05.2023

SUDDENLY (AND ALWAYS) WONDERFUL

ICCC – International Center for Contemporary Culture, 2014-2023 © Bureau N / Something Fantastic

During the Cold War, remarkable large buildings were erected in West Berlin as new locations for science, research, commerce and culture. Even though most of these landmarks have been neglected for more than 50 years, there have always been practitioners and avid devotees who’ve thought of them as wonderful and worked towards their preservation through adaptive reuse. Showcasing more than 150 exhibits and proposals from architects, urban planners, photographers and artists, the Berlinische Galerie dedicates its new exhibition “Suddenly Wonderful: Visions for chunky 1970’s architecture in West Berlin” to these iconic Cold-War-era landmarks and the current efforts to revitalise them. Among them, BUREAU N and Something Fantastic’s joint proposal envisions the transformation of the architectural icon International Congress Centrum Berlin (ICC) into the ICCC – International Centre of Contemporary Culture.

05.2023

THE MUSEUM IS (NO LONGER) CLOSED!

Julius von Bismarck, Landscape Painting (Bismarck Sea), 2022, Courtesy Julius von Bismarck; alexander levy, Berlin, and Sies + Höke, Düsseldorf, © Julius von Bismarck, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023

Nasan Tur, Shadow, 2023 © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023

Böhler & Orendt, Incantation, Drawing from the series: The Spirit of the B·U·D or The Sweet Certainty of Deliverance from the Darkness that Surrounds Us, 2021 © Böhler & Orendt, 2022, Photo: Gerhard Haug, Böhler & Orendt 2021

A twelve-meter-long cloth simulating ocean waves pours out from the exhibition halls of the Berlinische Galerie. At first glance, the fabric undulations represent the Bismarck Sea in the Pacific Ocean. Yet, between the lines, there’s much more: references to German colonialism, climate change confrontation, and slowly rising sea levels. When Platitudes Become Form is Julius von Bismarck’s first time dealing with his family heritage, at the intersection between how nature is seen and how history is written. Coinciding with the museum’s reopening is also Nasan Tur’s survey on hunting and hunted creatures, Böhler & Orendt’s touch of irony and black humour, and Suddenly Wonderful—visions for chunky 1970s architecture in West Berlin.

05.2023

THE GERMAN PAVILION IS OPEN FOR MAINTENANCE

Open for Maintenance / ARCH+, Summacumfemmer, Büro Juliane Greb

For the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, the German Pavilion takes a hands-on approach: The curatorial team, comprised of ARCH+, Summacumfemmer and Büro Juliane Greb, explores questions of repair and maintenance by refurbishing the pavilion building using solely material left behind from 40 national pavilions and exhibitions from last year’s Art Biennale. In collaboration with a network of Venetian and German activists, Open for Maintenance – Wegen Umbau geöffnet transforms the monumental German Pavilion into an accessible site of re-production. The work sheds light on architecture’s myriad possibilities for action when it comes to converting and designing inclusive, socio-ecological cities.

05.2023

HOT CITIES: LESSONS FROM ARAB ARCHITECTURE

Tuwaiq Palace Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Photo: Rashid & Ahmed Bin Shabib

Ahmed and Rashid bin Shabib, © Vitra Design Museum, © Rashid & Ahmed bin Shabib, Photo: Bettina Matthiessen

Learning from the past: with the exhibition “Hot Cities: Lessons from Arab Architecture” the Vitra Design Museum Gallery explores architectural and urban design solutions in Arab metropoles that have a long history of hot climates. Using architectural models, curators Ahmed and Rashid bin Shabib illustrate the intricate links between aesthetics and climate adaptation and seek out ideas that might help us make our own environments more climate resilient in the future.

05.2023

“TRÄUM WEITER!,” SAYS SOPHIE REINHOLD AT GALERIE NORDENHAKE

Sophie Reinhold, Installation view at Galerie Nordenhake during Gallery Weekend Berlin, Photo: Gerhard Kassner

Sophie Reinhold’s first solo exhibition at Galerie Nordenhake explores questions around dreams and illusions, simulation and real life. Titled “Dream on,” the show presents site-specific installations and the artist’s most recent series of quasi-sculptural paintings made with bitumen, round marble and graphite powder. However, unlike the show’s title suggests, Reinhold is not concerned with escapism. On the contrary: everything she creates revolves around opening room for discourse, investigating the plurality of opinions and examining the appearance of an image and what truly stands behind it.

04.2023

HEY BERLIN, IT’S GALLERY WEEKEND!

Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, Open your heart because everything will change, 2023, Courtesy, the artist and Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin, Photo: Jens Ziehe

Yngve Holen, Courtesy Galerie Neu and the artist, Photo: Stefan Korte

This year’s Gallery Weekend Berlin’s extensive program, spread over more than 50 locations, will showcase around 80 international artists. The communal opening weekend has time and again proven its power to connect artists, galleries, collectors and visitors despite all odds. The institution’s collaborative spirit and unwavering stance toward supporting artists enhance the city’s status as an art capital and energetic melting pot. To make your gallery-hopping smoother, be sure to consult the digital map on the Gallery Weekend Berlin website, offering seamless navigation between venues. And while you’re at it, explore a wide range of studio visits, gallery portraits or exhibition tours.

03.2023

MOVING IN: PLAN B

Galeria Plan B, Berlin, Courtesy Galeria Plan B Cluj, Berlin, Photo: Trevor Good

Adrian Ghenie, Untitled, 2022, Courtesy the artist and Galeria Plan B Cluj, Berlin, Photo: Trevor Good

Galeria Plan B takes a leap forward and moves to one of the iconic towers on Strausberger Platz, also known as Haus Berlin. With views to preserve the spirit of the historical building, the ground and first floor have been renovated to enhance the space’s original character in lieu of turning it into a generic white cube. Initiated in 2005 in Cluj as a platform for Romanian contemporary artists – such as Ciprian Muresan, Serban Savu and Victor Man – the gallery has grown to present an international program, which has earned them widespread recognition in the art world. Hosting the new location’s first exhibition is Adrian Ghenie, who will show his most recent figure painting series.

03.2023

THE HISTORY AND FUTURE OF MODERN GARDENS

Julien de Cerval, The Gardens of Marqueyssac, Vézac, France, designed in the 1860s © Photo: Romain Laprade, 2020

Derek Jarman, Prospect Cottage Garden at Dungeness, Kent, UK, designed from 1986. Photo: Howard Sooley, 1993

Gardens reflect identities, dreams, and visions. Deeply rooted in their culture, they can unfold immense symbolic potential. The recent revival of horticulture has focused less on the garden as a romantic refuge and more as a place where concepts of social justice, biodiversity, and sustainability can be explored and expanded. Gardens have become places of the avant-garde. The exhibition “Garden Futures” at the Vitra Design Museum shows where today’s garden ideals derive from and examines how gardens hold the potential to help us achieve a livable, symbiotic future.

03.2023

CLIMATE CITY BERLIN 2030

Experimental field at metropolitan area Berlin-Brandenburg, SMAQ, Kopperroth, Alex Wall, Office MMK, Stefan Tischer

SauerbruchHutton, urbainable, Leipziger Straße Berlin

ROBERTNEUN™ and nord architects, HeinrichHertzGymnasium, 2. Preis © Philipp Obkircher

“Bündnis Klimastadt Berlin 2030” (Alliance Climate City Berlin 2030), a wide-ranging alliance of Berlin initiatives, environmental and tenants’ associations, planners and builders—including BUREAU N—brings together diverse expertise and sees itself as an offer to city politicians to actively and collectively drive change forward. The aim is to develop Berlin into an ecological and social model city. What forms the project’s basis are seven closely intertwined cornerstones: climate resilience, mobility transition, construction transition, cooperation and participation, common good and affordable housing as well as cultural freedom in the polycentric metropolitan region of Berlin-Brandenburg.

03.2023

PETER ZUMTHOR: ARCHITECTURE BORN OF CRAFTSMANSHIP

Allmannajuvet: Model study for Zinkmuseum Allmannajuvet, Sauda, Norwegen © Atelier Peter Zumthor

Model photo of the exhibition in Werkraum Haus Andelsbuch, 2023 © Atelier Peter Zumthor

The room-filling exhibition displays architectural models by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor inside a building that he himself planned: the Werkraum Haus in Bregenzerwald, Austria. Captivating and unusual in nature, the models create atmosphere and illustrate craftsmanship in every detail. They are the tools with which Peter Zumthor designs his buildings and crafts spaces in a singular way that brings together materials, construction methods and form to create a unified whole. Like the Werkraum Haus itself, the models stand for the unparalleled symbiosis between architecture and craftsmanship.

02.2023

WHO’S GOT THE POWER?

Kasia Fudakowski, “The Alchemy of the Hinge”, 2023; “Gallery Power LTD”, ChertLüdde, Berlin. Photo by Andrea Rossetti. Courtesy of
ChertLüdde and Kasia Fudakowski.

Kasia Fudakowski, “Surf and Turf”, 2023; “Gallery Power LTD”, ChertLüdde, Berlin. Photo by Andrea Rossetti. Courtesy of
ChertLüdde and Kasia Fudakowski.

Kasia Fudakowski likes to play—with clichés, standards and expectations. In her 5th ChertLüdde solo show however, she lets the visitors be in charge of the game: For “Gallery Power LTD” she presents a new series of sculptures, including lights and motors, which can be switched on/off by the visitors; only one work is controlled by an external mechanism too. The exhibition is powered by a limited amount of electricity and will turn off once it is consumed, eventually leaving the works in the dark. With this interactive and somewhat immediate gesture, Fudakowski questions individual behaviour, accountability for resources in cultural spaces and indirectly gives a nod to the current energy crisis.

02.2023

STEEL TUBE MEETS LOUNGER

Photo: Michelle Mantel

Created for extensive reading sessions and day-dreaming breaks, the newly launched 22.9 Daybed becomes the most recent addition to Blockbau’s collection. Much like the 22.24 Armchair and 32 Chair from the same line, this too is made of a bent steel tube forming its characteristic shape. The new member of the Blockbau family suggests that the daybed is as important as any other piece of furniture within a living space: “While in Scandinavia the daybed is widely used as a piece of furniture with multiple uses, in Germany it’s still greatly underestimated. The term daybed should be conceptually broadened, because its design works not only as a lounger but also as a seat; not only in private living spaces, but also workplace settings,” says Kevin Rack, the design brand’s founder.

01.2023

I AM NOT AN ARTIST, I AM A PAINTER

Wayne Thiebaud, Girl with Pink Hat, 1973. © Wayne Thiebaud Foundation/ 2022, ProLitteris, Zurich. Photo: Katherine Du Tiel

Thiebaud in his studio, 1990. Courtesy of the Wayne Thiebaud Foundation. Photo: Matt Bult

Wayne Thiebaud, Untitled (City View), 1993 © Wayne Thiebaud Foundation/ 2022, ProLitteris, Zurich. Photo: Matthew Kroening

The Fondation Beyeler presents the first posthumous retrospective of Wayne Thiebaud (1920–2021) in the German-speaking world. Virtually unknown in Europe until now, with this exhibition, the museum continues to offer insight into leading proponents of American figurative art, such as Edward Hopper and Georgia O’Keeffe. Most will recognise Thiebaud for his celebrated still lifes, drawn from everyday motifs in post-war America: pastry displays, sweet treats, stuffed toys, or gumball machines. Yet only a few know that within his 70-year career, he consistently worked on figure paintings and large-scale landscapes too. Common to all are his sophisticated use of colour and a distinctive visual idiom straddling the lines between irony, humour, nostalgia and melancholy.

12.2022

A NEWLY RETHOUGHT URBAN DISTRICT FOR CULTURE AND ENCOUNTERS

For around 8 years, the open industrial wasteland “RAW-Gelände” in Berlin Friedrichshain has been at the center of a participative planning process. The R.A.W.-Gelände is home to a multitude of social and cultural initiatives and shall continue to be a place of gathering and diverse coexistence, of music and sport, of work, leisure and gastronomy, and above all of encounters. The master plan by Holzer Kobler and Atelier Loidl proposes selective building upwards to create urban open spaces for public use while the socio-cultural initiatives remain on site while their continuance will be secured long term. Now it is a question of letting this jointly planned place come into being.

12.2022

YOU SEXY MF!!!!

Château Royal’s hotel bar is the place to go for both locals and visitors alike. Bar manager Matteo Vacca serves classic drinks with subtle twists, like the signature Oyster Martini or Negroni Sous Vide. The drinks are accompanied by a bar food menu from the dóttir kitchen, highlighted by staples such as the crispy oyster mushroom house sandwich served in warm brioche with lovage mayonnaise and crunchy smashed potatoes.