11.2021

MAKING AI TANGIBLE

To encourage a museum-centered encounter with the phenomenon of artificial intelligence, Berlin-based scenographers chezweitz have created a spatial experience for the Deutsche Hygiene Museum’s current special exhibition “Artificial Intelligence: Machine. Learning. Human Dreams”. chezweitz’ use of differing illumination methods for each of the five exhibition chapters renders the presented objects, artworks, and audiovisual media to become intuitively accessible for visitors, allowing sensual and unmediated access to questions about AI.

11.2021

“The New Infinity” goes Athens

After transforming the Zeiss-Großplanetarium Berlin into a “gallery of the future” last September, the planetary format of the Berliner Festspiele will be hosted for the first time at the Eugenides Foundation’s “New Digital Planetarium” in Athens. The venue is built up from a 278-seat amphitheatre and equipped with state-of-the-art technology. In partnership with the 7th Athens Biennale ECLIPSE, Onassis Culture and the Eugenides Foundation “The New Infinity Athens” aims to expand the horizon of its audience by exploring the use of planetaria for artistic purposes.

11.2021

PERFORMATIVE DISCOURSES IN VENICE

This year’s edition of the Goethe Institute’s programme series Performing Architecture cooperated with 2038, the German Pavilion at the Architecture Biennial in Venice: throughout November, various performances within the urban realm physically negotiate questions of accessibility and participation. During the “Conference of the Absent”—which marks both, highlight and conclusion of the series—Rimini Protokoll performs a staged conference within the German Pavilion using the offline tools of theatre to address global collaboration in times of crisis.

10.2021

GOYA: CONTEMPORARY MASTER

Witches’ Sabbath (El Aquelarre), 1797/98, Museo Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid © Museo Lázaro Galdiano

Portrait of Doña Antonia Zárate y Aguirre, ca. 1805, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, Presented, Sir Alfred and Lady Beit, 1987 (Beit Collection) © National Gallery of Ireland NGI.4539

Self-Portrait (Autorretrato), 1815, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid © Photographic Archive. Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid

Witches’ Flight (Vuelo de Brujas), 1797–1798, Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid © Photographic Archive. Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid

Rarely shown paintings from private collections and iconic key works by Francisco de Goya come together at the Foundation Beyeler in one of the most important retrospectives devoted to the artist to date. Even 275 years after his birth, his influence and standing as an “artist’s artist” does not cease. Goya remains a major reference for many contemporary artists, among them Philippe Parreno. Commissioned on the occasion of the show, Parreno premiered “La Quinta del Sordo”, a film on Goya’s iconic black paintings series (“Pinturas Negras”, 1819–1824).

10.2021

THE ULTIMATE ULTRAMARINE

For the second Berlin branch of Aera Bread—a gluten-free bread manufacturer and café located at Rosenthaler Platz—the architecture duo Gonzalez Haase AAS designed a space that takes full advantage of its prominent location by making it impossible to be overlooked. The entire depth of the new store is made visible through a large storefront window, allowing its rich Lapis Lazuli blue interior to take centre stage. They applied monotone pigmented concrete in an intense blue colour embedded so consistently throughout the space that the room as a whole becomes a spatial sculpture.

10.2021

THE BERLINER FESTSPIELE INVADE THE ICC BERLIN

The ICC Berlin, © Noshe

Performance by Joulia Strauss © Eike Walkenhorst

Installations by Markus Selg and Richard Janssen, © Eike Walkenhorst

Screenings from the Julia Stoschek Collection, © Eike Walkenhorst

The Berliner Festspiele have brought the ICC Berlin, an architectural icon and sleeping colossus, back to life. Celebrating their 70 year anniversary with a unique experience of art, dance, performance and film “The Sun Machine Is Coming Down” is a cultural milestone for the city of Berlin. 45 Berlin-based and international artists contributed to the interdisciplinary project, coming together in a conceptual 10-days-programme based on simultaneity, similar to the original architectural concept of the building by Ursulina Schüler-Witte and Ralf Schüler.

10.2021

WHAT’S NEW IN THE NECKARSTRASSE

On the ground floor of the AMERON Frankfurt Neckarvillen Boutique Hotel, glasses clink, chairs are shuffled, and the colourful lights of a neon artwork by Tobias Rehberger shine out onto the street in Frankfurt’s Bahnhofsviertel. Here, the French Bento Bar is redefining the term “Hotel Bar” with a lively atmosphere and exquisite bar menu that celebrates French elegance and Japanese finesse, accentuated through high-quality products and skilled craftsmanship that incorporate both the flavours and techniques of both cultures.

10.2021

WOVEN STORIES FROM IRAN

Lila Valadan’s handmade rugs serve as much more than decorative objects but a reflection of the rich history and culture of Persia. The Hamburg-based entrepreneur is an expert in traditional Persian rugs – as one of the few women in this business. For her collections, Lila Valadan finds inspiration from traditional designs and combines them with contemporary elements. She returns to Iran frequently to accompany the manufacturing process with nomadic tribes.

10.2021

BROADENING THE VIEW: CHEZWEITZ AT HUMBOLDT FORUM

In a small and raw space on the ground floor of Berlin’s brand new Humboldt Forum, a 28-meter-long video panorama depicts various perspectives of the historic setting: Conceived by scenographers chezweitz, it invites visitors and passersby into an atmospheric overlay of the site’s eventful and controversial past – stretching from monastery to City Palace, from parade ground to Palace of the Republic to national construction site. Located between the Schlüterhof and the public passage, the Video Panorama is free of charge and open to passers-by. In addition to this installation, 35 “Flashbacks”, distributed throughout the entire Humboldt Forum, recall important events, unusual uses and everyday moments in the history of the place. With recurring filigree constructions in stainless steel, chezweitz gave these 35 objects a coherent framing.

10.2021

TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT THE HISTORY OF PORTRAIT

Marlene Dumas, Teeth, 2018 Private Collection, Madrid © Marlene Dumas. Courtesy the Artist and David Zwirner Photo: Kerry McFate

Alice Neel, Harold Cruse, Ca. 1950 Private collection © The Estate of Alice Neel Courtesy The Estate of Alice Neel and David Zwirner

Elizabeth Peyton, Isa Genzken, 1980, 2010 Private Collection © Elizabeth Peyton, Courtesy the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels

Paula Modersohn-Becker, Selbstbildnis Als Halbakt Mit Bernsteinkette Ii Self-Portrait (Semi-Nude With Amber Necklace Ii), Summer 1906, Kunstmuseum Basel, acquired with a special loan from the Basel government 1939, Photo: Martin P. Bühler

Featuring nine female artists of outstanding significance between 1870 and today, “Close-Up” at the Fondation Beyeler, presents works by Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Lotte Laserstein, Frida Kahlo, Alice Neel, Marlene Dumas, Cindy Sherman and Elizabeth Peyton. Heterogeneous merely in appearance, the artists share a common interest in the representation of individuals and the innovative use of the portrait format to mirror the essence of their time and reflect on their surroundings.

09.2021

A bigger picture: Women in design

Women in Design at the Vitra Design Museum

Nanda Vigo 1985 with her designs Light, Tree (1984) and Cronotopo (1964). Photo: Gabriele Basilico, courtesy by Archivio Nanda Vigo, Milano

Lina Bo Bardi, Stool for Centre SESC, Pompeia, São Paulo, 1979/80, © Vitra Design Museum, photo: Andreas Sütterlin, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021

Greta von Nessen, Anywhere desk lamp, 1952, © Vitra Design Museum, Photo: Andreas Jung

Loheland photo workshop: Jump (Montage), c. 1930, Photo: Loheland-Archiv, Künzell

With “Here We Are! Women in Design 1900 – Today” the Vitra Design Museum is telling a new, multi-voiced story of design against the background of the struggle for equal rights and recognition of women designers. The exhibition showcases works by protagonists of modernism such as Eileen Gray and Charlotte Perriand but also lesser-known figures like the social reformer Jane Addams. Contemporary positions and future outlooks are represented by such designers as Matali Crasset, Patricia Urquiola and the activist network Matri-Archi(tecture).

09.2021

DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM’S FIRST DECADE

Daniel Hölzl, Aufzug, 2021. Photo: Daniel Hölzl. Courtesy DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM, Berlin

Julian Charrière, Thickens Pools Flows Rushes Slows (detail), 2020, © The Artist; VG Bild Kunst Bonn, Germany, Photo By Jens Ziehe

Back in 2011 Dittrich & Schlechtriem opened their doors with Julian Charriére’s first solo show. One decade later, in celebration of the gallery’s anniversary, Charrière presents Soothsayers, an exhibition that induces a meditative trance-like state, explores post-romantic constructions of “nature” and stages tensions between geological timescales. For the occasion, Daniel Hölzl created BAIT with a similar focus on materiality and light. The site-specific installation on the gallery’s facade investigates the dynamics of built environments.

09.2021

MEET ALICJA KWADE AT BERLINISCHE GALERIE

Exhibition view „Alicja Kwade. In Abwesenheit/In Absence“, Photo: Roman März

Alicja Kwade’s solo exhibition “In Abwesenheit (In Absence)” at the Berlinische Galerie shows her most recent works, which place her in the spotlight, appearing as self-portraits in the broadest sense. Exploring various methodological perspectives to describe her presence in space, Kwade’s heartbeat, the pure chemical elements making up the human body or her fully sequenced genome meet and greet the visitor.

09.2021

(RE)SETTING THE CLOCK WITH HAGIUS

Hagius has transformed a historical post office in Berlin Mitte to a one-of-a-kind sports studio, in which physical aptitude and wellbeing are interwoven in a holistic programme of individual and group training sessions and treatments. Drawing reference to our circadian rhythm, targeted stimulation of the brain and nervous system through light, sound and scent according to the time of day allows for physical assertion that works with rather than against our body. To accommodate the multi-sensory training, Hagius worked with Gonzalez Haase AAS to redesign the historic building into a muted, tranquil space.

09.2021

NOT JUST ANOTHER GALLERY WEEKEND

Juan Antonio Olivares, Gallery Weekend Berlin

Juan Antonio Olivares, Transference, 2021. 3D animation, LED hologram

Jonas Roßmeißl, DienstleisterInnen Denkmal, Photo: David Ertl

Emma Jääskeläinen, Gallery Weekend Berlin

Emma Jääskeläinen, Creator (New Potatoe & Olive), 2017, Photo: Maija Toivanen

Philipp Groening, Gallery Weekend Berlin

Philip Gröning, Installationsfoto, 2020.09 Oktoberfest Phantom TANK Shanghai, Copyright Philip Gröning, Courtesy Ebensperger

Gallery Weekend Berlin has launched a new format: beginning with Gallery Weekend *Discoveries, the autumn edition will present annually a new thematic exhibition series. In 2021, the participating galleries were invited to focus on emerging and underrepresented positions and on artists who have not yet held exhibitions in the galleries before. Whether in solo shows or group exhibitions, the eager visitor could indeed make some great discoveries during that weekend: Emma Jääskeläinen’s huge but humorous sculptures at PSM, Igor Hosnedl’s slick surrealist paintings at EIGEN + ART and Daniel Hölzl’s site-specific installation in front of Dittrich&Schlechtriem have been highlights of the exhibition series.