keep track. There is a seemingly endless infiltration of new and erratic energy that makes the exhibition scene wildly unpredictable, vastly entertaining, and just a bit crazy. As elsewhere, the art is always hit and miss, but what is really unique here is the highly diverse social mix that parallels the constant shift of psychic and geographical centres of interest over the city. You can often find a melange of artists, curators, musicians, theorists, writers, critics, etc. at a given event, creating a profusion of overlapping and undefined situations, and so the potential for dialogue, collaboration, and mutual influence seems comparably quite high.
Joseph Kosuth, Quoted (“Is that a quotation, I asked…” Borges), 1992, silkscreen (photographer: Susanne Ullerich)
Klosterfelde Gallery has been a commercial fixture for contemporary art since the mid-90s, representing John Bock, Christian Jankowski, and other internationally recognized German artists along with established international artists such as Michael Snow and Matt Mullican. The main gallery moved from the über-gentrified Mitte to Zimmerstrasse in 2001, where it acted as ground zero for a cluster of new galleries amidst the collection of former industrial buildings. The original space is now called Helga Maria Klosterfelde and used to exhibit editions. Currently, a series of works by the well-known American conceptualist and author, Joseph Kosuth, is on display. Among the editions is a piece typical of his practice, a Jorge Luis Borges quotation discussing the inescapability of quotation, establishing an endless loop of self-reference. Sampling, citation, and the nature of representation are enduring artistic questions and it is somehow refreshing to see the conceptual clarity of this Duchampian trajectory at the moment.
Etienne Boulanger, The Single Room Hotel, 2007
Skulpturenpark Berlin Zentrum is a young collective that invites artists to construct critical public art in a five hectare site in central Berlin. The “park” is more like an urban wasteland, occupying the former military zone within the Berlin Wall. Currently, Etienne Boulanger exhibits The Single Room Hotel, a rentable two-star hotel room found within a rectangular formation of billboards. The revenue of the billboards helps to finance the project, creating a habitation strategy simultaneously inside and outside of the “system”. Attending a party at this strange hotel, I found the space simultaneously cozy and creepy. Maybe it was the absence of a door on the bathroom, but the conceptual dialogue between overexposure and camouflage was certainly maintained.
Thomas Zipp, Sick Souls by Sick Minds, 2007
Autocenter is an artist initiated gallery that was first situated in a spacious, former garage and recently moved to a second floor space above a supermarket. The new space is also huge, with a white cube constructed in the centre of an even bigger space and large exterior decks extending this on two sides. It’s funny that the giant sign for the supermarket chain, Lidl, one of the cheapest and most politically incorrect in Germany, acts as a way-finding device for this art hall. Thomas Zipp, a recent rising star is included in the current group exhibition at this site, as well as in a large solo exhibition at Galerie Guido W. Baudach. At Baudach, his Sick Souls by Sick Minds is a thoroughly Gothic affair, with works in sculpture, painting and drawing that are impressive in ensemble, rather than individually. His characteristic “nails in the eye” motif added to the sense that dark forces were at work inside the range of recognizable yet transfigured forms, but I wasn’t moved to find out more.
Douglas Gordon in …5 minutes later at Kunst-Werke
If I have mentioned Kunst-Werke in this blog a number of times, it is because it basically functions as the centre for contemporary art in Berlin, acting also as the headquarters for the Berlin Biennale. The Dan Graham-designed café is always packed at their large openings, which usually gang together two to three elaborate group shows. In the last few years, exhibition topics have included the controversial Red Army Faction, Throbbing Gristle, Contemporary Arab Representation (curated by Catherine David), and, surprisingly, even fashion photographer Terry Richardson. The recent exhibition, ...5 minutes later, is not one of the more successful. Relations between concept and presence connect the spaciously installed minimalist pieces that focus on immediacy. And many works seem to have been made in five minutes, and most are engaging for much less time. A Thomas Demand photo is interesting because it looks like a real, not constructed scene (which, of course, it wasn't). A sprawling Thomas Rentmeister installation is worth exploring for its elaborate and chaotic piles of hundreds of common items, all coloured white or off-white, such as washing powder, q-tips, wool, tampons, salt, sugar, or ping pong balls. After searching for Douglas Gordon’s work for a while, I asked the gallery attendant seated at about the spot where the work was located on the orientation map. She drew back her hair and revealed a black line across the back of her neck. Delicate and disconcerting, the enigmatic experience was at once personal and abstract.
Brent Wadden, Bad Mood
Over the last couple of years, a small store-front room facing an elevated train and situated on a bleak major roadway was every so often the locus of a temporary exhibition curated by Swiss artist Reto Pulfer. At the moment, Canadian artist Brent Wadden resides in the adjacent apartment and he recently organized an exhibition here with the monumental title MMVII. The imperious Roman numerals contrast with the improvised aesthetic and DIY ethos of the artists on display, a group associated with the noise or underground music scene. The stoner/slacker feel of the exhibition escapes the cool nostalgia of groups like Paper Rad, while fixing on pseudo-craft and unpredictable assemblage. Wadden’s two works of intricate hand-drawn patterns are based on particularly extreme emotions and moods, and have a “folk in the digital age” edge. The opening featured short solo noise sets that included Steve Warwick from the UK and Canadians Nate Davis and Trevor Larson (of Circlesquare).
Matt Stokes, Real Arcadia (courtesy Matt Stokes/Luttgenmeijer, Berlin)
The first exhibition at Lüttgenmeijer, recently opened in the modest space of the former Isabella Bortolozzi Gallery (who decamped to the increasingly hip West Berlin), also references recent music culture. Examining the legacy of ecstasy-fueled dance culture and, in particular, certain “cave raves” in England’s Lake District, Matt Stokes’ exhibition Real Arcadia acts as like archeology of a lost world. The project involved intensive interviews with the participants and includes elegantly displayed paraphernalia such as hand painted cassette tapes and record sleeves, text banners, and reconstructed speaker sets, as well as relevant television newscasts. Community and collective longing, in addition to notions of authenticity and sampling, are all invoked by this fascinating and carefully constructed exhibition.
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Rodney LaTourelle is an artist, writer and designer based in Berlin and Winnipeg. He writes frequently for artist's catalogues, and is a regular correspondent for BorderCrossings and C Magazine.
Klosterfelde Gallery: http://www.klosterfelde.de/index.html
Helga Maria Klosterfelde: http://www.helgamariaklosterfelde.de/html/editions_and_mutiples.html
Skulpturenpark Berlin Zentrum: http://www.skulpturenpark.org/
Autocenter: http://www.autocenterart.de/index_flash.htm
Galerie Guido W. Baudach: http://www.guidowbaudach.com/index.html
Kunst-Werke: http://www.kw-berlin.de/english/set_index.htm
Brent Wadden: http://brent.iputthedotinthe.com/
Luettgenmeijer: http://www.luettgenmeijer.com/
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