The emotionally charged narratives of Polish-French painter Balthus, an anti-modernist beloved by modernists, are poignant, loaded, somewhat cryptical and sensuous. Too often they serve as backdrops to foregrounding the provocative undertones of his infamous mise-en-scénes where young girls recline in between states of dream-like repose and enraptured reawakening. Balthus himself dismissed attributing any perceived eroticism to viewers with unclean minds. What makes his work actual and up-to-date is the way it reconfigures certain moral dilemmas in light of different cultural moments, and raises the question about the role of censorship in relation to artistic freedom. Born Balthasar Klossowski, he cultivated an air of mystery and myth, secluding himself in old-world country houses and castles in France, Italy, and Switzerland. A new retrospective at Fondation Beyeler reaffirms the artist’s long-standing relationship to Switzerland and seeks to expose a multifaceted legacy by bringing to light a broader picture. It seems as if Balthus, who lived through nearly the entire 20th century, delighted in perfecting a visual language that feels outside history, nurturing an eccentric detachment from modernism. Taking the little known and monumental work Passage du Commerce-Saint-Andréas a focal point, the exhibition manifests the artist’s intensive engagement with the dimensions of space and time, as a way of distilling and constructing the relationship between the figure and object. The ethos of our age aspires to respond with action to subjects we find unsettling, disturbing or troubling but the work of art cannot be tamed, only responses to it.
Berlin is a fascinating yet chaotic whirlwind of clashing architectural sites, with some of its most monumental and distinctive landmarks inherited from the German Democratic Republic era. Distinctively embodying the GDR’s engineering ambitions, Funkhaus is a colossal broadcasting centre and studio complex designed during the 1950s by the distinguished Bauhaus architect Franz Ehrlich. His job was to create the world’s largest and most sophisticated recording facility that promised to be an ideal marriage of German functionality and Eastern decadence. It was constructed to symbolize the virtues of equality, collectivity and openness by bringing a wide array of musical genres under one roof. Red Bull Music Academy is celebrating their 20th anniversary at the historic complex, which has been converted into a creative microcosm. 61 international musicians have been selected to participate in the Academy, they will have the opportunity to exchange ideas, learn new things and expand their musical vocabulary. Design studio New Tendency has created a bespoke furniture collection for the Academy, combining lounge modules, tables and sofas that bring back the essence of Bauhaus design principles and through a poetic and playful tone rejuvenate the functional and rational aesthetic of the interiors. Part of the transformation is an exhibition showcasing Berlin’s established and most promising emerging artists. Hailing from different generations, the artists have been carefully selected by Johann König. The exhibition takes central stage at the Lecture Hall with large-scale paintings by Karl Horst Hödicke, a pioneer of German neo-expressionism and a representative of the New Figuration, depicting Berlin in the decades before and after the fall of the wall.
As both a forward-looking movement and a child of its time Bauhaus looked to interconnect various forms of knowledge—technical, scientific, emotional and creative. Workshops at Bauhaus school were known as spaces for creativity and innovation where testing of design prototypes was guided by material and technological experimentation. Today we live in times when the belief in utopian aspirations of modernism has lost its innocence, but the ideals are carried forward and awaiting to be dynamically reformulated in relation to the present situation in society. Project Bauhaus looks to critically examine the ethos of Bauhaus teaching by using its methods. This year’s iteration, Projekt Bauhaus Workshop / Datatopia takes inspiration from the Bauhaus workshop structure in order to explore the emancipatory potential of technology, question the idea of progress and formulate a critique of the present through design. Projekt Bauhaus Workshop has found a fitting home at the site of Floating University, an old, concrete rainwater basin right next to the Tempelhof airfield that has been repurposed into a visionary inner city offshore laboratory for collective, experimental learning. Over the course of four days the guests and the participants will exchange on the current state of research through workshops, lectures, exhibitions and performances. Renowned speakers will include Benjamin Bratton, Keller Easterling, Armin Linke, T’ai Smith, and Eyal Weizman, with on-site artistic interventions specially developed for the occasion by Morehshin Allahyari, Olaf Nicolai and Brave New Alps.
What is the significance of writing about film, whether in print or online, to the constitution of artistic communities today? Taking Film Culture, the cult publication on avant-garde cinema, founded by Jonas and Adolfas Mekas in 1954, as the central point of reference, Edit Film Culture! curates a multi-faceted programme housed at silent green Kulturquartier. The historic space of the former Wedding crematorium will be activated by an independent yet correlated sequences of talks, screenings, exhibitions and installations. On this occasion a temporary library will be set up, making 79 issues of the magazine available first-hand, with special focus on the 80th issue honouring and bringing to light the fascinating and pioneering figure of feminist filmmaker Barbara Rubin. Drawing on the relevance and legacy of Film Culture as a key source for measuring the pulse of the American avant-garde film, there will be talks by scholars and filmmakers, investigating the historical and social context of its production. A film series at Kino Arsenal will highlight a diversity of artistic approaches to filmmaking associated with the magazine.
A monumental, 50-meter-long and 2.5-meter-high artwork sweeps along the Städel Garden in Frankfurt. The colossal outdoor sculpture was developed by Düsseldorf-based artist Manuel Franke for the freely accessible garden of the Städel Museum. The Städel Garden will receive a new, physically tangible border through this expansive gesture. Half sculpture and half painting, Colormaster F opposes a curved membrane in bright monochrome colors, delicately inclining over the grassy area that is encircled on three sides by buildings. As an insurmountable obstacle, Franke’s object obscures the usual view, but makes the lawn hill tangible in a completely new way. Colormaster F not only changes the garden in its spatial constellation, but also creates another, additional space within the garden, which is both open and closed. In addition, the artwork invites visitors to play, explore and drift, allowing them to take part in a completely new and interactive experience at the revived Städel Garden. Manuel Franke’s questions always deal with the limits of art and society. In his artistic practice, he frequently performs interventions in space that oscillate between sculpture, installation and image. In doing so, he always works in a site-specific way, incorporating the architectural and urban structures of the environment into his work as well as the political, historical and social context. Consequently, the architecture of the Städel Garden and the Städel Museum become an integral part of Colormaster F, with the sculpture playfully correlating to its architectonic counterpart.
Parallel with Art Basel, the Swiss Design Awards exhibition offers a detailed insight into contemporary Swiss design. From richly diverse areas of photography, graphic design, fashion and textile design, product and industrial design as well as scenography and mediation, the jury will grant 17 Swiss Design Awards to selected participants. Since 2007, in addition to the Swiss Design Awards, the Federal Office of Culture has presented the Swiss Grand Award for Design to individual designers or established firms that contribute to the renown of Swiss design nationally and internationally. Having originated as a means of encouraging, supporting and ultimately honouring the Swiss design scene, the prize communicates and indicates the traditions of Swiss design. This year the winners of the renowned prize this year are textile designer Cécile Feilchenfeldt, manufacturer of professional pruning shears Felco and graphic designer Rosmarie Tissi.
Jean-Vincent Simonet / Adrien Rovero / David Schatz, Sereina Rothenberg from NICE Magazine / sign of Swiss Art Awards and Swiss Design Awards
By recognizing the movers and shakers of the creative landscape, Swiss Art Awards exhibition provides a representative overview and unique insight into contemporary art and architecture in Switzerland. A definitive index for art professionals and art lovers alike, Swiss Art Awards will honour 11 winners, while the laureates of this year’s Swiss Grand Award for Art / Prix Meret Oppenheim are the artists Sylvie Fleury and Thomas Hirschhorn, and influential architect Luigi Snozzi. During the course of the exhibition, regular performances and workshops will be held.
The Swiss art book fair I Never Read focus on the publication programs of around one hundred national and international, institutional and independent publishers, artists, and designers. The fair is committed to being a platform that facilitates connections between text, contemporary art production, artistic presentation, and the form of the book. This year’s thematic focus lies on book collections as well as the development of and various types of libraries. A process of reflection first turns an accumulation of things into a proper collection. The tasks of collecting, sorting, and transferring are among the working methods of the artist. In contrast, the tasks of collecting, editing, and distributing are among the working methods of the publisher. In the realization of an art publication or artist book, these functions are often interconnected. The importance of public and private libraries—whether physical or digital—is again playing a larger role in the debate surrounding a post-digital age. The amount of information and content that is being processed has neither diminished nor dissolved. On the contrary, consciously collecting is an expression of individualism, and it remains an important aspect of determining one’s own position.
Laszlo Glozer Analoges Paradies, photos by Malte Wandel, 2018
Outdoor pool season at Sommerbad Humboldthain kicks off with a varied artistic program, inviting you to combats the laziness of summer heat by tucking into a refreshing cultural calendar. Initiated by Nele Heinevetter in 2017, TROPEZ is a kiosk and platform for young international art that invites outstanding Berlin-based and international fine and performing artists, musicians, authors and curators to realize artworks for this unique setting. This year’s summer exhibition VOYAGE unfolds as a series of journeys to far-away and virtual places through sculptures, installations, computer games, video and sound pieces created at the intersection of poetry, technology, politics as well as fine and performing arts. Discover publishing house Broken Dimanche Press, curatorial collective for electronic music and queer content Creamcake, art magazine Starship, and art space Bob’s Pogo Bar among the boundary-pushing live events, bringing electronic music, contemporary literature, and film to Sommerbad Humboldthain. Find the comprehensive programme from June to September here.
Manfred Pernice’s new catalogue Haldesleben ? Bibette headland ? Hotel Hangelar (2018) / Wolfgang Tillmans, What is Different? (2018), Sternberg Press / New Japan Photo (2018), Einstein Studio, Tokyo / Edition by Mariana Castillo Deball
Miss Read: The Berlin Art Book Festival marks its 10th year anniversary, assembling more then 260 international publishers, art periodicals, artists and authors. The fair is accompanied by a series of lectures, discussions, book launches and workshops dedicated to discourse around artists’ books, conceptual publications and publishing as practice. This year’s special focus is on Japanese publishers, with the Stage hosting a series of highlight events; a talk with legendary photographer Takashi Homma, launch of a new edition by e-flux Superhumanity: Design of the Self, and a lecture on Anthropocene with philosopher, anthropologist and sociologist Bruno Latour.
© Thomas Meyer
© Armin Linke, 2013. | Benjamin Bratton, Strelka Institute.
