12.2022

SHIFTING PERSPECTIVES ON HISTORY

“Roads not Taken. Oder: Es hätte auch anders kommen können”, scenography by chezweitz, photo: Alexander Butz

The exhibition “Roads Not Taken” at Deutsches Historisches Museum presents an unusual look at the past. Conceived by historian Dan Diner, it explores 14 tipping points in German history that could easily have taken a different turn. To spatially implement the abstract mind game of “Roads not Taken”, scenographers chezweitz created a congenial exhibition design: Using the architectural tools of perspective and trompe l’oeuil, they designed powerful “possibility spaces” that distort or dissolve—depending on the viewpoint: the mind game turns into a visual game.

12.2022

MINI-SUN POWERED

Front view Rudi-Dutschke-Strasse 26. Courtesy of max goelitz. Photo: Dirk Tacke

Installation view energy/power, 2022. Courtesy of max goelitz and Lisson Gallery, London, New York, Shanghai. Copyright of the artist. Photo: Dirk Tacke

Installation view energy/power, 2022. Courtesy of max goelitz and Lisson Gallery, London, New York, Shanghai . Copyright of the artist . Photo: Dirk Tacke

In “energy/power”, the inaugural exhibition of Max Goelitz’ new gallery space in Berlin, artist Haroon Mirza focuses on the harvesting and distribution of electricity to address socio-political issues deriving from technology, nature and humans. Central to the multisensory presentation is the large-scale octagonal sculpture Dyson Sphere (2021/2022), which combines radiating halogen lamps with solar panels. Simultaneously powering an ecosystem of sound-generating objects and psychoactive plants.

11.2022

MODERN-DAY HOLISTIC HEALTH

By combining traditional wisdom with current scientific insights, My Inner Health Club gives guidance on various aspects of health and well-being: from coping with stress, restlessness, and anxiety, to sleeping problems or poor nutrition. The streaming service founded by Ann-Kathrin Grebner and Yasmin Poloczek hosts online classes by leading experts and practitioners from across the globe, reviving ancient knowledge overlooked by the modern health system.

11.2022

HOW TO BEST TEACH DESIGN TODAY?

Key Visual: The ECAL Manual of Style: How to best teach design today? © ECAL, photo: Santiago Martinez

The Iceland Whale Bone Project – Hrefna, 2013 Design: Miloš Ristin; Tutor: Brynjar Sigur Arson © ECAL, photo: Nicolas Genta

Bread Worskhop, 2000 Gruppenprojekt; Tutor: Alexis Georgacopoulos © ECAL, photo: Pierre Fantys

The ECAL/University of Art and Design in Lausanne has put this question to a number of renowned designers and critics. Their answers, displayed in form of projects and objects at the Vitra Design Museum Gallery, reveal the unique approach to teaching pursued at one of Switzerland’s leading design schools, where individual style is not only encouraged, but pushed to develop into its most coherent form. The corresponding publication “The ECAL manual of style” surveys a selection of special projects by students and their tutors.

11.2022

FROM PRALINES TO PLATES

Photos © Pujan Shakupa

Since opening her first studio in Prenzlauer Berg, Kristiane Kegelmann has been fusing confectionery with sculpture in praline editions that boldly challenge the boundaries of flavour and the ephemeral. With the opening of her restaurant pars, a further culinary context is achieved in which the pralines are featured as an individual course, rather than in the traditional position of a Petit Four. The menu features straightforward, season-focussed plates, served at slightly angular tables, designed to recall the asymmetrical forms of the pralines themselves.

10.2022

FONDATION BEYELER’S JUBILEE

Installationsansicht «Jubiläumsausstellung – Special Guest Duane Hanson» in der Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, 2022 © The Estate of Duane Hanson/2022, ProLitteris, Zurich. Foto: Mark Niedermann

Installationsansicht «Jubiläumsausstellung – Special Guest Duane Hanson» in der Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, 2022 © The Estate of Duane Hanson/2022, ProLitteris, Zurich. Foto: Lucia Hunziker/LLH Productions

Standing, sitting and strolling among 100 of the Beyeler Collection’s most iconic works are not only visitors but thirteen hyper-realistic sculptures by US artist Duane Hanson. Neither beautiful nor ugly, just ordinary at heart. The figures, embodying marginalised collectives of the 70s-80s American society, populate the rooms and enter a dialogue with both the artworks and the architecture. Yet only a special occasion could have attracted such guests, namely the Fondation Beyeler’s 25 Year Anniversary.

10.2022

HUNGARIAN MODERNISTS

Lajos Kassák, Bildarchitektur II (Sketch of a kiosk), 1922, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022

Lajos Tihanyi, Large Interior with Self-Portrait – Man at the Window, 1922, © Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest – Hungarian National Gallery, 2022

László Moholy-Nagy, construction, around 1922, bpk / Kupferstichkabinett, SMB, © Copyright expired, photo: Jörg P. Anders

Little is known, that even before the outbreak of First World War, the rapidly growing city of Berlin attracted a great number of Hungarian artists. In search of a platform to engage with international audiences and encouraged by the failed revolution in their homeland in 1919, the German capital offered them a place to explore creative freedom. With “Magyar Modern” (Hungarian Modernists) Berlinische Galerie renders tribute to the versatile contribution of Hungarian artists to modern art. Among the artists presented are well-known figures such as László Moholy-Nagy or Marcel Breuer and exciting rediscoveries like Lajos Tihanyi.

10.2022

BETWEEN CUBA AND AACHEN

La sentencia “Apártame de todo pecado”, 1994, Courtesy Peter and Irene Ludwig Foundation, Photo: Anne Gold

Belkis Ayón, Nuestro deber, 1993, Ludwig Forum for International Art Aachen, Loan by Peter and lrene Ludwig Foundation, Photo: Simon Vogel, © Belkis Ayón Estate, Havana, Cuba

Belkis Ayón, ¡Ekwe será mío!, 1986, Courtesy Belkis Ayón Estate

Belkis Ayón, Sin título (Sikán, Nasakó y Espíritu Santo), 1993, Ludwig Forum for International Art Aachen, Loan by Peter and Irene Ludwig Foundation, Photo: Simon Vogel © Belkis Ayón Estate, Havana, Cuba

With the survey “Ya Estamos Aquí” Ludwig Forum Aachen ties on the long-existing relationship of the museum with Belkis Ayón, a master of print-making and one of the most influential Cuban artists until this day. In her rich collagraphies she combined catholic iconography with depictions of Abakuá rituals, a secret Afro-Cuban cult which she studied extensively. It was by means of these patriarchial motifs that she reflected on her own social, political and emotional struggles—ultimately shaping new mythologies.

10.2022

SCHINKEL PROGRESSIVE

Right in the historic centre of Berlin, the former site of Karl-Friedrich Schinkel’s famous Bauakademie will be home to the Federal Bauakademie Foundation. After an intense participation process with experts and citizens on the appearance and the use of the future building, one thing is certain: The Bauakademie is to be a demonstration project of what innovative, future-oriented and sustainable architecture means today and tomorrow—radiating the visionary spirit of Schinkel.

10.2022

IMPOSED ANONYMITY

Installation view Palimpsest by Doris Salcedo, Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, 2022 © the artist; Photo: Mark Niedermann

Intended as a place of encounter and grief, the walk-through installation by Colombian artist Doris Salcedo “Palimpsest” will be on display for one year at the Fondation Beyeler. The work records the names of refugees who drowned in the Mediterranean and Atlantic over the past 20 years, either embedded in stone slabs or forming as drops of water and seeping away in a constant cycle of inscription and erasure. It bears a timeless and universal experience by questioning how we collectively mourn, how societies remember and how personal suffering and public space are related.

10.2022

STRUCTURAL HONESTY MEETS TIMELESS BEAUTY

Vitra has been producing the designs of Jean Prouvé since 2002. The French engineer, constructor and designer has had a significant influence on furniture design and was regarded as an innovator of industrial construction. In 2022, Vitra has revised the collection with new original colours and introduced a number of lesser-known designs. At Café Prouvé, a worldwide pop-up series, design aficionados can immerse themselves in the French designer’s oeuvre.

10.2022

CHÂTEAU ROYAL—TUCKING INTO THE CREATIVE FABRIC OF BERLIN

The opening of Château Royal marks the beginning of a boutique hotel that embraces the good food, wine and art that ignite the energetic flame of Berlin. Inspiring the interiors are materials popular during the city’s heyday at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries—craquele tiles, colourful stained glass and accents of marble, tin and oak. Each of the hotel’s 93 rooms features a work by a different artist with mediums ranging from painting and sculpture, text and sound. The artworks, discrete or loud, and the artists behind them embody the eclectic spirit of the city.

09.2022

A NEW CAMPUS FOR PIONEERS OF CHANGE

Just South of Tempelhofer Field, Atelier Gardens is a new space for a community of organisations and individuals dedicated to social, cultural, and regenerative entrepreneurship. Drawing on Berlin’s culture of activism and the tradition of story-telling in the historic film studios Berlin Union Film Atelier (BUFA), the campus is being transformed to accommodate various uses. Existing buildings are being restored and remodelled, rather than demolished and rebuilt, and nature is reintroduced across the site with garden spaces full of pioneer and native plants.

09.2022

LOOKING INWARDS

Kerstin Brätsch, “Die Sein: Para Psychics”, exhibition view, 2022, Ludwig Forum Aachen, Photo: Mareike Tocha

During the first Corona lockdown in New York, Kerstin Brätsch shifted her large-scale, collaborative practice into an inward-looking process. Mysticism, tarot, plant medicine and deitis, like the Sumerian sky goddess Innanna, guided her daily practice of drawing. The complete resulting series of 100 drawings on paper are now shown for the first time in “Die Sein: Para Psychics” at the Ludwig Forum Aachen. Wrapped in Wibke Tiarks’ soundscape and exhibited in a soft colored light, pouring from the room’s tinted windows, the mandala-like drawings become portals to the metaphysical.

09.2022

NATURAL, BUT SPICY

Swiss company Soeder creates rich, natural products with essential oils of regional sources. For a limited edition with La Boîte, New York, their liquid soaps are spiced up a little. Chef Lior Lev Sercarz created three exclusive fragrances, inspired by spices from Japan, Lebanon and Morocco.