Sept. 24, 2018
Berlin Art Week is back for its seventh year, offering a colossal program of award ceremonies, exhibitions, special events, as well as the city’s major art fairs Positions and Art Berlin. From September 26–30th, Berlin Art Week brings together institutions, galleries, artists, private collectors and project spaces from across the city. To help you find your way through the program we’ve put together a list of highlights.
BAR BABETTE
Elymus Repens
Opening reception: Sept. 25, 2018; 6pm
Karl-Marx-Allee 36, 10178 Berlin
At the end of the month the beloved Bar Babette will vacate its home on Karl Marx Allee. During this phase of transition, a series of exhibitions will be hosted in the emptied bar, paying tribute to its DIY ethos and memory as a meeting point for the Berlin art scene. The second exhibition of the series, Elymus Repens, “aims to pay homage to Babette’s relentless artistic activism and, beyond it, to the vivacity and diversity of Berlin’s off-space flora.” In the spirit of Babette’s cooperative energy ‘Elymus Repens’ will gather Berlin-based artists to initiate dialogue and give visibility to the works of other artists, soliciting practitioners to invite artists they have previously shown or want to show with.
MOMENTUM
Bread & Roses
Opening: Sept. 25, 2018; 7–10pm
Kunstquartier Bethanien, Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin
In its examination of the work of four generations of Kazakh women artists, made since 1945, the exhibition ‘Bread & Roses‘ presents a fresh perspective on both modern and contemporary Kazakh art and culture, but it also suggests a broader model for considering art made by women in other post-Soviet and post-colonial contexts. The painful history of the Soviet Kazakh SSR, with the rapid development of the Republic of Kazakhstan since its foundation in 1991, have created a melting pot of ideas and influences between east and west that are expressed dynamically in its contemporary art.
BERLINER FESTSPIELE
The New Infinity
Opening: Sept. 26, 2018; 4–9pm
Mobile Dome, Mariannenplatz
Festspiele/Immersion and Planetarium Hamburg launch ‘The New Infinity. New art for planetariums’ with artistic fulldome productions this Berlin Art Week. Fulldome describes the technically maximum image impression of our time, to be shared and experienced as a group. The first works will be presented in a mobile dome on Mariannenplatz from September 26th to October 14th. Planetariums have the capacity to create communal experiences of immersion, enabling new experiences, new communities and invitations to discover unknown worlds. The digital world presents new challenges to the planetarium. Artists David OReilly, Holly Herndon & Mathew Dryhurst and Fatima Al Qadiri & Transforma will use digital audio and video equipment to develop new works that “create moments of unboundedness and intimations of something that transcends the boundaries of our perception – infinity.”
BERLINISCHE GALERIE
Julian Charriere: ‘As We Used To Float’
Opening Reception: Sept. 26, 2018; 7pm
Alte Jakobstraße 124–128, 10969 Berlin
As the recipient of the GASAG Art Prize 2018, Julian Charrière will create a multimedia spatial installation for the Berlinische Galerie that takes visitors underwater in the Pacific Ocean, to an atomic aquarium somewhere within the deserted isles of Bikini Atoll. This is Charrière’s first solo exhibition in Berlin. It will be accompanied by the release of two related books and a video installation, An Invitation to Disappear, at Berghain.
JULIA STOSCHEK COLLECTION
Beatrice Gibson and Jamie Crewe
Opening reception: Sept. 26, 2018; 7pm
Leipziger Straße 60, 10117 Berlin
KW Production Series is a new commissioning project, dedicated to artists’ moving-image works and concentrating on two new productions per year, to be exhibited at the Julia Stoschek Collection. Exploring ideas around gender, poetry, and disobedience, Beatrice Gibson’s 16mm film, I Hope I’m Loud When I’m Dead, was developed with two of the USA’s most significant living poets—CAConrad and Eileen Myles. Over the course of a year, Jamie Crewe worked on Pastoral Drama every day. The piece comprises two parallel videos that use allegory and animation to think about progress.
ME COLLECTORS ROOM
The Moment is Eternity
Exhibition: Sept. 26, 2018 – Apr. 01, 019
Auguststraße 68, 10117 Berlin
‘The Moment is Eternity – Works from the Olbricht Collection‘ features 300 works by approximately 60 artists. The notion of transience is a central tenant of the Olbricht Collection, and photography is perhaps the most apt medium to articulate this idea, and its relationship to time and history. From Albrecht Dürer’s Sebastian to the nudes of Marlene Dumas and Gerhard Richter, the exhibition delves into the photographic works of the Olbricht Collection. The photographic works are presented in dialogue with other artworks from the collection alongside artefacts from the Wunderkammer. The exhibition is curated by by Annette Kicken and runs from the September 26th, 2018 to April 1st, 2019.
POSITIONS BERLIN
Opening: Sept. 27, 2018; 5–9pm
Flughafen Berlin-Tempelhof, Hangar 4, Columbiadamm 10, 10965 Berlin
From September 27th to 30th, Positions will take over part of Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport. Hangar 4 will play host to 74 international galleries and their particular artistic “positions.” The aim of the fair is “to show outstanding works of art from different periods and to give galleries the easiest access to the market.” The focus of the fair remains quality, relevance and timeliness, which means showcasing contemporary works alongside that of classical modernity and beyond. Positions’ supporting programme of talks, awards and special exhibitions provides entry points for everyone, from kids to collectors.
ART BERLIN
‘Verlörung’
Opening: Sept. 27, 2018; 4–8pm
Tempelhof Hangar 5&6, Tempelhofer Damm 45, 12101 Berlin
Right next door, Art Berlin is showcasing a new exhibition format alongside their usual art fair. The newly-conceived ‘Salon’ section brings together more than 40 galleries under the exhibition title ‘Verlörung’, which will take place in a 100sqm collective booth curated by Tenzing Barshee and designed by artist and architect, Alessandro Bava. The title, an amalgam of the German “Verlangen” (desire) and “Verstörung” (disturbance), does not follow a blanket curatorial theme, but the more than 50 works were selected according to a set of concepts including viscerality, humor, darkness and libido.
BERLIN ART PRIZE
Award Ceremony and After Party
Sept. 28, 2018; 7pm – (Award Ceremony at 12am)
Prinzenstraße 34, 10969 Berlin
The three winners of the Berlin Art Prize 2018 will be announced live and for the first time at the closing of the exhibition, during a celebratory award ceremony at midnight on Friday, September 28th. The Berlin Art Prize is the only award in Berlin that remains disconnected from all institutions within the city. Artists are evaluated anonymously by a jury of five artists, critics and curators. The three artists will be awarded a residency in Marrakech, Morocco, prize money and a trophy designed by Zuzanna Czebatul. The award ceremony will be followed by an afterparty with a music program produced in collaboration with Superposition.
GALERIE AKONZEPT
Eva Stenram
Opening reception: Sept. 28, 2018; 6pm
Schröderstraße 7, 10115 Berlin
Galerie aKonzept presents the latest work of Swedish artist Eva Stenram in ‘Oblique Exhibition’. Stenram turns to sports magazines from the 1960s for source material, capturing moments of tenderness, eroticism, dissolution and confusion of the boundaries of the body. Galerie aKonzept will also present a limited edition box set in 22 copies containing a leporello with the reproduction of the photographs of the exhibition, as well as an original photograph signed and numbered by the artist.
GROPIUS BAU
Lee Bul: Crash
Exhibition: Sept. 29, 2018 – Jan. 13, 2019
Niederkirchnerstraße 7, 10963 Berlin
Lee Bul is one of the most important Korean artists of her generation. From September 29, 2018 to January 13, 2019, the Gropius Bau will show ‘Crash’, the artist’s first solo show in Germany. The multi-sensory experience is the first exhibition curated by Stephanie Rosenthal, as the new director of the Gropius Bau. The comprehensive retrospective documents Bul’s 30-year artistic career, against the backdrop of Korea’s transition from military dictatorship to democracy. Expect performance and installation art that explores dreams, futurist theories and science fiction, bioengineering and visionary architecture.
