Berlin scrumptious artsy bits

Art aficionado from Berlin writes about exhibitions, events, performances and other art-related activities being guided by the ArtForum rule: highlight only those bits which she feels personal liking of. She bears no commercial, promotional or any other kind of affiliation to any of the venues, galleries or people she writes about.

[art-aficionado]

Music with no Beginning and no End

When Erik Satie shook the European music scene at the dawn of the XX century, there was controversy about if that was music, or randomness of sounds tamed into the rhythm. For Satie, music does not have the very clear beginning and the end; it is not a happening in the modern sense of a word, when at the certain period of time there should be several timely acoustic elements. For him it was about creating a subtle experience, the airwaves, which would go beyond ears and resonate with the imaginary audile tides in the head, tickling the feelings. I often feel a need to be specially tuned to listen to Satie’s music. If I had to upload it on Stereomood, I would use the labels “pensive”, “alone”, “calm” and “imminence”.

The composers of XX and XIX century working in a minimalist and ambiance genre all owe to Erik Satie for the exquisite, calm and thought-provoking melodies. One of them is Ari Benjamin Meyers, takes a step further. He and the team of artists make a musical performance every Saturday at Galerie Esther Schipper. There is no distinct track, for every track could last for five minutes or one hour. A musical piece is not placed into the rigid net of the tact, melody or octave – the performers are free to alter the music at any given moment of performance. For this they use the sign language, which also works as a choreographic element. The visitors are welcomed to participate, too, by joining the process or, eyes closed, enjoying the music. Rarely does it happen that I stand still for a pretty long period of time, trying to discern the pitches and foresee the next octave. This time it did, and I wish I spent more time there. Thankfully the performance is taking place every Saturday from 11 to 6.

And… there is a pearl of the gallery – the black grand piano, – in the middle of one of the rooms. It has a secret, but that would have to find on your own.

[art-aficionado]

Thrill, Fun and Nothingness by Pietro Sanguineti at AjL Art Galerie

Pietro Sanguineti, a master student of Joseph Kosuth , presents his recent works in theAJL Art Galrie.

The gallery itself is an unusual one – it is more about people, artists and concepts rather than the space itself; it holds its projects in various venues. This time the gallery presents Pietro Sanguineti at Schroederstr. 14 in Berlin.

There are no more than 5 recent works presented, but each contains a deep and thoughtful message. A whole manifesto rather.

One of the works is the neon light installation featuring the word “nothingness” with an “i” visibly highlighted in the middle. The dot above the “i” resembles the nimbus of a saint, and focused, it hints on the obsession with the personality. That is the modern society, and the “nothingness” is a fanciful mockery of what the person is, or thinks about themselves today. Back to the Ptolemaic system, aren’t we?  – I, I, I am the centre of the universe!  However, “i” being an essential element of “nothingness”, strikingly shows how meaningless and small “i” really is. The “nothingness” installation has a truly cosmic scale – it conjures with the notions of nothingness, emptiness, and infinity, at the same time incorporating “me” into this system. However, there is another side to that, for Sanguineti retains the personal dignity in “i”, underlining that “I” is not-a-thing, but a human being. The duality of the perception is what amuses me as a viewer and tickles my mind as an art-lover with a penchant for conceptualism. Perhaps, we all are stuck between the glittering image of ourselves and indifferent hollowness of the universe. In the “nothingness” the artist has managed to deliver an ironic, yet sad image of the relationship between an overblown ego and the universe.

The dead-end path of another modern concept – fun, which is turning into the dictatorship of fun, is showed in another installation. The chant of my parents generation wasresponsibility – no matter what you do, you do it diligently and responsibly. At school, at home, at work- the responsibility seemed to be the moving force of the social progress. Today it is all about fun.  Fun became the first and foremost criteria in choosing a university path, a job, a partner. It is frowned upon if something is not fun to do or someone if not fun to be with. People break up with other people because “she is just not fun”, they quit a college, because apparently mathematics is not fun either. But the uselessness and desolation of fun is here. Fun cannot linger forever; it can go on for one, two, three time intervals, but not forever. Suddenly fun is limited, but that not the only tragedy of it. The installation sets off the carved letters “u” and “n”, showing that fun is not linear, it has its ups and downs. Oops, seems like the fun is not the universal answer to all our needs!

The third piece I consider deserving attention is the installation of the word “super”, where the letters start diminishing from the upper “s” to the lower “r”. Everything today is slightly better than itself, or is presented that way. It is not a model, but a super-model, not a car, but a super-car. Moreover, it is not enough to be oneself; one needs to be “super” in every relation. The glossy magazines readily give guidance on how to become a super-chief, a super-mom and how to build a super-house. A wish to decorate one to look a bit better to the outer world is not a novelty, it has always been so and ever will. Even the young people in Neukolln want to appear slightly fancier, slightly poorer and slightly more independent than they really are. But what Pietro Sanguineti’s artwork shows is that indeed all the spangles and gold ultimately meet black hollow nothingness.

The artist thus has managed to break his manifesto on critique of the modern society into parts and put them into every of his object. It resulted in the coherence of the exhibition, not only in conceptual, but also the communicative level. The artworks have a number of messages, and the best way to receive them all would be to experience the exhibition personally.

Nothingness

Fun Fun Fun

Super

[art-aficionado]

Jan Klopfleisch and his Spatial Art

One of the most aesthetically pleasing and though-evoking installations I have recently seen, has been presented today by the Galerie im Turm.

The “Triangle” by a German artist Jan Klopfleisch suggests the leitmotif of one figure – the triangle, but if fact there are more of them, as the triangle matches with other triangles and they shape a square, a rectangular, or almost any regular figure.  The name of the installation is somewhat explanatory, but at the same time it appears to limit viewers’ imagination, forcing them to seek triangles in every piece, and bring them out of all shapes. Perhaps, though, it is a deliberate move, for triangle is a perfect shape for dissecting almost every figure. It is astonishing to realize, that it, itself an ancient symbolic figure, can serve for creating various shapes – from a never-ending line to the circle. Think about it next time you’re cutting a pizza.

Another feature of triangle the artist has discovered and used in its full capacity, is its role in creating dimensional pictures. Some works thus are almost in 3D, as if there is a special effect added to that. However, on a closer inspection there can be seen differently shaded triangles that reach this effect. All pictures are in dark, subdued colours, and the thin yellow or pink lines along the edges of little triangles of which the picture is made, add to the sense of multi-dimension and spatiality.

Speaking of which, right in the middle of the gallery, going through the entrance door, there is a spatial installation – seemingly the highlight of the exhibition. Made of thin metallic tubes, and attached by almost-transparent threads, it creates a continuum of figures and shapes that are changed with the shift of perspective. The tubes are suspended in various positions, but not firmly fastened, and every gust of the wind through the open main door plays with it, slightly altering the whole picture.

Another objects at this exhibition I would like to distinguish, apart from the installation and tromp l’oeil geometric paintings, are the white and black plastic pieces, bend in various places at various angles. They resemble a white piece of paper, the one that you would fold several times to make an origami or a nicely made wrapping paper. It reminds me of the school years when, sitting at the boring math lesson, we would make a triangle-shaped paper planes out of rectangular sheet from a notebook. The coolest were the guys who could manage to direct the plane across the room all the way to the garbage bin; and I remember myself never been able to do so and being told-off by teachers.

But apart from personal memories, the images of paper, wrapping, discarding and looking for a right solution – all that is evoked when I look at those installations.

The “Triagnle” is multimedia, rich in connotations and ways of delivering the associations. The spatial art is not about statements or expression, though it is there, but about concepts and associations and subtle allusions. It is not out of every exhibition a train of thoughts and associations is following me. After this it does.

 Three-dimensional Painting

A Spatial Installation

Plastic Objects

[art-aficionado]

Okay people, I''ve slaved for 2 hours, show some appreciation! #shanatov everyone and happiness-shmapinnes in the New Year!!

[art-aficionado]

Skinships at Agora: See the Touch

The result of intense 1-month collaboration of Hyojung Ahn and Russell Perkins in the Agora studio, the project that conjures up with the senses in now exhibited at Agora in Neukölln.

On the face of it, the objects have a very clear instruction on how to interact with them: tactually, by touching. Would not you like to touch thickened gelatine (something I did when was small enough to play with food at the kitchen rather than to slave there) or feel the coolness of smooth grey stone? However, the idea of the exhibition was to trigger another sense – namely, sight, for Skinships are explicitly about visual experience of touch. Interestingly enough, none of the objects can be explored by three other senses – smell, taste and hearing; they are not supposed to. The objects are all static but for the video installation, which you can see round the corner at the artists’ studio at Kopfstrasse 48; but even that is silent.

One might say that the moment we substitute one sense for another is the moment we create a vicarious experience. By vicarious it is understood that the experience is not the genuine, but the fooling one. It is like looking at the ice-cream without eating it. Or hearing somebody gulping water without you tasting it yourself. The unusual way the objects are experienced also leaves a great deal of mystery. Was the gelatine ball warm or cold? Was it resilient, hard or slack? The sight gives much information about the object, but not enough, thus obscuring some of its features. What is compelling about the idea, is that the objects, once put into alien communicative context, start to acquire new features. I would go as far as to suggest that the objects with the new aspects start interacting with the environment differently. The particular piece of art that triggers further thoughts on the interaction subject is the transparent plastic board at the far left corner of the exhibition space.

The idea of playing with senses in perception of an art work- substituting one sense for another or boosting them, has started to being explored during the modernism, and became a major feature of the post-modern art.  For example, Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, whose installations I find impressive and elegant, believes that “physical experience makes a much deeper impression than a purely intellectual encounter. I can explain to you what it’s like to feel cold, but I can also have you feel the cold yourself through my art”. 

It is not that I would compare visions and media of Eliasson and Anh and Perkins, for they draw on the concepts too different. If the former wishes to intensify the emotions, Ahn and Perkins are alternating and playing with them. And do it masterfully.

  Piece of art

  Agora Collective Berlin

[art-aficionado]

B_Tour Festival! (30 Aug-1 Sep)

Art Aficionado is proud to be assisting Belle Santos in her interactive project “Blue Plaque: Körnerpark” during the B_Tour Festival 2013 this weekend!

Follow the updates about my experience as a festival volunteer and an artist assistant!

[art-aficionado]

My art diet for the upcoming week

[art-aficionado]

A Day in the Garden

Art aficionado is back from excruciating month featuring moving to F-hain (yeah!), assemblage of furniture (oh boy), hunting down the particular somebody who tore off a fancily made tag on my postbox (bastard) and writing essays on how she would improve the world. As she has failed to propose anything revolutionary which would help the mundane world, she decided to get herself re-energized at the opening of Spätkauf Kunst at Prinzessinennen Garten.

It has always amazed me how Berlin, the city which was violently halved by the vicissitudes of history not so long ago, can have such strong community spirit. It is about numerous Strassenfests, where people celebrate living together at one street, it is about trusting the guy who the postman can leave your medicine with, it is about family Eis Cafe chipping in with a loud bar next door to plant the flowers on the pavement. It is about determining and pursing the common goal and striving towards it together. The common goal for the people who have organised a community garden at Prinzessinennen Garten is sharing the knowledge for a better and healthier living.

If you are there, take a sit in their little grove under the young trees with beige stems and brightly lit green leaves, take a bite of their homemade pizza and enjoy the glimpses of sunshine that penetrate through the birches’ crowns. Take a look, if you happen to be there, at their Microgreens Project. 15-day old small plants are added to yogurt, spiced up and sprinkled by olive oil to give you freshest, healthiest and tasty yogurt. The project, once started at the living rooms of the guys, has proved to be popular over the time and now enjoys the love of the neighbourhood.

What a harmonious day can you have spending it in the Garden, just in the middle of (adjectives omitted in order to personalise the sentence) Kreuzberg! 

[art-aficionado]

Différance and authenticity in inspiring works by Anna Lehmann-Brauns

If Edward Hopper had a camera and travelled to Berlin, this is what his works would have been.

NO.

I have always been convinced that our identity is shaped from the inside, usually by the means of what we are surrounded by and what we sift through from the circumstance we are in. It was later that I was able to trace these subtle, sometimes invisible ways that have lead us to be what we are and do what we have done. During my reading period in my late adolescence, I got to know the idea of différance – deviations between objects, thoughts or theories in a semantic chain. As nothing is evident for itself but revealed in comparison, différance would pinpoint those tiny discrepancies between the two, at the same time establishing their relativity.

However, on a less metaphysical level I have been and am skeptical, if not to say averse towards matching, levelling and simplifying. I see it as an accusation of non-authencity, and as an attempt to deprive somebody of their personality. I know artists are more sensitive in this regard – an attempt to praise somebody of their work by comparing to anyone well-established and famous might not be considered as an ultimate praise; it might be regarded as an insult. In the times when less and less is authentic, personality and personal vision of an artist is the feature to be celebrated. Especially, I would argue, in photography, because, like it or not, a camera is more limited media than, say, blank canvas. This makes me appreciate an artist’s personality in photography even more.

Having been at one of the openings at The Wand– a relatively new gallery / event space, I ran across the album of Anna Lehmann-Brauns and her inspiring works. My instant urge was to draw a connection to Edward Hopper’s aesthetics, for I saw the sameness in playing with light, shape, colour and themes of loneliness and seclusion. But I looked closer, looked intently and freed my mind of all references for a while. The shapes are different, the introduction of natural and urban objects– trees, stones, pavements, manholes –is different; the very setting of light and its reflection - it is all not the same. Her works impacted me emotionally first of all, but they also sparked my empathic curiosity. I am not interested in a particular story behind the photo; I am interested in emotional state I would have been if I were in that setting. If Edward Hopper’s works make me pensive and introspective for the rest of day, these photos elate and inspire me, for they immerse me in the range of emotions I would not have naturally been in. Perhaps for me, the difference is not insomuch in media and approach of the two artists, but in my personal perception. Is my personal perception then is a form of différance?

[art-aficionado]

Estrangement and Endearment by Melissa Steckbauer

The dictionary will tell you that the antonym of intimate is distant. In Melissa Steckbauer’s world it would be new or changed. Intimate is close, well-known, trustworthy. New is alien, dangerous, unpredictable and seductive. New is devoid of our presence, there is no us in the new, and thus it needs change in order to become our – known and reliable. The same is true for the opposite – by changing the intimate, by bringing new patterns to it, we estrange ourselves from it.

In her series The Architectonics of Love at Liebkranz Galerie Melissa Steckbauer investigates the relation of close and dear - people, pets, places and memories, and disassociations from them. By layering geometric patterns onto portraits, she visualises the inner connection between people depicted there, blurring expressions and faces into one, thus creating a common space, like a cocoon, for the two. The geometrical form, which has previously been seen as a tool of alienation, now serves as a suture between the two. As the same time the very same geometrical pattern is incompatible with the very idea of love and affection, which is not subject to any rigid and logical labyrinths. Applying a pattern onto the picture of her dog, the artist not only alienates the dog and deprives herself from memories with the it, but also enfeebles the emotional link, for the dog is now not the same.

The role of patterns in Melissa’s works is ambivalent. It highlights the complexity of feelings we experience towards the intrinsic and the extraneous, old and new, our and another’s.

[art-aficionado]

Graduation at Universität der Künste

When I remember my graduation, apart from that I was quite comfortably wearing  my orange dress with deep cleavage – something I wouldn't dare to wear during the 5 years of my studies, and lost a ring in a  ladies’ room, there is nothing much to remember. Maybe only the words of our dean that it had only been the beginning, and from now on the “real life” would  start.  So far, this “real life” they had threatened us so much during the course, seems to be more diverse, fulfilling and engaging than all those years at the desk.

I am sure, however, that for the joyful students of the Academie der Kunste it is different – years of fruitful work and hopeful expectations have finished with graduation and comprehensive exhibition yesterday.  The exhibition will last only a week, so I would highly recommend to have a look at them, for they are the result of different practices, crafts and concepts. They all are different, but equally thought-provoking and emotionally charged.

They say the competition is embedded in the life of those who decide to devote themselves to art. I will not open a can of worms and spark the competition, but I feel like listing the works I enjoyed the most.

Right as you enter the building at Hardenbergstrasse 33, you are met with a large body colour sheet and a recorded installation of the work by Calude+Hilde (Clothilde). The 7-minute installation beautifully reflects on gender, femininity, the whole experience of defloration and first sexual intercourse. Not the least the work explores the dyad nature of a human being, which says that every human has male and female beginning, but once the first sexual encounter happens, this dichotomy is interrupted and the two parts become increasingly hostile to each other.

Johannes Denda, another graduate of this year, works not only with space, but with perception of space, and has managed to genuinely fool me with his real-life 3D cube. You close your eyes for a second, you blink, you try to reach out to touch the cube, but na-a, it’s all illusion. For a better optic effect don’t come up from the corner or the cube (you’ll destroy all magic), but from one of its sides.

The artist who is as inspiring as talented is Luisa Pohlmann, who works with different media, but predominantly with painting. Check out her ironic homage to Edward Hopper and the fish installation. It gives you the idea of interchangeability of things, animals, and, yes, humans. If fish on your plate can be changed with the same without much difference, why are we so anxious when we are shoved different people? What is obvious from her oeuvre, is that she is masterful of many techniques, which refines her works and adds subtle meaning to it.

Zahar Zukermann’s series of Saint George paintings , which you can see only if look at his portfolio, on the face of it has a strong social connotation, but once you let your eyes rest on it a tad longer, you start to see how psychologically deep his paintings are. Funny and sad, deliberately simple or highly elaborated, his works also were my highlight of the evening.

Andreas Greiner presents his observation of time and “now”-moment. The project made in collaboration with Armin Keplinger is an installation of a drop of water falling on a heated metal plate, and instantly dissolving into several smaller drops, eventually gathering into one.  The project called “Water in Balance between Liquid State and Gaseous State” evokes thoughts of what is now, what transitional moment is between now and now. Is it ephemeral? If it is, does it matter at all?

Ucha Janelidze ponders upon social connection and relationships between people, objects and time. For this she has chosen a waiting icon you get when your Apple takes time to start up. Have a look at her portfolio, there are many funny but thoughtful sculptures, ready-mades and paintings.

  I wish to see each and every artist soon in the galleries. Good luck, guys! Let your “real life” be full of bright prospects!

  Claude+Hilde=Clothilde

  Johannes Denda

Luisa Pohlmann

Zahar Zukermann

Andres Geiner and Armin Keplinger

Ucha Janelidze

[art-aficionado]

Summer in Berlin

Is there any better feeling than sitting on a stone bench warmed up by July sky, sipping beer or Fritz Cola and watch heavy grey clouds imminently coming from beyond the horizon? The air becomes fresh and charged with electricity, and... Flash-Flash! Ba-Baam!!! Drop-Drop-Drop...

[art-aficionado]

I am adamant in my love for eloquency, metaphors, poly-syllable words and compound sentences, and I could spend a while assuring you to go to the exhibition. But this time it is just: “DO VISIT". Berlin Art Prize. Lobeckstr, 35.

[art-aficionado]

Happy Friday everyone :) #Berlin #schönehauserallee

[art]

Katie Vota

"Birch Tree Forest," August 2012, installation with the Krasl Art Center ArtLab space

http://katievota.tumblr.com/

www.katievota.com

Part of why I’m really pushing to get my work out is to raise awareness of my MFA Funding Indie GoGo campaign.  I’m trying to raise funds so that I can attend SAIC in Chicago this fall…  http://igg.me/at/kvotamfa/x/2929751

[art-aficionado]

It has been cold and dreary for the past two days in Berlin. Weather forecast is never tired to remind to take umbrellas. Me being calm and pensive these days, I remembered The Road Not Taken, usually reserved for the mid-autumn, when days are magnificent in their myriads of colours and fresh air, but bear first shadows of imminent winter. Those days I would love to walk deep into a park, making this poem sounding in my head, collecting fallen leaves and enjoying nostalgic mood. What I discovered later, years after I read the poem, is this record of Robert Frost reading it himself. My inner voice placed stress and made words combinations differently than the author, but it is the last line that sounds in my head exactly like he reads it.

  Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

          Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

         And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

          I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

[art-aficionado]

Tempus Fugit at Galerija Gregor Podnar

I remember talking to my friend about 3 minutes in reference to waiting. When you get to an U- or S-bahn platform and see 2 minutes written on a display, you are relieved, for two minutes are almost one, and one is almost nothing. You do not even bother to take out a mobile phone to check the latest tweets about Snowden’s whereabouts.

Four minutes are alright as well – it’s enough time to get to the LeCrobag stand, queue, choose a pastry and pay. Five are already a bit annoying, but if you happened to take along a book with you, it is time considered wisely spent.

But three minutes are a torture. You ask yourself if it has just turned three from the four, and if you should bother finding a place to sit. Or is it ten seconds away from the two, and then the whole fuss with finding a place to sit is not worth it. We all know you end up gloomily examining that huge map of Berlin which is on every station, and dreaming about living somewhere close to everything.

We like, or at least got used to the time as we know it: 60-seconds minutes and 24-hours day. But what if we had different points of references of time? How would we feel then?

Galerija Gregor Podnar (www.gregorpodnar.com) presents works of a Portuguese artist Francisco Tropa, who was a representative of the Portuguese pavilion at the 54 Venice Biennale in 2011. The current exhibition features some of the artworks from the Scenario, which was presented at the Biennale, and his new Shades (2013) . My favourite is this one – an ostensibly self-made, as if somewhere in a hidden laboratory sometime in the early Renaissance, time-measuring apparatus. You can literally see how the drop at the tip of the tap is changing its shape, bloating to the extent it can no longer defy the gravity, and then falls silently on the floor, leaving a dark-grey round spot for a while. The magnified image in front of the apparatus serves as a watch - it reflects, but does not record the moment of time.

The whole process takes about... three minutes. Perhaps, it is the optimal amount of minutes to reflect on the nature of tempus.