In Mitte, the smaller scale, less jam-packed Positions Berlin art fair offered an alternative to the abc – art berlin contemporary throngs during Berlin Art Week. This year, gallery owner and long standing co-director of the Preview Berlin Art Fair Kristian Jarmuschek brought together 52 international exhibitors to present their artistic positions. Housed in a former department store, the fair benefits from a spacious floor plan and historical Berlin high-ceilinged interiors, a perfect backdrop for the skillfully selected works on view. The following are some highlights:
Anke Eilergerhard at Galerie Art Felicia
Anke Eilergerhard’s decadent pink silicone sculptures, made to look like over-the-top wedding cakes evoke sickly saccharine sensations and textures reminiscent of Baroque ornamentation.
Anke Eilergerhard – The Never Dying Flowers; Photo by Hilarey Cowan
Wolfgang Stiller at Schmalfuss Berlin
Two unassuming sculptures watch at eye-level from the corner, a haunting presence in the space. Wolfgang Stiller’s Matchstick Men are surreal, masked and charred disembodied figures crafted to look like life-sized matches.
Wolfgang Stiller – “Matchstick Men,” Installation View at Positions Berlin; Photo by Hilarey Cowan
Maurice Van Telligen at Galerie Petra Nostheide-Eycke
Maurice Van Telligen’s spatial paintings are miniaturized perspective vignettes of the everyday, presenting sterilized, almost evacuated architectural settings. In these works, it appears that life is lived elsewhere, out of the confines of the given frame.
Maurice Van Telligen – Spatial Paintings, Installation View at Positions Berlin; Photo by Hilarey Cowan
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Additional Information
POSITIONS BERLIN
Exhibition: Sep. 18 – 21, 2014
Kaufhaus Jandorf, Brunnenstraße 19-21 (click here for map)
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Blog entry by Hilarey Cowan and Alison Hugill in Berlin; Sunday, Sep. 21, 2014.
