Based in Berlin. And the winner is...

Allegory of Government by Clegg & Guttmann © Photo: Katerina Valdivia Bruch

Initiated by the mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, the exhibition Based in Berlin caused some controversy before its opening on June 7^th, 2011. The mayor’s decision to hold a Leistungsschau junger Kunst aus Berlin (Showcase Exhibition of Young Berlin Art) so close to elections in Berlin firstly raised a few eyebrows. Other contentious issues included the long-standing calls from art practitioners for a permanent Kunsthalle in the city and the selection of the curatorial team. More than 2,300 people signed a petition letter to the mayor asking for a revision of the project. Nevertheless, the opening was a huge success overall, with hordes of art lovers, fashion victims, curators, art critics, artists and other art practitioners waiting in line to enter the main venue at Atelierhaus Monbijou, temporarily in use before its demolition.

At 1.4 million Euro, the cost of holding the exhibition was extraordinarily high considering it was a single show featuring mostly unknown artists. The decision to invest this kind of money is even more questionable in light of Berlin’s dire financial situation and unemployment rate, which is one of the highest in Germany. In spite of the unique opportunity to create a platform for emerging artists, most of the works in the exhibition are fairly unremarkable and do nothing to challenge the viewer. Several artists, however, used the mayor's charismatic flair as a motif in their works and humorously portrayed the losers of the last election campaign, as can be seen in the photographs of the artist duo Jay Chung & Q Takeki Maeda at Atelierhaus Monbijou, or the homage-like portrait to Berlin's mayor, Allegory of Government, in an empty room at KW-Berlin (KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin) by Clegg & Guttmann.

Organised by a team of five young curators, Angelique Campens, Fredi Fischli, Magdalena Magiera, Jakob Schillinger and Scott Cameron Weaver, with the support of three renowned advisors, Klaus Biesenbach, Director of PS1 and Chief Curator of MoMa in New York, Christine Macel, Chief Curator of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and Hans Ulricht Obrist, Co-Director of Serpentine Gallery in London, the exhibition showcases the work of 80 artists from 26 different countries, who have chosen Berlin as their base. The process of selecting the work involved an open call with 1,250 artists submitting portfolios and around 500 studio visits.

The majority of the works demonstrate the diversity of Berlin's international art scene, featuring current shooting-stars, such as Israeli Keren Cytter, who was shortlisted for the Prize for Young Art at the Neue Nationalgalerie in 2009, Cyprien Gaillard from France, who recently had a solo show at KW-Berlin and Singaporean Ming Wong, whose work was showcased at the last Venice, Gwangju and Singapore Biennales. We also had another chance to see work by artists who were part of the last Berlin Biennale, such as Danish-Vietnamese artist Danh Vo and Petrit Halilaj from Kosovo.

Based in Berlin also includes the presentation of artist-run spaces or project rooms. It features a number of parallel activities with film screenings, talks, conferences, workshops, open-air concerts and performances, in which visitors are encouraged to discuss and exchange their ideas with artists, members of the project rooms, art critics and curators.

With more than 400 art galleries, Berlin attracts many artists, drawn by its affordable living conditions and its ample space for art production. Artists rent huge studios in different areas all over the city, something inconceivable in other European capital cities. There is a tendency to compare Berlin with the New York of the seventies, although I believe that the quality of work produced in New York during that period was more cutting-edge in contrast to a fair number of rather laid-back Berlin-based artists. Berlin is a cheap city with galleries springing up everywhere and collectors frequently coming to town, so why bother to go the extra mile, as it were? In fact, the closed artist community does not even need to integrate and artists tend to communicate in English rather than in German. Berlin is more a place of transit, an inspiring place for creation, but not for earning money. And, because Berlin is “poor, but sexy” – to quote Mr. Wowereit – the artists produce work in Berlin, but usually sell it abroad or in other German cities. So who are the winners at the end of the day? The artists, the mayor or the city?

Text by Katerina Valdivia Bruch for Aesthetica Magazine

Independent curator and art critic based in Berlin

Based in Berlin, until July 24th, 2011

Atelierhaus Monbijou, KW-Berlin, Berlinische Galerie, NBK and Hamburger Bahnhof Museum

Free entrance

Mediatopia. Krisna Murti´s works, 1993-2010

(click the title of the post to get the pdf version of the text)

Curated by Rifky Effendy
Writer: Katerina Valdivia Bruch [click here to download the text]
Officiated by Garin Nugroho

Vernissage: Friday, December 3rd, 2010 at 7 pm
 
Artist Talk: December 5th, 2010, 7 - 9 pm
Exhibition: December 3rd - 23rd, 2010

Address:
Semarang Contemporary Art Gallery
Jl. Taman Srigunting no 5-6
Semarang 50174
Indonesia

Who Knows Tomorrow. When art becomes part of a political agenda .

Yinka Shonibare MBE, Scramble for Africa

Text: Katerina Valdivia Bruch

The Nationalgalerie Berlin has invited five renowned artists of African descent to present mostly site-specific installations in public spaces for the occasion of the exhibition Who Knows Tomorrow, which opened on June 2nd. The exhibition gives a view of Africa´s colonial past as a mirror of Europe, and opens a reflection about history, identity, globalization, multiculturalism and migration. Who Knows Tomorrow connects these political, social and historical approaches with some important buildings of the German capital. The works of El Anatsui, Zarina Bhimji, António Ole, Yinka Shonibare MBE and Pascale Marthine Tayou are able to be seen until September, 26th 2010 in Berlin.

The main question of the exhibition is not about African art, it is rather an approach to Africa´s connections  with German and European history. The starting point of the exhibition is the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, considered as the beginning of European colonialization in Africa. By that time, Germany emerged as an imperial power promoted by Otto von Bismarck´s Realpolitik, which demanded an overseas policy moved by merchantilist thesis and ideas of power. Bismarck, the first German chancellor (1862-1890) to William I of the Prussian Kingdom, put Prussia in the foreground of European imperialism and Germany as a third colonial power in Africa. This new imperialist period had as outcome the formalisation of the Scramble for Africa, which resulted in the elimination of most existing forms of African self-governance and autonomy. Later on, the struggle between these European imperialist powers around Africa, amongst other issues, led to World War I, after which Germany lost all its colonial power in the African continent.

In the early stage of the construction of the German national identity, several emblematic museums and monuments were built in the capital city, Berlin. The appointed architect was Karl Friedrich Schinkel, who played a major role in the construction of buildings that would serve the purpose of this ideal. For instance, the design of the Museum Island, with its neoclassical style, linked Germany with antique Greek and Roman empires. Besides this, museums such as Altes Museum, Pergamon Museum and Neues Museum were places of knowledge about other cultures, but also represented German power either in archiving collections of antique Greek, Roman, Egyptian or Persian empires; or presenting important legacies from private collectors of art of the 19th century, who donated their works to the Alte Nationalgalerie. Thus, art was a pretext to show how powerful the new German state was, and the Prussian King was aware of the immanent connection between politics, art and culture.
In Who Knows tomorrow, individual artists interpret German history and its search for identity, mirroring Africa and its relation to Berlin of the 19th century. Interestingly, there is a sort of nostalgia about Germany´s colonial past and current African-German issues and post-colonial concerns are in some way overseen. The artworks present almost forgotten ties between Europe and Africa reflecting about social history, recalling memory and hybridization. 

Outside the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum - built as a train station in the second half of the 18th century, which later became one of the major museums of contemporary art in Berlin - we can appreciate the monumental installation of António Ole, an artist born in Luanda in 1951 and who lives there. The installation The Entire World/Transitory Geometry (2010) on the left wing of the museum shows globalized trade and local improvised housing constructions in Angola, re-interpreting massive containers as a private sphere. These precarious buildings made with found materials remind us of similar constructions we might find in urban areas in big cities in Asia or Latin America, and have become also a subject-matter in some outskirts of major European cities, for instance Paris or London. The container marks a border between the museum architecture and the massive metal structure. It represents the gap between rich and poor and shows some consequences of global trade.  

Inside the museum, on the first floor, is Zarina Bhimji´s video Waiting, 2007, about a sisal-processing factory that was introduced by Germans to the German colonies in East Africa. The material is used for ropes, carpets and cords. Born to Indian immigrants in Mbarara, Uganda, Zarina Bhimji is known for her poetic works in photography, video and interviews. A former student of Goldsmith´s College, London, where she lives and works today, she has developed work based on her observations about history and memory, especially of Africa and Europe, but also has done a series of journeys through Africa tracing Africa´s and India´s colonial past. 


The front facade of the Alte Nationalgalerie is partly covered by the site-specific installation Ozone Layer and Yam Mounds (2010) by Ghanian artist El Anatsui, born 1944 in Anyako. The piece, which hangs on the entrance columns of the building, in front of the inscription with golden letters DER DEUTSCHEN KUNST MDCCCLXXI (TO GERMAN ART MDCCCLXXI), is a colourful tapestry, made with industrial recycled or wasted materials. The building and its almost temple-like meaning is threathened by this installation and shows the importance of thinking about colonial responsibility and its consequences. El Anatsui, who lives in Nigeria, got international attention with his installation for the 52nd Venice Biennale, for which he did a complex installation composed by a netting of thousands of bottle tops.

For Who Knows Tomorrow, Yinka Shonibare MBE got the 14th century neo-gothic Friedrichswerde Church, known for its collection of busts made by German sculptor Christian Friedrich Tieck. In the sculpture installation Colonel Tarleton and Mrs. Oswald Shooting, 2007, a leisure activity of British aristocracy is hiding brutal violence and immorality. On one side, we see a headless Colonel Tarleton, who was an active supporter for slavery, on the other we see Mrs. Oswald, whose husband became rich thanks to slave plantations. Both are hunting pheasants. The installation is placed in an area surrounded by sculptures of German personalities. It seems as if these British characters are dialoguing with their German counterparts.
In Scramble for Africa, 2003, the artist represents the Berlin conference from 1884-85 portraying European leaders during a meeting at a table with the African map on top of it, discussing how they would divide the African continent. However, they are dressed in Victorian costumes with African patterns - actually, these are batik painted textiles produced in Indonesia which the British Commonwealth sent to Africa. In his work, there is a subtle criticism about mechanisms of power. With these installations, the church looses its holy meaning and becomes part of a political debate.
Yinka Shonibare MBE (London, 1962) got international recognition in 1997 when he was part of the exhibition Sensation, organized by Saatchi Gallery, which featured the so-called Young British Artists (YBA). The artist, who grew up in Nigeria, became famous showing European characters and European history as if they were conquered by African people.  

Further on, we can appreciate the installation Colonial Erection, 2010, of Pascale Marthine Tayou at the Neue Nationalgalerie. This transparent building was designed by Mies van der Rohe and it considered an icon of modern architecture. It was opened in 1968 in West Berlin as a counterpart to the Alte Nationalgalerie, which was in former GDR. 
Colonial Erection shows 54 African flags in front of the main entrance of the museum as if it would be the entrance of an international institution or convention center and gives the building a new meaning. Around the flag installation, there are some large-scale polychrome wooden sculptures of colon, figures that represent the colonizers by African people. Again, the building´s facade is challenged by the artwork. It confronts the viewer to make her/him think about the presence of African people in global political decisions, but also about the national identities represented by the flags. 
Cameroonian artist Pascale Marthine Tayou (Yaoundé, 1967) is a former law student who became a self taught artist, after fearing to become part of the corrupt legal system of his country. He began his artistic career in the nineties after spending some years in Europe, mostly in Belgium where he still lives.

Close to the Neue Nationalgalerie, the Daimler Chrysler Collection at Potsdamer Platz is also showing contemporary African art in the exhibition Ampersand, featuring at the same time works from Daimler´s art collection with works of South African artists. I believe that this exhibition is more related to the fact of the football world championship in South Africa than to the African art scene. In any case, African art is now in.

September 2010

The 6th Berlin Biennale. On walking chicken, sex in public toilets, Marxist nostalgia and political demonstrations

Installation view of the work of Vietnamese artist Ron Tran

Text: Katerina Valdivia Bruch

The Berlin Biennale is now in its sixth edition. KW Institute for Contemporary Art  organizes this major art event since its first edition in 1998. Back in the early nineties, this renowned art institution was a former margarine factory occupied by medical student Klaus Biesenbach and a group of art enthusiasts. Hans Ulrich Obrist, Nancy Spector and Biesenbach himself curated the first biennale and played a pivotal role, in conjunction with other galleries in the area, to put the district of Mitte in the forefront as a reference place for contemporary art.

This time, the biennale is curated by Viennese curator Kathrin Rhomberg, former director of the Cologne Kunstverein (2002-2007), Artistic Director of Projekt Migration, initiated by the Federal Cultural Foundation (2002-2006), and co-curator of Manifesta 3 – European Biennale for Contemporary Art (2000). What is waiting out there is the title of this year’s biennale with a focus on reality. The exhibition is spread over six venues including a five story building, the Old National Gallery, an artist’s apartment and a Turkish café. 

For the first time, the exhibition moved to Kreuzberg, a district known for its subculture that evolved during West Germany years, when it was surrounded by the wall (Kreuzberg 36 is the name given to this part of the district according to the old postal code of former West Berlin, which differentiates it from Kreuzberg 61 with a middle class population). With a large Turkish community, it attracts migrants, as well as artists and anarchists, commonly known as Autonomen. 

Oranien Street is witness to the annual 1st of May demonstrations, music festivals and other parades. The main exhibition venue is at Oranienplatz 17, a former shopping center which stood empty for a decade. By choosing Kreuzberg as a location, the biennale approaches to Berlin’s 'reality' and its multicultural diversity. On the other hand, it brings reality right in our face: protests against the biennale were visible with posters pasted on the biennale’s venue entrances. The posters included e-mail addresses and mobile phone numbers of KW employees and photos of  biennale’s curator and of KW director, calling them gentrifiers. Reality knocks the door of the exhibition! Further on, a group of young artists took advantage of this art event and did their own Berlin Kreuzberg Biennale with the funny title Ayran and Yoga, a wordplay referring to the large number of yoga centers in the district and a typical Turkish beverage called ayran. This parallel biennale will be shown in Kreuzberg until July 31st. 

In fact, we should think about the concept of reality. To start to explore the topic, we may take the metaphor presented by the video performance Resistance by Russian artist Andrey Kuzkin, right at the entrance of the main building. The artist seems to be passionately cleaning or deleting the reality presented on a large pile of magazines. But, what is reality? Is reality in the image, or it is in our experience of the image? Does reality exist without images? With an awareness of the flood of images we get in our daily life, this piece might be a clue on how reality functions, how images work and how they influence us on a daily basis. 

At Oranienplatz 17, the exhibition addresses contemporary socio-political debates, such as issues on migration, political demonstrations, youth culture and remembrances of Marxist ideology. For instance, UK artist Phil Collins - presented at the Jakarta Biennale in 2009 - gives a glimpse of Marxist education in former GDR. In his video Marxism today (prologue), the artist interviews former GDR teachers and professors who were appointed by the government to teach Marxist-Leninist ideology in schools. Old footage alternates with the interviews and offers a nostalgic view of Germany´s recent past. It also makes us think about what has happened to Marxist ideology in Germany after its re-unification in 1990 and in Europe after the fall of the Berlin wall.

More reminiscences on socialism are present in the installation Klub Europa by Austrian artist Hans Schabus, who placed a mammoth with no legs and a stegosaurus without head - leftovers of the abandoned Spreewald Park, a famous amusement park in former East Berlin. Perhaps the dismembered animals are suggesting a dismantled and almost forgotten ideology?

Lots of documentary video works show reality as seen in daily news: public demonstrations in France, Les Manifs by Bernard Bazile; in analogy to the demonstrations witnessed by Mexican artist Minerva Cuevas in her video Dissidence v.2.0.; confrontations with the military at the Israel-Palestine border in Details 2 & 3 by Avi Mograbi; and a voyeuristic eye with youngsters having sex in public toilets, Beyond Guilt #1, #2 and #3, three videos by Israeli artists Ruti Sela and Amir Maayan. In a more global context, Mark Boulos´ two channel video installation All That Is Solid Melts into Air presents inequalities among countries, portraying a Nigerian guerrilla group fighting against American colonization of oil resources, while the other video depicts a typical U.S. American stock exchange dealing with Nigerian petroleum.

A lot more attention is given to former socialist Europe: at KW´s main hall, Bosnian artist Petrit Halilaj reconstructed his parent’s house, which was destroyed during  Balkan war. The wooden structure entitled The places I'm looking for, my dear, are utopian places, they are boring and I don't know how to make them real embodies the space as a sort of farm, chickens included.

Coming closer to today’s European reality: a challenging second and third generation of migrants, social gaps which lead to precarious living and working conditions, and urban ghettos as a result of the crisis of capitalism. Examples of the latter are a series of documentary photographs on migration in Europe, such as High Road Nr. 8 of Russian artist Olga Chernyshewa, with Russian migrants; or the series of photographs Périphéries from Algerian Mohamed Bourouissa, portraying French peripheral urban areas with a large North and Central African population.

Despite its variety of artistic positions, the curatorial selection (with a few exceptions) does not include many artists from Africa, Asia or Latin America. Its concept of reality, therefore, is restricted.

The biennale is classical, in the sense that it goes back chronologically to the origin of realism in history of art. In fact, it highlights the work of 19th century German realist painter Adolph Menzel (1815-1905). American art critic and art historian Michael Fried was invited to curate the show Menzel´s Extreme Realism in the Old National Gallery at the Museum Island. Menzel´s paintings and drawings depict his personal view of reality: an undone bed, dead soldiers, a street in flames, some moments of the artist’s life and his connection to Berlin’s reality at that time.

But, does Adolph Menzel´s work help us to understand today’s reality? In a talk given by Fried, Rhomberg, artist Anri Sala, and historian and writer Gustav Seibt, a member of the audience asked about the need to show a 19th century artist in a 21st century art exhibition. The panel apparently could not understand the question, time was over and the next match of the world cup in South Africa was about to start. I left the Anatolian Alevi cultural center with two questions in my mind: why Menzel had to be part of a contemporary art exhibition; and why did they choose this location for the conference, a place totally disconnected from the arts scene, but connected to Kreuzberg´s reality. 
At least, the parallel program of the biennale offered for the third time the young curator’s workshop Real Players, sponsored by Allianz Foundation, Goethe Institute and BMW, and organized a theater program La Monnaie Vivante (The Living Currency), curated by Pierre Bal-Blanc. 

In addition, a satellite program organized by the University of the Arts links the audience with the exhibition through an art tour for blind people and how perception guides us through reality, a feedback dinner with the neighbors about their impressions of the biennale, a talk with exhibition guards and a children’s program about their own daily reality.     

In general, this biennale can be understood rather as a documentary than as an art exhibition. Political and social reality is depicted, almost without make-up, and an aesthetic-creative approach stays in the background. As an attempt, the biennale makes us reflect on the complexities of the concept of reality itself. It shows restrained artistic positions with a risky selection of unknown artists, which would be exciting if their works were challenging the audience, but this is not the case. 

After spending time watching 'real life' in dark rooms filled with videos, what you really want is to get some fresh air, sit on a bench at Oranienplatz and enjoy the nice weather. However, the bench you are sitting on is part of the work of Vietnamese artist Ron Tran. With his installation, the artist connects with the neighborhood by placing two rows of benches facing each other. People get together and may have a close talk, a chat that could be related to Metamorphosis Chat by Turkish artist Ferhat Özgür, in which two old ladies are laughing while they are changing their clothes. In a way, it seems as if they are laughing at us for trying to understand what this show is all about.

© Photo: Katerina Valdivia Bruch, 2010 

Published in: C-Arts Magazine, September-October 2010

Re-Imagining Asia: Zwischenräume der Imagination

Was bedeutet zeitgenössische asiatische Kunst? Kann asiatische Kunst zeitgenössisch und nicht durch Regionalismus gekennzeichnet sein? Diese und andere Fragen haben sich die Kuratoren Wung Hu und Shaheen Merali während der Entwicklung des Konzeptes für Re-imagining Asia gestellt. Die ausgewählten Arbeiten beruhen nicht auf einem statischen politischen und geografischen Kontext oder auf einer kulturellen Identität, sondern vielmehr auf mobilen künstlerischen Gesichtspunkten, unter denen Asien oder „das Asiatische“ als imaginärer Ort, als Ort des Kollektiven und Treffpunkt von unterschiedlichen kulturellen und ästhetischen Traditionen auftritt. Diese Traditionen werden von den Künstlern individuell betrachtet und wieder neu entdeckt. Entscheidend für die Auswahl der 23 Künstler waren nicht ihr Geburtsort oder die ethnische Herkunft, sondern ihre Auseinandersetzung mit Asien. Das Spektrum reicht von indischen Künstlern wie Subodh Gupta über den Mexikaner Gabriel Orozco bis zu dem Chinesen Shen Shaomin und dem deutschen Fotografen Andreas Gursky. Anzutreffen sind Installationen, Fotografien und Objekte.

Die Darstellung Asiens geht über eine kulturelle Identität hinaus, vielmehr werden lokale und globale Sichtweisen vermischt, die sich als kreatives Netzwerk präsentieren. Ein gutes Beispiel dafür ist die Arbeit Passport von Rirkrit Tiravanija. Geboren in Argentinien als Sohn thailändischer Eltern, zog er erst nach Thailand, später nach Äthiopien und Malaysia, um dann in Ottawa (Kanada) die Highschool zu besuchen. Heute lebt der Künstler in New York. Sein Werk verarbeitet zugleich Migration, Mobilität und die multikulturellen Elemente der eigenen Identität.

Für die Entstehung der Video-Performance Needle Woman (1999–2001 und 2005) hat die koreanische Künstlerin Kimsooja eine Reise in verschiedene Städte (u. a. Tokio, New York, London, Mexiko-Stadt, Kairo, Neu-Delhi, Shangai, Lagos, Jerusalem, Havanna, Rio de Janeiro) unternommen. Auf den dort aufgenommenen Videos steht ihr Körper isoliert in einer Masse von Menschen, sichtbar sind nur ihr Rücken und ihr Kopf. Sie wirft damit die Frage auf, was die Darstellung eines isolierten Körpers bedeuten kann. Kimsoojas Arbeiten beinhalten eine intensive Auseinandersetzung mit Themen wie Migration, Integration und Armut.

Die ausgestellten Arbeiten sind jenseits von kulturellen und geografischen Barrieren gedacht und bieten einen Grund, sowohl über Asien und als auch über das „Asien in uns selbst“ nachzudenken.

Re-imagining Asia umfasst vier Themen: Liebe und Fantasie, Architektur und Mobilität, Freud und Leid und Unbehagen im System. Zudem wird ein umfangreiches Programm präsentiert, welches von Lesungen und Konferenzen über Workshops bis hin zu Performances reicht. Diese Performances werden während der Filmreihe von fünf in Berlin lebenden Künstlern präsentiert. Dazu kommt auch das Dance-Video-Music-Project „The Abduction of Sita“ von Joachim Schloemer und ein von Ilija Trojanow kuratiertes Literaturprogramm.

Erschienen in: Kunst Magazin Berlin, März 2008

Text: Katerina Valdivia Bruch

Photo: Needle Woman © Kim Sooja

Copyright Photos: © the artists. 

See complete information about the photo credits at the Kunst Magazin Berlin web site.

http://www.kunstmagazinberlin.de/0803/index.shtml

A Reflection on the Arts – New York in Berlin

After a year-long rebuilding programme, the House of World Cultures (HKW) will re-open its doors on August 23rd with an extensive New York Programme, scheduled to take place over the following three months. In conversation with Shaheen Merali – Head of the Department of Exhibition, Film and New Media and curator of the New York exhibition at HKW – we talked about Arts, New York and the new discourse direction of the HKW.

The HKW announced a New York programme for the reopening of its space. How has the focus of HKW changed during this period?

For once in a life of an institution we had a break of one year. Now that, of course, influences the amount of research you can undertake having that whole year, because usually you are researching and programming in parallel. The second consideration is that it also allows us to reflect upon our work without having to produce and manage a concurrent programme. The areas which we are trying to arrange within the House are very important, as we are striving to make it truly ours, in the sense that it is the Berliners’ House, your House, my House, our House. In that sense it is about not so much teaching Berliners and Germans about internationalism or about multi-culturality or about artists from outside of Europe, but allowing them to examine their own levels of thinking and investigation. It is more about putting exhibitions in a programme, which says that this is about how does art reflect on our world and what is your position within that world and how does this art allow you to think it through.

It opens doors for reflection.

Not only for reflection, but also it allows for a much more reflective position for the audience in Berlin. We hope to be able to do that by not being over determined, not to say “this is what you should look at”, “this is what you should understand”. Partly by allowing people to deepen their knowledge and understanding by a more welcoming approach to curation and art history - An institution such as HKW can and has played a major role in making the art and artists a part of reality rather then an exclusive terrain for collectors and the middle class. We have introduced design and interpretation within exhibition making that allows a more democratic approach to seeing. Recently, we have further fortified this with the new bookshop that is opening up. We are going to have areas which are even more dedicated as resource spaces, so people can look at the background information on the artists, on some of the themes and on some of the artists who may be not be presented, because we evidently cannot present everybody. The film and the exhibition programme is more integrated, so that film and exhibition work together to talk in a more integrated manner, maybe, to ascertain the position of film within the visual arts or the position of visual arts within film culture.

About the New York exhibition: Is it a dialogue between New York and Berlin or is it rather a portrait of New York?

The exhibition opens in Berlin at the HKW and then it moves to the Queens Museum in New York in December 2007. So, there is a curatorial position taken about a city, New York in this instance. How do you curate and have an understanding of New Yorkers in the form of artists and film makers? Because, aesthetically they document issues, positions which they occupy, as well as possible areas of interest which may be emerging or have emerged and which have influenced a much wider culture. And New York is, in a sense, the centre of many convergences. Amongst them it is the centre of arts, of visual arts, because it has the largest amount of galleries, I think in the world. The relationship to art and visual arts is also very much an economic one; the collecting is very economically based. And, of course, advertising has been generated in New York where there is also a fashion industry, amongst other things. So, in many ways, all of these things are important for the visual arts around the world to look at, to see how that has been generated, what are the mistakes within it, what are the profound inventions within it and how other cities can learn from it. Of course, some of the galleries from New York have opened galleries in different cities and galleries from different cities will also open galleries in New York to take advantage of the market. What we are trying to do, to go back to your question, is: What is this dialogue? The dialogue happens when the exhibition travels to two cities. It is very specifically about one city, which is New York, but is curated by somebody who lives and works in Berlin. It is an outsider’s view of New York, which is going back to New York and is a view which is also an outsider’s view of New York for Berlin, because I don’t come from Berlin. The focus for me within the exhibition has been to look at works of art which have been important or artists, who have been important for many years, who are living and working in New York, who may not necessarily come from New York, but have made New York their home.

It has a large scope, because you start from Marcel Duchamp and work up until now.

Once, identity was about oneself, but now it becomes more about one city, it is no longer a monolithical construct. This idea of something changing is also an aspect of New York, because New York also changes through the influences of the people who live within it. New York is also like a port, like a place where people land and from there go to other places in America. After the Second World War, many artists from Europe, like Duchamp, landed in New York and made New York their second home. It is something that is incredibly vibrant and that vibrancy is something that has been happening to Berlin or is happening with Berlin. The aesthetic development just happened in New York through, let’s say Duchamp, or the German born artists, Hans Haacke or Josephine Meckseper going to New York and living there, or also Tavares Strachan, who comes from the Bahamas and lives in New York. We talk about globalisation, we talk about migration. Aesthetics also moves with people. New York provides valuable place, an example of a space for artists to make work and for art to develop, and part of the exhibition is about that. So, for the House it is also the first time, for many years, in which we are looking at the conceptual development from a space, not necessarily just talking about that space. So, we are not talking about New York, but rather about what New York is for the arts.

Published in: Kunst Magazin Berlin, Juli 2007

Text and Interview: Katerina Valdivia Bruch

Photo: © John Kessler 

http://www.kunstmagazinberlin.de/0707/index.shtml

Kippenbergers Kinder?

Die Produzentengalerie erscheint in den Medien als ein Phänomen der neuen hippen Berliner Mitte, in der Sammler auf Jagd nach der Kunst von morgen gehen. In den 1960ern waren Produzentengalerien revolutionäre Formen der Kunstvermittlung.

Die Gründung einer Produzentengalerie beruht entweder auf politisch-ideologischen oder auf rein praktischen bzw. ökonomischen Beweggründen. Die Künstler warten nicht mehr auf die „Entdeckung“ durch einen Galeristen, sondern stellen einen Galeristen ein. Andere Künstler gründen eine Produzentengalerie als Projektraum, um Ihre Interessen uneingeschränkt gestalten können.

Ein Meister der Selbstvermarktung war Martin Kippenberger. Seine Aktionen im SO 36, wo er Konzerte und Ausstellungen veranstaltete, die Punkband „Die Grugas“ gründete waren Anschläge gegen eine elitäre Kunstbetrachtung und damit eine konsequente Demontage des traditionellen Kunstbegriffs. In der 1971 von Dieter Hacker gegründeten „7. Produzentengalerie“, galt die Vermittlung der eigenen Arbeit als ein Teil der Arbeit selbst.

Bereits 1964 eröffnete die Galerie Großgörschen 35. Die Gründer waren Berliner Realisten, die sich mit den derzeitigen politischen Ereignissen auseinandergesetzt haben und von den Dresdner und Berliner Veristen der 1920er Jahre beeinflusst waren. Ulrich Baehr, Werner Berges, Hans Jürgen Diehl, Wolfgang Petrick, Peter Sorge und Lambert Maria Wintersberger gehörten zu dieser Gruppe. Diese Selbsthilfe Galerie hat Künstlern einen Einstieg in den Kunstmarkt verschafft. Was heutzutage in Berlin passiert ist also gar nichts neues, sondern eine Folge dieses Konzeptes.

Die Galerien Invaliden1 und Montanaberlin liegen in der Tradition der ursprünglichen Produzentengalerien. Bei Invaliden1 läuft die Organisation nach demokratischen Ansätzen. Sie treffen sich und entscheiden innerhalb der Gruppe wer was zeigen wird oder welcher Künstler eingeladen werden sollen. Es ist mehr eine Gruppe von Freunden, die internationale Kunst präsentieren wollen.

Bei Montanaberlin handelt es sich um eine sehr stark konzeptuell geprägte Produzentengalerie. Die fünf Gründungsmitglieder der Galerie werden schon von anderen Galerien vetreten. Sie nutzen den Projektraum für ihre eigenen Ideen. Sie bestimmen sich nicht als eine Gruppe, sondern arbeiten relativ selbständig, obwohl sie auch gerne einige Ausstellungen zusammen gestalten. Esther Horn, Mitbegründerin der Galerie, beschreibt Montanaberlin als den Ort wo sie Aspekte der Kunst und interessante Zusammenhänge von künstlerischen Positionen zeigen und dabei ihren eigenen Kunstbegriff erweitern. Die Galerie hat als Prinzip das Zeigen und sie wollen nicht kommerziell arbeiten.

Künstler, die einen kommerziellen Erfolg anstreben, stellen einen Galeristen ein, der die Presse- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit übernimmt, die Künstler repräsentiert und der die Aufgabe hat diese innerhalb von zwei Jahren im Markt zu positionieren, was oftmals heisst von einer anderen Galerie vertreten zu werden.

Herzlichen Dank an Julia Schneider für die zu Verfügungsstellung ihrer Magisterarbeit im Fach Kunstgeschichte an der Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (bei Prof. Dr. Michael Diers), vorgelegt im März 2007.

Erschienen in: Kunst Magazin Berlin, Mai 2007

Text: Katerina Valdivia Bruch

http://www.kunstmagazinberlin.de/0705/index.shtml