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Berlin Art Week

July 9th 2019

By e-flux

Taking place September 11—15, 2019 Berlin Art Week invites an international audience to a varied programme of fairs, exhibitions, urban interventions, award ceremonies, and special events to new and familiar places, making Berlin an international meeting point for contemporary art. Aside from the fairs, this year’s highlights are solo shows by Bettina Pousttchi, Bjørn Melhus, the project Statista, and the new and immersive work by Metahaven. Now, as summer begins, Berlin Art Week offers a preview of the programme taking place in early fall.

The eighth edition of Berlin Art Week again shines a light on contemporary art events in the German capital. Two fairs, seventeen museums and exhibition venues, 15 private collections, 20 selected project spaces, and numerous galleries present an extensive programme. "Each year, Berlin Art Week succeeds in bringing together the various participants of the Berlin art scene," says Moritz van Dülmen, director of state-owned Kulturprojekte Berlin GmbH, which is responsible for coordinating the interaction of all partners. "The commitment and efforts of the different partners, a diverse programme, and the keen interest of visitors stress the importance of Berlin as an international hub for art and culture; a place where current topics in contemporary art are being discussed."

Partners of this year’s Berlin Art Week are art berlin, Positions Berlin Art Fair, Akademie der Künste, Berliner Festspiele/Immersion, Berlinische Galerie, C/O Berlin, daadgalerie,Gropius Bau, Haus am Lützowplatz, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Kindl—Center for Contemporary Art, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, me Collectors Room,Nationalgalerie—Staatliche Museen zu Berlin with Hamburger Bahnhof—Museum für Gegenwart—Berlin and Museum Berggruen, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.), neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (nGbK), Schering Stiftung, and Schinkel Pavillon, as well as the project Statista, a cooperation between ZK/U­—Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistikand KW Institute for Contemporary Art. Several private collections and project spaces participate again with their programmes at Berlin Art Week.

From 12—15 SEP, the two annual art fairs taking place during Berlin Art Week are once again on centre stage. In its third year of the cooperation with Art Cologne, art berlin will show young and internationally established galleries in hangars 5 and 6 of the former Tempelhof airport. The sixth edition of Positions Berlin Art Fair presents selected galleries exhibiting contemporary and modern art in hangar 4.

For the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, several exhibitions deal with the developments of the past three decades. Based on its location adjacent to the former Wall, Gropius Bau shows international artistic perspectives on manmade barriers, separations, and borders in the exhibition Walking Through Walls. C/O Berlin spotlights unique pictures of Berlin’s club culture over the past thirty years with renowned works of photography, video, and film in the exhibition No Photos on the Dance Floor! In the evenings, visitors can experience what they have just seen with well-known DJs as well as sound and visual artists. The exhibition Politik des Raums im Neuen Berlin at n.b.k. traces the profound urban changes and architectural transformations of Berlin between 1989 and 2019. The centrally located project Statista at Haus der Statistik at Alexanderplatz, a cooperation of ZK/U—Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, defines with several artists collectives and ten projects how to develop an urban society based on the commons.

Further highlights are exhibitions by Bettina Pousttchi at Berlinische Galerie, Bjørn Melhusat Kindl—Center for Contemporary Art, and Christopher Kulendran Thomas in collaboration with Annika Kuhlmann at Schinkel Pavillon. The group exhibition Magic Media—Media Magic. Video art since the 1970s from the archive Wulf Herzogenrath is on view at Akademie der Künste; and a juxtaposition of Pablo Picasso x Thomas Scheibitz at Museum Berggruen as well as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Gerhard Richter and Jonas Burgertat me Collectors Room. Solo shows featuring Anna Virnich at Schering Stiftung, Iman Issa at daadgalerie, Tobias Dostal at Haus am Lützowplatz, and Christina Ramberg in dialogue with other artistic positions at KW Institute for Contemporary Art complement the broad programme of this year’s Berlin Art Week. Additionally, Haus der Kulturen der Welt launches the discursive event programme Reading Bodies! Cruising Corpoliteracy in Art, Education and Everyday Life.

Berliner Festspiele will enter into public space with its programme series Immersion, which again takes place at Mariannenplatz in Kreuzberg with the project The New Infinity—New Art for Planetariums with artist collective Metahaven. nGbK will transform Berlin subway stations into an urban exhibition space with Art in the Underground—Up in Arms.

In venues ranging from bunkers to private homes, 15 private collections provide special opening hours during which visitors can view their spaces and works. Participants this year are Collection Regard, EAM Collection, Fluentum, haubrok foundation, Julia Stoschek Collection Berlin, Kienzle Art Foundation, Kunstsaele Berlin, Miettinen Collection | Salon Dahlmann, Museum Frieder Burda | Salon Berlin, Sammlung Arthur de Ganay,Sammlung Boros, Sammlung Ivo Wessel, SØR Rusche Sammlung, The Feuerle Collection, and Wurlitzer Pied à Terre Collection.

Furthermore, Berlin Art Week presents the 20 project spaces that won the 2019 prize for artist initiatives and project spaces from the Senate Department for Culture and Europe. These include Apartment Project, Centrum, Datscha Radio, District * Schule ohne Zentrum, EVBG, gr_und, Horse & Pony, Kotti-Shop, Kreuzberg Pavillon, meantime projects, mp43-projektraum für das periphere, No Theater, panke.gallery,Raumerweiterungshalle, Schneeeule, Scriptings, singuhr—projekte, Spor Klübü, The Institute for Endotic Research (TIER), and Tropez.

And for the tenth time, the Preis der Nationalgalerie highlights and promotes young and important positions of contemporary art. Nominees for this edition of the prize are Pauline Curnier Jardin, Simon Fujiwara, Flaka Haliti, and Katja Novitskova. The prize will be awarded during Berlin Art Week, as well as the VBKI-Preis Berliner Galerien, and the Berlin Art Prize.

 Berlin Art Week is made possible by the support of the Senate Department for Culture and Europe as well as the Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Public Enterprises, and realized with the support of GASAG AG. Kulturprojekte Berlin is responsible for coordination and communication.