by Nadia Egan // Apr. 25, 2022
Returning for its 18th edition, Gallery Weekend Berlin is set to see around 50 participating galleries open their doors to the public and showcase both new and existing works. Peripheral to the official program, additional galleries, museums and institutions throughout the city will also be opening new exhibitions during the week. To help you navigate your way through this year’s selection, we have curated our own top picks for the upcoming weekend.
Alexander Levy
Egor Kraft: ‘Lies, Half Truths & Propaganda [The Bad, the Worse and the Worst]’
Exhibition: Apr. 30–June 11, 2022
alexanderlevy.de
After 10 years in Kreuzberg and just in time for Gallery Weekend, alexander levy gallery is relocating to a new site in the Moabit district. For the occasion, Russian-Austrian artist Egor Kraft will present new and existing works in ‘Lies, Half Truths & Propaganda [The Bad, the Worse and the Worst].’ As a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Kraft was unable to complete originally planned works, yet believes it vital to continue to react to the current acts of war. The artist will therefore showcase a series that was already part of his ongoing research, exploring the technological potential for combating the spread of misinformation and propaganda that is at the heart of the continuing warfare in Ukraine.
The exhibition will be continuously developed in collaboration with other artists and technologists, including those from Ukraine.
Barbara Wien
Haegue Yang: ‘Mesmerizing Mesh – Paper Leap and Sonic Guard’
Exhibition: Apr. 29–July 30, 2022
barbarawien.de
Galerie Barbara Wien will present the sixth solo show of artist Haegue Yang. The exhibition title—‘Mesmerizing Mesh – Paper Leap and Sonic Guard’—emphasises the two main elements of the show: paper works and sonic sculptures. Shown alongside two large sonic sculptures, 26 collages from ‘Mesmerizing Mesh,’ a series of hanji (traditional Korean paper) collages, form the exhibition’s focus. In adjacent rooms three wall-mounted appliance sculptures and a suspended lantern sculpture will complete the exhibition.
The gallery’s in-house press, Wiens Verlag, will additionally release an accompanying book ‘Mesmerizing Mesh – Paper Leap.’ Published in English, the book will provide concise yet informative descriptions and illustrations of shamanistic rituals and paper cutting traditions, with a focus on Korea and Japan.
Haegue Yang: ‘Barbell-Powered Sunrising Soul Sheet Atop Another – Mesmerizing Mesh #79,’ 2021 // Photo by Studio Haegue Yang
Berlinische Galerie
Nina Canell: ‘Tectonic Tender’
Exhibition: Apr. 30–Aug. 22, 2022
berlinischegalerie.de
Swedish sculptor and installation artist Nina Canell centres her practice on the physical and chemical characteristics of materials and found objects. She does not concentrate on the finished piece, but rather foregrounds synergy, entanglement and unpredictability. For the Berlinische Galerie, the artist conceives a site-specific installation using a spectrum of different materials to develop her own sculptural system. Using raw materials such as rubber, water or electricity, as well as found objects such as can rings or cables, she will create a web of relationships that dissolves hierarchies and condenses our world through assemblage and entanglement.
Dittrich & Schlechtriem
Group show: ‘Othering’
Exhibition: Apr. 29–June 25, 2022
dittrich-schlechtriem.com
Opening specifically for the occasion of gallery weekend, ‘Othering’ will feature art and installation from Yalda Afsah, Julian Charrière, Albrecht Dürer, Francisco de Goya, Andreas Greiner, Jenna Sutela, Analisa Teachworth, Jol Thoms, Sung Tieu and Jonas Wendelin. Curated by Wendelin himself, the group show invites twelve artists to explore how certain lives—human and nonhuman—are designated as alien, and the possibilities of forging communication, recognition and solidarity across the gaping chasm of self and other.
Jol Thoms: ‘Radio Amnion (model),’ 2021 // © Jol Thoms
Galerie Judin
Philipp Fürhofer: ‘The Truths Behind’
Exhibition: Apr. 30–June 11, 2022
galeriejudin.com
The name Philipp Fürhofer has become synonymous in recent years with light boxes—a body of works consisting of glass, mirrors, and light working together to create highly aesthetic and enigmatic effects. Such boxes, of which four will be on display in what will be the artist’s third exhibition at Galerie Judin, will form complex light cycles transforming acrylic glass, mirrors and impasto painting into living organisms.
HKW – Haus der Kulturen der Welt
Miss Read: The Berlin Art Book Fair 2022
Exhibition: Apr. 29–May 1, 2022
missread.com
Dedicated to community building and publishing as an artistic practice, the 14th Art Book Festival at HKW will host over 300 international publishers, artists and authors present their books, catalogs, editions, magazines and zines. Lectures, discussions, book presentations and workshops will supplement the show and explore the possibilities of contemporary book production. This year, the focus will be on publications from Cameroon, Senegal, South Africa Zimbabwe and the African diaspora.
As part of the festival, Conceptual Poetics Day on April 30 explores the imaginary boundaries between visual art and literature.
Julia Stoschek Collection
Stephanie Comilang and Simon Speiser: ‘Piña, why is the sky blue?’
Exhibition: Apr. 28–Dec. 4, 2022
jsc.art
For their first institutional solo exhibition in Germany, Berlin-based artists Stephanie Comilang and Simon Speiser will showcase ‘Piña, why is the sky blue?’—an affirming techno-feminist vision of a future in which ancestral knowledge and new technologies converge. A speculative documentary that narrates the story of a spiritual medium known as Piña will create the centrepiece of the show. Piña, a form of artificial intelligence, is able to receive and collect inherited knowledge, messages, and dreams from people around the world in order to secure their survival. With footage shot in the Philippines and Ecuador, where Comilang and Speiser respectively have family histories, and an emphasis on matriarchal lineages and their modes of knowledge transmission, the artists contemplate how pre-colonial ways of being have survived into the present despite their ongoing violent repression.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication featuring an interview between the artists and curator Lisa Long and an essay by London-based writer Alex Quicho.
Stephanie Comilang & Simon Speiser, ‘Piña, Why is the Sky Blue?,’ 2021, Video-/Virtually-Reality-Installation // Video-
still courtesy of the artists
Neue Nationalgalerie
Barbara Kruger: ‘Bitte lachen/Please cry’
Exhibition: Apr. 29–Aug. 28, 2022
smb.museum
In her first solo exhibition for more than 10 years at a major Berlin institution, US conceptual artist Barbara Kruger will display a site-specific text installation in the Exhibition Hall of the Neue Nationalgalerie. Kruger has been well known since the 1970s for her large-format graphic works featuring strongly worded statements or short texts in which she interrogates common social stereotypes from a feminist and consumerism-critical perspective. Similar themes will arise in ‘Bitte lachen / Please cry’ as Kruger addresses the political and social effects of social media. In an effort to rouse public discussion, the intervention will occupy the entire floor of the exhibition space.
Adrian Ganea: ‘Young tree vomiting demonstrating lamentation,’ 2021 // Photo by Adrian Ganea
Plan B
Adrian Ganea: ‘Ghost Trade’
Exhibition: Apr. 29–June 25, 2022
plan-b.ro
Haunting sculptures construct a virtual forest world in Adrian Ganea’s ‘Ghost Trade.’ In his first solo show at Plan B, the artist will sculpt and manipulate detailed 3D scans of wooden outgrowths, shaping the hollow geometries into digital assets. With mythical references drawn from contemporary texts like E. Jellinek’s ‘Wut,’ the exhibition will critically rethink our relationship with nature and the daily grind of the world around us.
Soy Capitán
Rachel Youn: ‘Revival’
Exhibition: Apr. 29–June 25, 2022
soycapitan.de
In a discotheque-like setting, plastic plants come to life as they dance to the rhythm of a mechanical massager. Using objects that have been sourced second hand, Rachel Youn raises questions of worth while simultaneously attempting to free her works from the pressures of utility and authenticity. Not wishing to focus solely on the objects, the exhibition will allow the audience to discover what they can learn about themselves from experiencing the manic, hopefully cathartic, unleashing of energy in the room.
Rachel Youn: ‘Gather,’ 2020 // Photo by Dusty Kessler
Zilberman Gallery
Heba Y. Amin: ‘When I see the future, I close my eyes: Chapter II’
Exhibition: May 1–July 30, 2022
zilbermangallery.com
Berlin-based visual artist Heba Y. Amin presents speculative, often satirical, approaches to examining how ideals of “progress” have been advanced through the various technologies of colonisation. In her series ‘When I see the future, I close my eyes: Chapter II’ she will explore the political determinations of these technologies and how they define contemporary frames of representation.
